IBM said it is addressing the challenge of today's business leaders to deliver greater return on their IT investments with new versions of DB2 and InfoSphere Warehouse software.
Code-named "Cobra," IBM said the new version of DB2 recently introduced reduces an even greater amount of space needed to store data, helping clients save up to 75 percent on related costs including energy more than any other available database software. In addition, IBM said the offering is also the industry's first database software that will deliver business analytics capabilities for both relational and XML data at the same time.
For example: UCLA Medical Center is using this technology to keep all patient records online while reducing storage space needed to manage these records by 50 percent. In addition, UCLA is currently developing three clinical applications using the new DB2 features that allow it to analyze and better understand patterns and trends among patients with similar symptoms or illnesses, to help determine how to better serve their patient community.
IBM said the software also includes workload management and autonomic computing features that improve the performance of high priority applications such as closing quarterly financial reports and helping IT staff more efficiently manage their growing data, leading to a time savings of up to 35 percent on administrative tasks.
As the information generated by companies continues to grow exponentially, there is a huge burden placed on database infrastructure, with a corresponding increase in costs to manage, power, cool and house more data. According to IBM, 15 petabytes of new information are being generated each day.
"Industries such as banking, health care and retail are grappling with the increasing costs of energy while managing, analyzing and accessing information to achieve better business results," said Arvind Krishna, vice president, IBM Information Management Development. "With the new innovations in DB2 and InfoSphere Warehouse software, IBM is again delivering clients and partners higher performance and lower energy."
According to a release, several clients are already benefiting from this new technology. For example: Douglas Holding AG, the German-based specialty retailer of perfumes and fashion accessories uses DB2 to manage the sales records for its 1,800 European shops. The retailer uses an XML application as a bridge between store cash registers and its data warehouse. In testing the new version of DB2 with the application, the retailer is already seeing improved accuracy of sales records giving them a greater visibility into customer buying habits, helping them improve overall business performance.
InfoSphere Warehouse 9.7 Enterprise Edition, powered by DB2 9.7, also includes tools to simplify data analysis and data mining, as well as a new Departmental Edition of the software, targeted for smaller organizations and departments within a larger organization.
DB2 9.7 and InfoSphere Warehouse 9.7 will be available in June. Customers, developers and partners can test drive DB2 9.7 by taking advantage of IBM's Early Access Program.