DataMirror Expands SQL Server Connection
Many AS/400 shops have deployed data marts and e-commerce sites on Windows NT servers to provide more economical deployments while protecting back-end databases. However, keeping data moving on a real-time basis between the AS/400 to the NT box is a daunting challenge. To help these kinds of sites, DataMirror Corp. (Toronto) recently unveiled its latest edition of Transformation Server, which moves data between the latest version of Microsoft's SQL Server (7.0) and DB2 on the AS/400.
SQL Server 7.0 includes OLAP technology that incorporates features such as what-if analysis, member properties for additional queries, and distributed query resolution, which will balance query activity between clients and servers to minimize network traffic and server load. Many IT managers may find such query load balancing capabilities an attractive means to offload and maintain AS/400 performance on the back end.
Along with being enabled for SQL Server 7.0, DataMirror's Transformation Server includes additional ODBC-compliant databases running on Windows NT, including Microsoft FoxPro, dBase, Paradox, Lotus Notes and Oracle Lite.
Transformation Server will be marketed by DataMirror as a tool for quickly moving data between the AS/400 and SQL Server and other ODBC databases, particularly since "you want to be able to extract, cleanse, and propagate that data into the data mart," says William Hartwick, director of marketing with DataMirror.
--by J. McKendrick