Sneak Peek into expressor's new & free data integration application, expressor Studio

I had a chance to attend the launch event webinar of expressor's new & free data integration application, expressor Studio. To be clear, the version that was previewed is a beta version and GA of this new tool is not expected until the end of this year.

expressor has been around for some time now and hence it is expected that the core of its product will not change much. This release is more geared towards the developer application expressor Studio. Expressor Repository and expressor Data Processing Engine remain more or less the same. The free version of the software though will include both the Studio and the Data Processing Engine.

The improvements, or it should rather be said that rewrite, is mostly restricted to Studio. However, the improvements over the last version are pretty significant and it would be well appreciated by those who are currently using expressor in their data integration projects.

Some of the most significant improvements coming with this release are;

• MS Office style user interface that uses ribbon design quite heavily. It would be especially liked by those who play with SQL Server day in and out
• Like MS Office, tasks on the right hand side give you cues for what needs to be completed
• Notion of Projects and Libraries to allow greater reuse of components
• Simple drag & drop functionality to create mappings and data flows
• Background validation
• User friendly transform editor with the ability to modify the Lua datascripts

This is in addition to some of the core features that expressor provides in its platform, like;

• Reusable business rules
• Out of the box connectivity with a wide range of RDBMS and appliances
• Parallel processing
• Semantic mapping
• Support for Regular Expressions

Beta version of this release will be available November 1 at www.ExpressorStudio.com. At the cost of free it is an excellent product to get started on small and mid size data integration projects. 

Taxonomy Webinar Series by PPC

Today's business users work with a range of information management tools designed to capture and provide access to critical business information. However, that information is of little value if users can't find what they need. Business taxonomies can provide solutions to an organization's knowledge management challenges. Although the concept of taxonomies is not new, organizations are beginning to focus increased attention on the design and development of intuitive and sustainable taxonomies that will serve their end users by making it easy to find the information they need in a single place. Today's users have come to expect a simple way to both search and browse for their information, but still many organizations do not know where to begin in the design of such a system.   

This webinar series focuses on the design and management of business taxonomies for the storage of information within systems, as well as the overall findability through search and browse of the information your end users seek.

This series is comprised of 4 sessions. The first session in the series will provide an introduction to taxonomy and metadata benefits, design concepts, and strategies. The subsequent sessions will detail methodologies on 1) how to run taxonomy design workshops within your own organization, 2) how to design taxonomies from start to finish, and 3) how to ensure the appropriate maintenance and management of those taxonomies over time.

Nov. 5, 11:30am-12:30pm	Introduction to Business Taxonomies Click here to register.
Nov. 8, 11:30am-12:30pm	Taxonomy Workshops Click here to register.
Nov. 10, 11:30am-12:30pm	Practical Taxonomy Design Click here to register.
Nov. 12, 11:30am-12:30pm	Taxonomy Governance and Maintenance Click here to register.

Click here to view more information about series description, as well as details on each session.

Expressor's launching brand new free data integration application, expressor Studio

Expressor has been around for some time now. Expressor was started by a bunch of ex Kalido people and they created a niche for their offering in the Microsoft Data Integration market, especially in the SMB market. They are ready to launch their brand new and free data integration application, expressor Studio. According to expressor this tool will "provide game-changing ease-of-use with a drag-and-drop and wizard-driven interface that enables developers to easily connect to their data sources or targets, map data to common business names and types, and design complex data flow applications in minutes". To add to that, it will be free to download and use. If you are interested in learning more, expressor will host a webinar on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010 for a live demo of the tool.

Master Data Management - Some Useful Links

Managing master data, part one

Master-data management – managing key sets of data centrally instead of in application silos – is becoming a element of information management. But where to begin?
By Mike Fleckenstein

Hit the Ground Running with Operational MDM

By focusing on an operational master data management (MDM) approach, one can achieve 80 percent of the value of a traditional MDM implementation with only 20 percent of the effort. The next generation of data integration and master data management tools will accomplish this by providing a virtual MDM registry via inline data services.

MDM is Not Enough - Semantic Enterprise is Needed

This article introduces the concept of semantic enterprise and outlines a connection between semantic enterprise and master data management (MDM) concepts. The article also shows that successful transitioning to semantic enterprise requires significant improvements in enterprise metadata and especially in business metadata management. It explains the importance of supporting an enterprise-level semantic continuum from both business and IT communities by committing to development of enterprise architecture tenets that would bring both communities to a more synergetic environment.
By Semyon Axelrod

Why You Need Master Data Management

The vendor hype machine is up and running, and master data management (MDM) will be in your favorite software salesperson’s messaging and in their quotas by the time you read this. That hype drives business for a while, but soon MDM will have to prove its mettle.
By William McKnight

MDM in the Real World

By now we all know about master data management (MDM) systems and how they can bring about stunning business results. We’ve heard how they generate and maintain an enterprise-wide “system of record” that contains the consistent, reliable information necessary to perform vital business functions across a large organization. And, we’ve heard how implementing a strong MDM strategy can increase revenue and profits, improve customer service, reduce time to market, enhance regulatory compliance and simplify reporting and business intelligence.
By Marty Moseley

Upcoming Webcasts - 2008-03-10

• Back to Business: How Business Modeling Rationalizes Data Warehousing "A new alternative to the data-centric approach is a model-driven approach using a business model-driven architecture. Hear Neil Raden and Cliff Longman explain how this new way of thinking has proven highly effective in delivering useful results to the business in a short period of time."
• Real-Time Information On Demand "The ability to capture and deliver accurate, trusted data to the right people at the right time can be a significant competitive advantage for enterprises looking to streamline their business processes and improve customer service."
• Best Practices for Deploying Collaborative BI "Best practices and key issues surrounding collaborative BI."