PLATINUM technology Announces DecisionBase to Both Accelerate Data Warehouse Creation and Build Strong Enterprise Information Architecture
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In a move to address a growing information technology (IT) challenge, PLATINUM technology, inc. announced DecisionBase, designed to help IT users quickly build and deploy data marts and warehouses with both powerful data movement technology and a best-selling enterprise repository. DecisionBase is thus designed to help IT organizations accelerate warehouse creation and simplify complex data transformations, while providing a solid foundation to build upon and more easily manage in the future.

DecisionBase is designed so that organizations no longer need to sacrifice short-term end-user demands for long-term IT goals. Data warehouse managers can quickly architect a flexible and robust data mart or warehouse solution and meet business users' immediate need for information. Organizations can gain a competitive advantage by providing end-users with timely access to information and a strong warehouse solution that can evolve with changing business needs.

DecisionBase enables customers to build coordinated data marts to meet diverse user needs while defining a long-term data warehouse strategy. "IT departments are often forced to compromise an enterprise-wide data warehouse strategy by pressure to build uncoordinated data marts to meet the decision-support needs of different end-user groups," said Robert Craig, director of the data warehousing and business intelligence service for Hurwitz Group, Inc.

"PLATINUM's new DecisionBase helps IT departments define a cohesive data warehouse strategy for the long-term, while building data marts to meet specific end-user needs in the short-term. PLATINUM does this by basing DecisionBase on an industrial-strength repository, which provides a foundation for maintaining the integrity of data across an enterprise's applications, operational databases, systems and decision support databases. This is different than other data transformation and movement solutions, which feature proprietary metadata management technology."

Transforming and moving data to populate data marts is ranked by warehouse managers as their most critical challenge, according to International Data Corporation. Gartner Group reports that the market for data transformation and movement solutions alone will increase from $327 million in 1996 to $620 million by 2001.

This growth is fueled by end-users' increasing demands for access to more types of data, which is located on disparate databases and platforms -- creating a greater need for solutions that handle complex data transformations. DecisionBase has been designed to address the growing need for data transformation and movement with an easy-to-use, point-and-click interface, an integrated programming language to handle complex jobs and true enterprise-wide metadata management.

"DecisionBase offers a unique value proposition to this market -- build a data warehouse or data mart now and build it right," said Tom DePasquale, senior vice president of PLATINUM's data warehousing solutions.

"Our customers are pressured to build a solution quickly, often forcing them to forego long-term goals. DecisionBase is the first enterprise repository-based solution that allows organizations to consolidate and take control of their data warehouse infrastructure, create a strong foundation and build on that over time. Now, users can reduce the time, risks and costs associated with building a data mart or warehouse, without sacrificing functionality and a long-term warehouse strategy."

PLATINUM expects DecisionBase to be available by the end of March. Its server component runs on Windows NT, and its client component runs on Windows 95. It supports all leading database types.
Sales information can be obtained by contacting PLATINUM at 1-800/442-6861 or info@platinum.com