Data warehousing and decision support company Informatica Corp recently unveiled a second-generation MX2 metadata exchange architecture, a major upgrade to the architecture it first released in February 1997. MX2 includes a new framework which the company claims can seamlessly integrate decision support software and metadata information from third-party applications and repositories. The idea is that customers can plug multi-vendor OLAP, query and reporting and decision support tools into MX2 and have them work and share metadata with the infrastructure software Informatica sells for deploying decision support and business intelligence services. The MX2 API works with the Informatica repository and has been licensed to a plethora of partners. Microsoft, IBM and Oracle repositories will each be able to exchange data with Informatica-based decision services using MX2. Informatica’s architecture uses the unified modeling language (UML) for information modeling, COM for Microsoft Repository object interoperability and includes new multidimensional metadata capabilities to integrate OLAP applications. MX2 is scheduled to hit the streets in the fourth quarter along with PowerCenter 1.5 and PowerMart 4.5, upgrades to Informatica’s business intelligence and analytic applications deployment programs. Despite all of the hype surrounding Oracle’s recent repository announcements, the company notes its actual introduction has been put back and wonders whether the work is actually going to come down as planned.
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