Sybase Inc and Informix Software Corp are in disagreement over who won a NASA deal to develop a $1,000m EOSDIS Earth Observing System Data & Information System project to monitor the impact of human behavior on the environment. The row has broken out because both suppliers have thrown their next-generation object-relational technology at the project. Sybase won the original phase of the deal last November, setting in motion the design and prototyping of a three Terabyte relational database. But at the end of last month Informix claimed its object-relational database acquisition Illustra Inc had been chosen for phase two of the project, developing EOSDIS for imaging and spatial data and indexing. Informix claims Sybase has been ousted for not delivering on the original deal. Sybase says phase two is still up for grabs. Meantime, IBM Corp’s Tivoli Systems Inc is to provide core systems management technology to the project. Its Tivoli TME 10 systems management environment will integrate and manage a network supporting the collection and analysis of data obtained from six satellites, space shuttle missions and hundreds of land- and sea-based monitoring systems.
