Amazon Takes on Oracle and IBM With SimpleDB

Companies can now go ahead and fire their expensive database administrators—those engineers who keep the Oracle or IBM databases humming. Amazon has just added an enterprise-class database called SimpleDB to its suite of cloud-based IT infrastructure, which also includes storage (S3) and computation (EC2) available by the drink. Today, Amazon is taking sign-ups for the SimpleDB beta, which should start in a few weeks. As it points out on the new Simple DB page:

Amazon SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in real time. This service works in close conjunction with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), collectively providing the ability to store, process and query data sets in the cloud. These services are designed to make web-scale computing easier and more cost-effective for developers.

Traditionally, this type of functionality has been accomplished with a clustered relational database that requires a sizable upfront investment, brings more complexity than is typically needed, and often requires a DBA to maintain and administer. In contrast, Amazon SimpleDB is easy to use and provides the core functionality of a database - real-time lookup and simple querying of structured data - without the operational complexity. Amazon SimpleDB requires no schema, automatically indexes your data and provides a simple API for storage and access. This eliminates the administrative burden of data modeling, index maintenance, and performance tuning. Developers gain access to this functionality within Amazon’s proven computing environment, are able to scale instantly, and pay only for what they use.

This will be especially attractive for Web startups. Amazon has just taken another major infrastructure cost off the table for them. Relational databases are expensive to buy and maintain. Whatever features or performance SimpleDB lacks, it should make up for in price. Amazon wants to democratize the database by making it available to more businesses, and even individuals, thus leveling the playing field between big companies and startups even more.

And since SimpleDB operates at Web scale, larger companies will wake up to the cost saving opportunities of such a service as well. IBM, for one, is already trying to preempt any customer defections with its copycat Blue Cloud initiative. If speed is of the essence, you might still want to keep your database on your own servers. But the Web is where most software will one day live, whether consumer or enterprise. And Amazon’s got nothing to lose by speeding that day along.

Pricing for SimpleDB is as follows:

Machine Utilization - $0.14 per Amazon SimpleDB Machine Hour consumed

Data Transfer

$0.10 per GB - all data transfer in

$0.18 per GB - first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.16 per GB - next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.13 per GB - data transfer out / month over 50 TB

Data transfer “in” and “out” refers to transfer into and out of Amazon SimpleDB. Data transferred between Amazon SimpleDB and other Amazon Web Services is free of charge (i.e., $0.00 per GB).

Structured Data Storage - $1.50 per GB-month

Author: Erick Schonfeld @ www.techcrunch.com

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Customers Select HP and Oracle to Modernize Legacy Environments

HP and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), in collaboration with Intel Corp., today announced that their Application Modernization Initiative is gaining momentum as customers increasingly migrate away from legacy systems to drive business growth with more reliable and efficient IT infrastructures.

Introduced last year at Oracle OpenWorld 2006, the Application Modernization Initiative is a comprehensive solution that helps businesses modernize their legacy environments to increase business agility and performance, reduce operational costs and lower risks.

The initiative is a multi-vendor collaboration that delivers specialized hardware, software and services that are designed to help companies easily transition from legacy environments to an open-standards based infrastructure that is flexible enough to meet dynamic business conditions.

The Application Modernization Initiative was most recently adopted by the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket), a government agency under the Ministry of Finance in Sweden. In leveraging the tools and resources of the Application Modernization Initiative to modernize its IT environment, the organization joins, among others, BBVA, a Madrid-based multinational financial services group, and Carrefour Italy, part of one of the world’s leading distribution companies and the world’s second-largest retailer.

“Customers are rapidly adopting our solutions to assist in the modernization of their IT environments,” said Joe Kovach, vice president, Consulting and Integration, HP Services. “The Application Modernization Initiative enables organizations to efficiently transition to open standards-based architectures so they can focus on innovation.”

