INFORMATICA LEADS METADATA EXCHANGE STANDARDS

Informatica Corporation, a leading provider of eBusiness analytic solutions, announced some of the world's leading Business Intelligence (BI) vendors -- Brio, Business Objects, Cognos, MicroStrategy and Viador -- have all embraced the latest version of the Informatica Metadata Exchange application programming interface (API). Support for the API enables these vendors to provide their customers with a clearer understanding of the data in their data warehouses, coupled with maximum confidence in the reliability and freshness of their reports and analyses.

The leveraging and re-use of metadata (i.e., information about data) is essential to advanced business analytics. The Informatica Metadata Exchange API is the industry's most widely adopted open metadata access standard, and can provide real-time synchronization between front-end BI applications and the Informatica PowerCenter enterprise data integration platform as well as other back-end metadata stores.

The API also offers XML interfaces for the import and export of metadata to the Informatica PowerCenter repository. The interfaces utilize the same XML schema as the Informatica PowerCenter data integration platform -- resulting in metadata interoperability within the Informatica product suite and across partner products that use the Informatica API standard. Informatica was the first to address the need for metadata-exchange standards, predating industry efforts to establish a specification with the Informatica Metadata Exchange initiative.

The company announced last year that it has joined the Object Management Group (OMG), a non-profit group driving standards for the software industry, to further the group's efforts to develop a universal metadata standard for data warehousing.

"The Informatica Metadata Exchange API has emerged as the leading enabler of tighter, more effective links between analytic applications and the data integration platform they run on," said Girish Pancha, senior vice president and general manager of platform technologies at Informatica. "Without this critical bridge, companies have to build and maintain their own metadata linkages. As many organizations have discovered, the Informatica Metadata Exchange helps eliminate that work by providing seamless metadata access, time-to-insight advantages, and proven reliability right out of the box."

The leading BI vendors that have tested and certified the reliable exchange of metadata between their newest offerings and the Informatica Metadata Exchange API include:

• Brio Technology, Brio One (Enterprise 6.2) -- "The Informatica Metadata Exchange API is the defacto standard for metadata exchange and a "must have" for enhanced business intelligence," said Katherine Glassey, chief strategy officer at Brio Technology. "Support for the Informatica API gives Brio's customers seamless access to clear business descriptions of their data that will greatly accelerate their time-to-insight."
• Business Objects, Business Objects 5.x -- "Business Objects continues to be the industry-leading business intelligence vendor for the enterprise," said Mark Tice, group vice president of global alliances for Business Objects. "The integration of Business Objects e-BI technology combined with the Informatica Metadata Exchange API will provide joint customers with accelerated data mart deployment and reduced front-end development time. We are pleased to be able to offer customers support for all three Metadata Exchange API generation products."
• Cognos, Cognos Architect 6.2 (Improtu) -- "The basis for successful relationships is providing a full-service approach. Informatica is a leader in the data integration platform market and Cognos is pleased to be supporting this latest version of the Informatica Metadata Exchange API," said Patrick O'Leary, Cognos vice president of strategic alliances. "Together, Cognos and Informatica reduce the overall complexity of building and maintaining the data warehouse--increasing overall business performance and providing customers with the benefits of dependable and accurate metadata in a single, unified, end-to-end business intelligence solution with the widest range of reporting and analysis."
• MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy 7 -- "MicroStrategy is dedicated to providing business intelligence technology that meets today's demanding environments," said Sanju K. Bansal, chief operating officer for MicroStrategy. "Our support for the Informatica Metadata Exchange API is a logical extension of MicroStrategy's objectives to provide our customers with world-class business intelligence solutions."
• Viador, Viador E-Portal Suite -- "Viador and its global customers often view structured data repositories and corresponding metadata as THE key data sources for self-service portals," said Joe Thomas, director of strategic alliances, Viador Inc. "Through our integration with Informatica Metadata Exchange APIs, mutual customers of Viador and Informatica can gain a better understanding of the freshness, source, and author of structured data stored in data marts or data warehouses, utilize this information in a personalized and secure fashion, and receive the benefits of a self-service portal across the entire enterprise."

About metadata

Metadata is used in business analytics to describe a variety of parameters -- including data sources, analytic schemas, transformations, and freshness of data -- that are critical to enabling users to better understand the information they are working with. That understanding enables analytic applications to be quickly built and easily maintained.

Customers often require real-time metadata integration when performing analysis. For example, financial analysts reviewing revenue reports often need to know what specific business rules were applied to aged receivables, the specific financial system that the data originated from, and when the data was last refreshed. By using the Informatica Metadata Exchange API with the Informatica PowerCenter data integration platform, business intelligence vendors can deliver answers to these types of questions in real time.

A bi-directional interface, the Informatica Metadata Exchange API makes available easily understood business descriptions of these kinds of parameters, enables real-time synchronization between back-end repositories and front-end BI tools, and provides the verification and validation required to ensure the integrity of the metadata exchange.

About Informatica

Informatica provides eBusiness analytic solutions that enable companies to leverage business insight for competitive advantage. More than 1,100 global customers, including over half of the Fortune 100, leverage the Informatica Insight Network to integrate, analyze and personalize critical business information to improve business performance and responsiveness across the entire business value chain. Informatica products include a comprehensive family of analytic applications, the industry's most powerful data integration platform and a wide range of supporting services and partnerships. The company's list of leading customers includes 3Com, AMD, American Airlines, BMW, Boeing, Borders Group, Chevron, Cisco, CNET, Deutsche Bank, eBay, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Inktomi, Merck, Merrill Lynch, MetLife, Motorola, Philips Semiconductor, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sprint and UBS. For more information, call 1-800-970-1179, or visit the Informatica Web site at www.informatica.com.

Contact Leslie Clavin, Applied Communications, 415-365-0222, lclavin@appliedcom.com.