CenterBoard Offering Will Virtualize Data

The new CenterBoard Integrator will access and quickly deliver pertinent data regardless of where it resides, the company said.

"We create a virtual operational data store, where you can't or don't want to move the data [from where it is] but need to access it from any location and bring it back to the client," said Thomas Henn, CEO of CenterBoard, Pleasanton, Calif. "Just as Google searches over the Internet and creates a list of results that you can drill down on, we take that one step further for corporate data. We run a query and bring the results back in a single view."

The software relies on data source managers or agents deployed to the data sources. These agents run the initial profile and form a compact index. CenterBoard prices its wares per data source, not per server, and runs on commodity hardware running Linux or Windows.

The company is recruiting ISVs and integrators.

The software competes with large operational data stores that customers build because dispersed data leads to latency problems. Businesses "end up spending $5 million to $10 million to create the physical store. We're $50,000 to $100,000," Henn said.

"This is smarter than the typical enterprise information integration tools, which simply bring things together," said Claudia Imhoff, president of Intelligent Solutions, a consultant in Boulder, Colo. "Their tool knows where the data is and can go right to the record without sucking the operational system dry."