CA's VISION:Pursuit Selected by Avid Technology

Computer Associates International Inc (CA), a world leading eBusiness solutions provider, announced that Avid Technology Inc, a leading provider of digital audio and video tools for information and entertainment applications, has chosen VISION:Pursuit, the extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) solution that integrates data from heterogeneous sources, including SAP R/3, into its data warehouses, dramatically improving speed and quality in accessing critical business data, reducing burden on IT resources and eliminating the need for users to know SAP's programming language.

"VISION:Pursuit is an integral part of our data warehousing strategy because of its robust user interface, automated scheduling features and interoperability with a wide variety of database applications," said Chad Wright, Avid, reporting applications, manager. "VISION:Pursuit will help us achieve our data discovery goals, especially since it has been certified for integration with SAP's Business Information Warehouse."

As Avid continues their implementation of VISION:Pursuit, users have already begun to notice the faster turnaround time in availability of SAP data.

Avid users need to access and report on business information contained in their SAP implementation, including information not accessible through normal database queries. Through the SAP Connector, VISION:Pursuit makes it possible to access transparent and non-transparent SAP data without having to know ABAP, SAP's programming language.

Avid will no longer rely on ABAP programmers to obtain the information it needs. In addition to the data retrieved from its SAP modules, including financial, manufacturing, sales and distribution, VISION:Pursuit can also access data from the PeopleSoft and Clarify systems also being used by Avid. The integrated data from all three systems can then be produced in reports generated by EUREKA:Suite.

"Avid's needs are similar to those of many companies that collect huge amounts of data with inadequate means to mine it for actionable insights," said Allan Houpt, CA divisional vice president, knowledge management. "It's especially true of companies who need that information extracted from implemented ERP systems, such as SAP R/3. VISION:Pursuit helps those companies discover, far more completely and far more quickly than ever before, the knowledge that will help them serve their customers, and keep them as customers."

SAP Interface Technology

IT professionals working with R/3 systems understand that a prime challenge is how to extract data needed by business users without interfering with the functionality and performance of the SAP production system. VISION:Pursuit's SAP Connector can be easily implemented without making alterations to the SAP system.

The VISION:Pursuit SAP Connector provides access to all SAP objects (transparent and non-transparent), including the entire SAP data storage, metadata and the non-relational or hierarchical structure in the SAP Pool and Cluster tables. It dynamically generates ABAP objects and reuses existing ABAP objects. The use of SAP metadata also allows transformations to be stable and robust when used in a changing environment, because changes made within the SAP installation are always reflected in the SAP metadata.

The Business Warehouse Connector complements the VISION:Pursuit SAP Solution by providing the ability to populate the SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) with non-SAP data.

VISION:Pursuit covers the complete range of data movement capabilities and can be used for ETL, ERP reporting, data migration, and B2B data integration tasks. With its ability to grow as companies' data movement requirements increase, VISION:Pursuit provides a truly scalable solution for growing organizations. VISION: Pursuit allows direct access to Oracle, Informix, UDB, Sybase and most other RDBMSs, along with ODBC, HTTP and text files as data sources. The tool is available for Windows 95/98, NT and 2000 as well as most Unix platforms such as Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX and SGI IRIX.

Computer Associates International Inc, a world leading business software company, delivers the end-to-end infrastructure to enable eBusiness through innovative technology, services and education. For more information, visit www.ca.com.

Avid Technology Inc is an international, industry-leading provider of digital audio and video tools for information and entertainment applications. The company's products are used by a variety of customers worldwide including film, television and interactive content producers, TV news broadcasters, corporate communicators and consumers. For more information, visit Avid's Web site at www.avid.com.

Contact Ilona Mohacsi of Computer Associates International Inc, 631-342-2542, or Ilona.mohacsi@ca.com.