Informix Corp yesterday announced interoperability between its MetaCube relational online analytic processing (ROLAP) tool and the database system it acquired with its December purchase of Red Brick Systems. The provision of links between the two will enable Informix to offer customers a single interface with which to dynamically analyze two distinct database types.
Informix says it will market the Informix Red Brick Warehouse (IRBW) as its data mart product, while it will recommend its own Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) product. Data warehouse product manager, Ray Welsh, explained that data marts store single types of data such as financial, marketing, or human resources. On the other hand, EDWs, explains Welsh, store multiple data types on a single database. Informix sees IDS as the best option for multiple data environments, and is recommending Red Brick Data Warehouse for single data type data marts.
Extending interoperability of its MetaCube database management tool, which is used to conduct relational data analysis searches, to the warehouse brings the powerful search capabilities of MetaCube to users, says Welsh. The key requirement is flexibility, claims Welsh, hence interoperability of MetaCube with both database gives users the option of pointing a single tool at both database types.
Informix said it plans to introduce a product over the next 12 to 18 months which will manage both data marts and enterprise data warehouses in parallel. Welsh calls the product a smart data federation. But he stresses that the component is in very early development phases.
