Red Brick Systems Inc, supplier of relational database management systems for client-server data warehousing, has expanded its data warehousing decision support system with the addition of a Microsoft Corp Open Data Base Connectivity driver, a parallel loading facility for multiprocessors running the Red Brick data warehouse and a tool that automatically loads data in a way that provides users with the ability to automatically aggregate data according to their needs. The Los Gatos, California-based company says that it has also added new query performance enhancements to version 2.1 of the product. The parallel table management utility for companies with symmetric multiprocessing systems builds index and checks referential integrity as the data is being loaded, speeding the process up. The auto aggregate load option enables data to be aggregated in various ways, including, sums, subtractions, increments, maxima and minima (plus checks to prevent duplication) so that users can get a range of information summaries. The Open Data Base Connectivity driver enables personal computer-based Open Data Base Connectivity-compliant tools to access Red Brick, including a slew of front-ends such as Microsoft Access, Visual Basic, Powersoft, Gupta Corp SQLbase and Powerhouse. The Red Brick system already includes Sybase Inc’s Open Client protocol, which means it can connect to Prism, Clear Access, Metaphor, Pilot and Trinzic tools. Red Brick version 2.1 enhancements include a parallel-index builder for creating multiple user-defined indexes, new ANSI 92 Date and Time data types, better query optimisation and cache management. Prices range from $20,000 up to $320,000. Meanwhile, Red Brick says it has also added NCR Corp to the roster of customers for its decision support system, which include IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and Sequent Computer Systems Corp. Red Brick, which recently won $6.4m in its second round financing, expects to double the size of its sales team pretty soon and is opening a new sales office in Chicago, Illinois. The company claims its customer base is spreading beyond the traditional packaged goods market to transport, telecommunications and banks. Red Brick’s vice-president of marketing, A J Brown, a recent arrival from Informix Software Inc, says he’s working on getting Red Brick’s cycle of product releases down to between six and nine months. Brown says Red Brick doesn’t need to support IBM’s Distributed Relational Database Architecture database access specifications yet as the data it handles isn’t live. Information Builders Inc’s EDA/SQL is, Brown concedes, important but he asserts that the company has no current development under way to support it, and it has no plans whatsoever to support Borland International Inc’s IDAPI middleware or Apple Computer Inc’s Data Access Language.
