Oracle Corp is set to release a new version of its Express Server 6 set of tools and applications for analytical processing and data warehousing on Monday. First introduced in 1996 after Oracle’s acquisition of Information Resources Inc back in 1995 (CI No 2,864), the Express range includes Financial Analyzer and Sales Analyzer applications, and is typically sold by Oracle in conjunction with large data warehouses.
Version 6.3, available immediately and costing the same as the previous version, adds additional functions, mostly in the statistical area, meaning that customers can add analytics to their applications more easily. Oracle is also adding a new forecasting engine, the result of a licensing deal with Stoneham, Massachusetts-based Roadmap Technologies Inc, signed at the end of September. Roadmap’s Geneva Forecasting Engine automates statistical analysis, predicative model building and model interp retation processes.
Oracle says it will reveal the results of OLAP Council APB-1 benchmarks comparing the performance of Express with competitive products such as Hyperion Solutions Corp’s Essbase. It will issue the first NT performance measurements, and Sun Solaris figures that show Express running using half the memory of Essbase with more users (300 concurrent rather than 200) and more simultaneous queries (750,000 v 250,000). Oracle has also carried out the first APB-1 benchmark of an eight processor system fr om Sun, measuring 1,200 users and 3m queries.
For the future, Oracle plans new applications beyond Financial and Sales, and will continue to infiltrate the rest of Oracle – Express is equally applicable to the database, applications and tools mainstream areas of Oracle’s business. The new version already features tighter integration to Oracle Enterprise Manager.