According to Dale Vecchio, research vice president, Gartner, “Gartner continues to see a growing interest in modernizing the business processes implemented in legacy applications. The desire to create greater agility is driving organizations to consider more modern application platforms as the vehicle for satisfying that demand. The relationship between the application decisions and the underlying infrastructure upon which they are delivered is critical to any IT modernization initiative.”

When the Swedish Tax Agency wanted to modernize its technology infrastructure to make its operational activities more effective, it worked with HP Services to design and implement an application modernization solution. The agency’s objective was to simplify its procedures when interacting with both the public and business community.

“We have selected HP to perform key migration of our Unisys legacy applications. This migration will make it possible for the Swedish Tax Agency to provide better opportunities for all kinds of taxpayers to file their tax returns electronically, and save time and money,” says Anne Grön, chief information officer, Swedish Tax Agency. “This is a critical modernization program for the Swedish Tax Agency. Under the contract, HP will migrate the existing legacy mainframe environment, consisting of Cobol and Assembler applications, to a new, open systems-based environment including HP Integrity servers and Oracle Database.”

The Application Modernization Initiative solution incorporates the Oracle Grid Computing Platform with SOA capabilities, including Oracle Database 10g with Real Application Clusters, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Enterprise Manager/Grid Control.

The solution runs on HP Integrity systems based on Intel® Itanium® processors – working with the HP Virtual Server Environment Reference Architecture and HP Software Business Technology Optimization solutions that include SOA governance, quality and management products – making it an ideal platform to achieve the required availability, scalability and resource utilization.

It is designed, implemented and supported through the HP Application Modernization Services portfolio and also includes architectural design and consulting support from HP, Intel and Oracle.

“The success of our joint investment in the Application Modernization Initiative demonstrates the strength of our alliance. Together we are helping enterprises take advantage of an open standards, SOA-based solution to give customers the confidence to address these expensive and inflexible legacy systems,” said John Gawkowski, vice president, Platform Technology Solutions, Oracle. “We are delighted to have Oracle’s Grid Computing software playing such a key role in this initiative.”

“Open systems based on Intel Itanium processors, such as the HP Integrity server line, provide superior price/performance and dependability for mission-critical applications,” said Diane Bryant, vice president, Digital Enterprise Group, Intel. “The Application Modernization Initiative from Intel, HP and Oracle is providing tangible benefits to customers through accelerated innovation, minimized risk and reduced costs.”

Underscoring the open nature of the Application Modernization Initiative, HP, Intel and Oracle also announced today the first two members of a network of independent software vendors whose offerings complement the initiative.

Relativity Technologies, Inc. supports the initiative with its Modernization Workbench® software platform. The platform maximizes the business value of existing operations by analyzing, adapting and re-architecting legacy applications. Orsyp S.A. is providing its market-leading Dollar Universe job and batch scheduler software used by thousands of companies worldwide across a broad range of platforms.

More information on the Application Modernization Initiative product and service offerings is available at www.hp.com/go/ami.

Source: Palo Alto @ www.hp.com

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BMW Oracle Racing: Defender’s Decision Needed

The Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) today made a renewed call for the America’s Cup Defender to confirm whether it will agree to a mutual consent challenge so that planning for the next regatta can go ahead.

This follows a meeting in New York yesterday where the American club was disappointed that Alinghi representatives were only prepared to discuss a new vision for the Deed of Gift rather than concrete proposals.

Last week Ernesto Bertarelli, Alinghi’s President, issued a public letter on his vision for a new Cup. Larry Ellison, the owner of the American club’s BMW ORACLE racing team, wrote to Bertarelli today asking him to first declare where Alinghi stands on accepting GGYC’s proposal for a conventional America’s Cup in Valencia in 2009.

'We have heard Ernesto’s vision, but what we really need is his decision,' Larry Ellison said.

The club said time is running out. Teams need to plan their campaigns, and GGYC cannot continue to prepare for two different types of racing at the same time.

On December 4, GGYC sent Alinghi a proposal for a conventional regatta in Valencia in 2009 that was supported by many challengers. Alinghi has not responded to this.

Source: www.sail-world.com

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