Information Management Technology in the 21st Century

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Kevin Cox

This week we were proud to be named to Information Management’s list of “40 Vendors We’re Watching.” Jim Ericson, Information Management editor, notes the tremendous groundswell in new technologies shaping the way businesses and individuals interact and use the data in their lives. Have a look at the list: http://bit.ly/S9Bjzc

It’s a smart crowd and Actian is proud to be recognized for our record-breaking, and now “award winning” Vectorwise analytic database. And it gets even better as our state-of-the-art Action Apps were also recognized as an innovative statement of our future direction.

Jim Ericson of IM’s synopsis, “is banking on mainstream demand bleeding into the business with a new strategy where users build Action Apps consumer style interfaces that trigger business rules to automate productivity. Pick an activity, set a threshold and trigger an action.”

They’re right – we at Actian know that in order for businesses to manage big data rather than the other way around, it is going to take disruptive and exceptional new technologies like the Vectorwise high-performance analytic database and Action Apps. See what our customers are saying about Vectorwise http://bit.ly/T7E719

Also, you are cordially invited to participate in the future of information management by downloading and trying out our first Action App–the first of many more to come. You can find it in the iTunes store http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/action-apps/id550464436?mt=8 Take it for a spin and see for yourself how your business can benefit from big data analytics automatically translated into actions on your mobile device.

Finally, I also wanted to note with great pleasure that Actian’s partners, Talend, Tableau, and Yellowfin were also named to the ranks of IM’s List of 40 to Watch. It’s nice to be in good company; it also high-lights how critical partnering is to being successful in today’s economy.

Thanks again to the folks at Information Management for keeping an eye on us. Here’s to the exciting future of information management in the 21^st century.

Cut Out The Complexity With The Vectorwise Data Mart Appliance

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Thomas Ribble

This April, Lenovo teamed with Actian to deliver the powerful Vectorwise Data Mart Appliance, offering a pre-configured software and hardware solution designed to be the most effective data analytics solution for businesses of any size. The Data Mart Appliance combines Lenovo’s industry-leading ThinkServer hardware with Actian’s record-breaking Vectorwise database. By matching smart software with high-performance, affordable hardware, the Data Mart Appliance represents a collaboration of world-class platforms that offers businesses an immediate plug-and-play solution for accessing and analyzing data.

With increasing customer demands for faster performance and a wider variety of appliances, analytics and business intelligence, the combined experience of Vectorwise and Lenovo is the complete package for a data solution in any organization. Engineered to accelerate Big Data project implementations on an enterprise-scale data warehousing solution, the Vectorwise Data Mart Appliance offers:

Performance: The appliance features the record-breaking Vectorwise database optimized to run on the Lenovo ThinkServer RD240, an ideal workhorse server that provides the capacity and power needed to process large transactions.
Affordability: Starting at an attractive entry price, the appliance offers low total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for expensive resources to design and tune the system.
Fast Deployment: The pre-configured appliance can be in production within minutes of being racked, ensuring fast deployment and the shortest time to get action-oriented insight into the hands of business users.
Compatibility: Compliant with industry standards for SQL, JDBC, ODBC, and .NET support, the Vectorwise Data Mart Appliance operates seamlessly alongside legacy platforms.
Manageability: Based on industry standard components, the appliance is simple to install and manage using resources and skills readily available in your organization. With built-in web-enabled remote management, the ThinkServer RD240 will easily integrate into existing management infrastructures.
Energy Efficiency: The ThinkServer RD240’s energy-efficient features and Vectorwise’s Energy Efficiency records make this Data Mart Appliance an ideal solution for customers seeking green alternatives
Interoperability: The Vectorwise analytic database is certified with commonly-used Business Intelligence tools including IBM Cognos, MicroStrategy, Pentaho, SAP BusinessObjects, Tableau and Yellowfin.

Feel free to contact Lenovo directly with any questions or check out Actian’s products page for more details and to see how the Vectorwise Data Mart Appliance can help your business analyze data.

Visualizing Big Data

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Fred Gallagher

As Big Data becomes a reality for more and more organizations and as the variety of data that they need to work with becomes more complex, it is increasingly hard for end-users to keep pace using traditional reporting and query tools. The explosion in volume and complexity of data had led to new techniques being applied to how data is presented and explored and one of the key techniques is data visualization.

Leveraging presentation techniques and exploration methods originally developed for scientific and engineering visualization, companies like Tableau Software have now made visualization accessible, understandable and affordable for companies of any size. This has enabled business users to present volumes and types of data (e.g. location based information) in compelling and meaningful ways that allow them to identify relationships not apparent using traditional BI techniques.

At 10:30am Pacific Time on December 6^th, Actian and Tableau will co-host a webinar called ”Breath Taking Visualization + Record Performance” to launch our partnership and introduce business users to the key concepts around data visualization. Register now for this webinar and see a live demonstration of software of which CFO Magazine said: In terms of generating useful, multidimensional visual analysis, it’s like going from an Etch-a-Sketch to Industrial Light and Magic. Quite simply, it’s the best piece of software CFO has run across in years.

Find out why CFO Magazine raved about Tableau Software and learn why Actian believes that data visualization is a highly complementary approach to our own concept of Action Apps. Please join me for this important and informative event!