Another day, another compliance software deliverable. Enterprise and
mobile software provider Sybase today
released version 15.2 of its Replication Server.
The upgrade is a response to market needs, Bill Zhang, product manager for Replication Server at Sybase (NYSE:SY) told InternetNews.com. Zhang said that data and transaction volumes continue to double every two years for critical applications, and businesses are adding new applications to further accelerate the trend.
As the load gets heavier, the legal requirements are becoming more
stringent, he added.
Zhang noted that the proliferation of applications grows with mergers and
acquisitions, which have been particularly common in the financial sector
recently.
In response to all of these trends, the new software supports not only
Sybase but also other databases, including Oracle, Microsoft SQL, and IBM’s
UDB. With Replication Server, data from different databases can be stored on
one Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database.
The news comes as vendors of technologies as diverse as unified communications and virtualization are talking about the need to support multiple vendors — but not always managing to
deliver what customers want.
Features of Replication Server 15.2 include data distribution and
migration, real-time reporting, and disaster recovery. More sophisticated
uses of Replication Server include application synchronization to track and
remedy discrepancies, consolidated reporting, and the distribution of data
worldwide in global businesses, Zhang said.
The combination of Replication Server and ASE potentially gives Sybase a
bigger role in the enterprise, if all enterprise databases are backed up by
one Sybase product. Zhang said that while the company does anticipate
playing a larger role in businesses that adopt Replication Server, the
company is also addressing a real need as most customers have heterogeneous
environments and therefore require a backup server that can talk to all
of their databases.
For example, he said, a large manufacturing company might need to
consolidate information from a CRM application supported by Microsoft SQL,
an accounting application running on Oracle, and an ERP application running
on IBM DB2. With Replication Server, the company could take all of that data
in and feed it to an order entry application running on Sybase ASE.
He said that the company has 18 years of experience in the replication
market and that the sophistication and maturity of Sybase’s products
distinguish them from the competition.
Zhang did mention one competitor to Replication Server version 15.2: Replication Server version 12.6. He said that the company has demonstrated a 600 percent performance improvement when comparing the latest version to version 12.6.
The company issues one or two software releases each year. Replication
Server 15.1 was released in June of 2008, Zhang said. He added that upgrades
are free to those with support contracts.
