Equalum Releases Enhanced Data Integration Platform, Steps Up Channel Initiatives

With the newest release of its Continuous Data Integration Platform Equalum supports multiple data integration use cases and is going head-to-head with some of the big data industry’s major players.

Equalum is promising that the latest release of its flagship software can support just about every data integration use case – from batch ETL and change data capture to real-time data streaming.

The general availability of the Equalum Continuous Data Integration Platform 3.0 this week comes amid rising demand for data integration capabilities, driven by increasing data volumes, growing numbers of internal and external data sources, and the need to utilize and manage data that’s distributed across on-premises, multi-cloud and hybrid environments.

The Equalum announcement also comes as the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company reports increased momentum in the channel among VAR and MSP partners who offer Equalum’s software as a key component of their customers’ digital transformation initiatives.

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“We are the unified platform for mid-market and enterprise data integration solutions. No one is really providing what Equalum has,” said CEO Guy Eilon in an interview with CRN.

Data integration has traditionally included batch ETL (extract, transform and load), data replication and change data capture technologies used to move data from operational systems into data warehouses for business analysis tasks and for copying data for backup and disaster recovery purposes. More recently demand has been increasing for software that can integrate streaming data in real time.

The global market for data integration solutions and services is expected to surge from $11.6 billion in 2021 to $19.6 billion by 2026 with a CAGR of 11 percent, according to a report on the data integration market from researcher MarketsandMarkets. The data integration technology space is crowded with heavy hitters such as Oracle, Informatica and Talend, along with smaller companies like Matillion and Fivetran.

CEO Eilon said Equalum, which previously focused on direct sales, has been working with the channel more over the last six months. The company recently launched a formal channel program including a secure partner portal, deal registration protection, sales training, sales incentives and margins, multi-tier support, market development funds, marketing and sales collateral materials, and white label packaging, among other benefits.

Equalum has been working with VARs and systems integrators and, more recently, managed service providers who provide data integration services using the company’s platform.

“Data compliance and security are two of the highest priorities for IT purchasers in the segments we serve, including government and the Global 2000,” said Eran Cohen, CEO of Primenet, a London, U.K., IT consultant and MSP, in a statement last week announcing a partnership with Equalum. “Equalum’s powerful platform backed by numerous product delivery options that help customers execute on their IT projects quickly make this the preferred offering in the category.”

“We understand that in order to scale, being a channel driven business is critical,” Eilon said in last week’s update of the company’s channel progress. “Almost all the other players in the data integration space sell their solutions direct to end users. We see more benefit in focusing on product development and letting our channel partners sell the platform and the continuing services customers will need to support it. That is the key to growth.”

The Equalum Continuous Data Integration Platform 3.0 (CDIP 3.0) natively supports all data integration, ingestion and transformation use cases – including batch ETL, streaming ETL, replication and multi-modal change data capture – under a single, unified platform. The system uses a drag-and-drop user interface for creating real-time and batch data pipelines, eliminating the need for coding, according to the company.

The software can be deployed in on-premises, hybrid or cloud environments. It supports an expanded range of targets on the Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud platforms including Amazon RDS for Oracle, Postgres and MySQL. CDIP 3.0 also expands support for Google BigQuery, Google DataProc, Google Cloud Storage and Google Cloud Database.

The company’s system is built on the Apache Kafka real-time data framework. While Equalum’s sales and marketing efforts lead with the software’s streaming capabilities, Elion said its support for multiple data integration approaches is “bringing lots of simplicity to the market.”

CDIP 3.0 includes enhancements to Oracle Binary Log Parser, a change data capture alternative to Oracle’s own Logminer, according to Equalum. The platform offers a new SQL Replication Binary Parser change data capture connector, based on the SQL Server database transactional replication framework, that does not require installation on the database machine or physical access to the logs. Replication group enhancements in CDIP 3.0 are built directly into the platform to facilitate large data migrations. And CDIP 3.0 provides enhanced automatic schema evolution for adjusting to broken data pipelines.

“This is a highly competitive market segment, but Equalum has proven itself in the space with a more performant and easy to use solution for a higher win ratio,” said Michael Hickey, founder of Equalum partner SkyLytics, in a statement. “Equalum has dialed in on the historic data integration issues that competitors were not able to resolve with a comprehensive platform that eliminates management issues and tool sprawl. We respect it immensely.”