Platinum Ports Microsoft Repository to Unix Platforms
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Microsoft Corp. has ventured beyond Windows NT with a Unix port of Repository 2.0, the metadata and application development infrastructure that constitutes a key component of its drive into the enterprise arena. And Platinum Technology Inc. demonstrated Repository 2.0 running Sybase Inc.'s Adaptive Server database on the Solaris operating system at a data warehouse developers workshop on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus.
Platinum, a data warehouse and decision support software developer in Oak Brook Terrace, Ill., signed an agreement with Microsoft last year giving it exclusive rights to port Repository 2.0 to Unix and MVS platforms. Ports to HP-UX, AIX and OS/390 running databases from Oracle Corp. and IBM are set for beta in the third quarter, Platinum officials said.
Microsoft has partnered with Platinum and about 65 other developers to refine its Repository, which provides a common environment for development tools and data warehousing metadata that may be scattered and inconsistent throughout an enterprise. The sort of universal repository Microsoft is creating will ease management of data warehouses, a fast-growing market slice.
"It's huge," said Michael Barnes, an analyst with the Hurwitz Group, in Framingham, Mass. "If you don't have something as simple as data definitions that are standard across different applications, that makes a data warehouse useless or far, far less valuable." Oracle, of Redwood Shores, Calif., is working on its own universal repository, but officials declined to discuss details of the project.
Microsoft Repository 2.0 will be integrated into the company's SQL Server 7.0 database and Visual Studio application development tool suite when those products ship later this year, Microsoft officials said. Platinum also will sell the repository separately, though officials declined to say when they would make the product available.
Analysts said Microsoft's extensive partnerships in developing Repository 2.0 bring technical expertise to the product and help speed its release into the Unix and MVS markets. The availability of the repository across platforms further establishes the company's credibility in the high-end market it is targeting with the SQL Server 7.0 upgrade and Windows NT 5.0, analysts said.
"It expands their role in the enterprise," Hurwitz's Barnes said. "They could do it themselves, but it would take a lot longer. They're smart in leveraging other people."
Partners are helping define extensions for database schemas, transformation and online analytical processing. The extensions expand the Open Information Model, the framework on which Repository is based. In another demonstration, Sagent Technology Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., exported information developed within Data Transformation Services, an import/export tool in SQL Server 7.0, into Repository 2.0. It then imported it into Sagent Design Studio, a data access and transformation environment.
Some 200 developers attended the demonstrations, officials said. Microsoft can be reached at http://www.microsoft.com Platinum is at http://platinum.com