IBM's Perna Talks Data Federation

Janet Perna, general manager of IBM Software's Data Management group, is now more focused on selling what they've shipped than talking about what's next. The company also updated its Content Management Server in 2002.

DB2 is clearly a linchpin. With the latest version, the company upped its federated data support to include Web services. "If information is presented as a Web service, we can federate that and join it with data in DB2 or Oracle. If you want to look up the net worth of someone's portfolio and tap into a realtime stock information service, you could pull that in as if it were in a database and in realtime calculate the net worth or portfolio value. That enables you to bring realtime information into the process," she told CRN.

Perna did acknowledge that work continues on IBM's planned "Information Integrator," an as-yet-unnamed product that will build on the company's federated data talents. The product is due next year.

"Think of this as a virtualization layer over the database. Companies want to be able to integrate data from different places and get a consolidated view. %85 This product, which is not named yet, will provide this virtualization layer," Perna said.

The code name for this product is Xperanto.

With DB2 Release 8.1, which runs on Linux, the database runs on most Unix and Windows NT/2000 operating systems.

Perna said DB2's Linux support will bring new customers over to the platform. The open beta drew 30,000 downloads, she said. A quarter of the beta downloads were for Linux, compared with 4 percent or 5 percent for the previous release, said Paul Rivot, director of database server and business intelligence at IBM Software.

Solution providers say IBM is making strides in usability for DB2. Many integrators say Microsoft, with its easy-to-follow wizards, has set the standard there.