The company said that it has until now competed primarily in the extract, transform and load (ETL) space with the likes of Ascential Software and Informatica, but will be broadening its horizons when it launches Sunopsis Integration Suite some time in the next 30 days.
However in an interview with ComputerWire, Sunopsis’ Yves de Montcheuil, director of product marketing, conceded that the company is still not targeting all aspects of integration.
He said that the company is, Still focused on the data movement side [of integration]. We are not moving into business process management [BPM] or business process re-engineering type functionality. De Montcheuil said that Sunopsis’ Integration Suite could integrate with third party BPM products.
What the Sunopsis Integration Suite is capable of, however, is the ability to address both batch and real-time, as well as synchronous and asynchronous integration needs, according to De Montcheuil. He said that unlike rival products that take a process-centric view of integration, the Sunopsis Integration Suite is based on a data-driven integration approach that he claimed improves the flexibility of data in the enterprise without requiring a redesign of business processes.
The Sunopsis Integration Suite consists of four products that can be acquired separately or together. Sunopsis ETL is used for batch data movement, mainly for loading data warehouses, as well as for replicating or migrating databases. Sunopsis ActiveData is a data-driven application integration environment that enables users to replicate bi-directionally all data from production applications into a centralized database.
This database, called the Active Data Hub, becomes a persistent repository for enterprise data, and propagates updates to the production applications. Such an architecture does mean that customers have two full copies of their data – the Active Data Hub stores the actual data rather than just Metadata – but as De Montcheuil put it, storage is cheap.
He said the Active Data Hub can be used for loading a data warehouse, or acting as a repository for business activity monitoring (BAM) or other new applications. Data from the Active Data Hub can be accessed in SQL, or through web services using Sunopsis DataServices.
Sunopsis DataBus is an inter-application bus that provides event oriented integration, the company said. The Data Bus exchanges data between applications by transforming messages and then routing them based on their content. A message-oriented middleware (MOM) is included to handle the data transport. DataBus also offers an asynchronous application integration mode for applications located on remote sites or for which connectivity can be inconsistent.
Finally there is Sunopsis DataServices, said to expose enterprise data as web services. The development, production and administration environments are shared across the suite of products and can be managed using a redesigned user interface.
The suite also comes with data quality and metadata tools, as well as Open Connectors that can provide connectivity to a range of environments including packaged applications such as SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Siebel, as well as connectivity to data warehouse databases and tools such as Teradata, Netezza, Hyperion, Sybase and Business Objects. Web Services, LDAP or JMS connectors are also available. A Changed Data Capture (CDC) option for these Open Connectors enables the detection of data that has changed and the propagation of only these changes to target systems, improving the efficiency of data integration processes, according to the company.
Privately held Sunopsis claims it has been profitable for four consecutive years and to have seen 70% sales growth in its latest quarter.
