QueryObject to Web-Enable Analytical Data

QueryObject Systems Corporation announced, at the Brio Technology World Wide User Conference in Monterey, CA, that it is starting an open beta testing program for a new version of the QueryObject System. QueryObject v4.0 permits the on-demand streaming of analytical data over the Internet to Business Intelligence (BI) client tools. The beta program - initially for users of BrioQuery, but which will be extended to other BI tools as well - allows users to access QueryObject Data Marts on a protected Web site, pull extracts of that data over the Internet, cache it and analyze it locally using the clientside tools that they currently own. In the past, these tools had been excluded from Internet-based analysis because they were designed to work only with local or client-server data sources.

"This is a breakthrough patent-pending technology," said QueryObject CEO Robert Thompson. "The dominant architecture for Internet Business Intelligence assumes that the data and the analysis process are server-based, and only the display context is local to the user. QueryObject v4.0, in effect, Internetenables the data so that it can be streamed via the Internet to local tools for local analysis. Where other vendors have taken the approach of `Webenabling BI tools', QueryObject `Web-enables the data' so that it Internetempowers a whole class of BI tools which currently lack the ability to work in an Internet environment."

Industry Reaction

IDC: "The QueryObject system provides a fresh approach to information access and delivery over the Web," said Henry Morris, VP for Data Warehousing and Knowledge Management at IDC. "Its unique data compression technology is a good match for the distributed topology of the Web, enabling fast shipping of data directly to users to be accessed locally by popular end user tools. This opens up many possibilities for new types of Web-centric analytic applications."

META Group: "Organizations are challenged with meeting performance and scalability criteria for enabling analytics in the enterprise and e-business environments through traditional centralized OLAP and RDBMS approaches," added Mark A. Smith, Program Director, Application Delivery Strategies, META Group. "QueryObject has introduced an innovative and complementary approach to distribute analytical processing through leveraging existing investments and meeting the demands and business needs of Customer Relationship and Supply Chain Management."

Aberdeen Group: "This is an important step in the company's mission to establish the QueryObject as the leading analytical database for Internet business analysis," commented Bob Moran, vice president, DSS Research, Enterprise Business Applications at the Aberdeen Group. "In earlier releases, QueryObject Systems redefined many boundaries in terms of the amount of content that can be stored in a multidimensional data structure and used effectively on the Internet. With this release, the company is extending the Internet BI universe with several innovations in Internet access, not the least of which is now allowing specialist client tools to access this lowlatency, multidimensional database."

QueryObject v4.0 Features

QueryObject Server v4.0 hosts QueryObject DataMarts on a LINUX, UNIX or NT WEB server. When users with permission access the site, they can chose one or more QueryObjects and establish an Internet connection. A small, specialized ODBC driver is installed on the client machine. When the client tool - in this case BrioQuery - is activated, it connects to this ODBC data source in the normal way, and can view the metadata in normal system tables. To the tool, it appears as if the data source is local to that machine, not across the Internet.

Users formulate their queries as usual, and the query requests are passed via the driver to the QueryObject server, where the data requested is extracted as a miniature QueryObject and rapidly transferred, over the Internet, to the client where it is cached in the local file system. Subsequent queries, if they are within this universe, are immediately handled locally. Additional queries extract only the additive data from the server, stream it to the client and merge it into the existing local QueryObject. This process is repeated for the full query session and the local QueryObject remains in cache so that disconnected analysis is possible. Key features of the process are:

• highly scaleable nature of the server QueryObject which can contain hundreds of millions of rows of source data
• efficient size of the extracted QueryObject means initial queries are usually handled in seconds
• ability to do subsequent queries locally and to extract and merge additional data means subsequent queries are equally fast or faster
• local processing means that a large number of concurrent users can be working with the same server QueryObject
• small (2mb) downloaded ODBC connection means that any industry standards compliant tool can now work over the Internet

About the v4.0 Open Beta Program

The beta program, which will launch exclusively for users of BrioQuery, allows participants to access sample QueryObject DataMarts at www.queryobject.com/beta/brio and run local analysis on data extracts from those DataMarts. The testing period - which will be extended to include users of other BI client tools next month - will last through July.

"This technology will have as profound an effect on the distribution of analytical data over the Internet as MP3 has had on music distribution," commented Matthew Doering, SVP Technology for QueryObject. "That's why, as an inducement to share their beta experiences with us, we are offering participants in the open beta a chance to win an MP3 player when they submit their testing questionnaires."

About the QueryObject System

The QueryObject System allows data intensive organizations such as eBusinesses, telecommunications, healthcare and insurance, or financial services companies to achieve competitive advantage by analyzing more data ... in more detail ... more quickly... over the Internet, or within other corporate environments.

The QueryObject is the first true Information Age data structure, optimized for data access and distribution over the Internet. Where most databases were designed for client-server transaction processing, the QueryObject is architected for Internet data analysis:

• designed to work on Internet scale, both in terms of data volumes and number of users
• at Internet velocity, with fast Data Mart load times, and query at the speed of thought
• over server-centric or distributed network caching Internet architectures
• while maintaining data privacy and security

Its industry-leading design permits very large amounts of source data to be efficiently stored as a densely compressed loss-less mass, while a unique polynomial index provides instant random access to both the cross-dimensional totals and - via match keys - to the supporting transaction level data. The benefits are fast builds and fast consistent analysis of large data volumes by large concurrent user populations.

The QueryObject Engine, which transforms any production data source into QueryObject DataMarts, runs on Mainframe, UNIX and Windows NT server, with native access to 22 databases including SAP and PeopleSoft, allowing organizations to save time by processing the data directly on the platform on which it is stored.

The QueryObject Server, running on UNIX, LINUX or Windows NT, provides open end-user access to the QueryObject data marts. Support for industry data access standards - JDBC, ODBC and OLE/DB - means that the QueryObject Server provides a powerful analytical back-end to most Business Intelligence and eBusiness Intelligence tools and applications, increasing their volume scalability, query speed and ability to support many concurrent users. The QueryObject Server actually "Internet-enables" analytical data, so that it can be accessed either on a Web-server by Web-BI tools, or can be streamed over the Internet, Web-enabling BI client tools. This distributed network caching feature means that QueryObjects can support virtually unlimited numbers of concurrent Internet users, each using their personal choice of desktop BI clients.

For organizations that want to extend data analysis capabilities beyond their traditional BI communities without any additional per-seat costs, the QueryObject Analyzer Server (UNIX, Windows NT, LINUX) complements QueryObject server strengths by providing Web-based users with FREE downloadable access to a multi-dimensional Java client that turns their standard browsers into flexible, intuitive, analytical clients.

About QueryObject Systems Corporation

QueryObject Systems Corporation is a publicly held company headquartered in Roslyn Heights, New York with a European distribution subsidiary headquartered in Reading, the United Kingdom. Its products are available worldwide through a network of authorized distributors.

About internetQueryObject Corporation

internetQueryObject Corporation (doing business as iQO), also headquartered in Roslyn Heights, is a subsidiary of QueryObject Systems Corporation specializing in analytical applications for Web analysis and e-Commerce.

For more information about QueryObject Systems Corporation and its technologies, or iQO, visit the Web sites at www.queryobject.com and www.iqo.com.

Contact Harpell/Martins, Mark Williams 978-889-1441 mwilliams@harpell.com or QueryObject Systems Corporation, Robert Thompson 516-228-8500 x149 rthompson@queryobject.com.