18th January 2000 — Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), and Constellar Corporation today announced agreements under which Hitachi Data Systems will market Constellar's Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) software as part of its CARE portfolio of software solutions.
Hitachi's CARE portfolio includes Copy, Availability, Resource, and Exchange software suites, which deliver enterprise-wide coverage of on-line data copy/relocation, data access/protection, and storage resource management solutions. Constellar's EAI software will be offered as an information sharing solution within CARE's Exchange suite.
Constellar's EAI software provides a powerful data transformation solution that serves as the foundation for integrating data and applications such as CRM, data warehousing, and ERP across a broad range of enterprise IT and business-to-business e-commerce initiatives. Constellar's EAI software ensures that 100 percent of companies' application data will be available to any other application — supplier, customer, or internal user — to create integrated end-to-end e-business solutions without the need for costly and hard-to-maintain hand-coded links.
As part of the agreements, Hitachi Data Systems will also port Constellar's next generation EAI solution — code named "Project Orion," which focuses on B2B integration for the e-commerce market — to run on OS/390®, which is expected to result in the first-ever implementation of an end-to-end EAI solution hosted on an OS/390-based mainframe.
"Most large enterprises consider their key mission-critical data to reside on mainframe systems," said Carl Olofson, Program Director for Application Integration Software research at International Data Corporation (IDC). "Today, when they access that data for the purpose of generating business intelligence or achieving enterprise application integration, they do so by extracting large chunks of data for filtering and transformation on UNIX® or Windows NT systems. This approach is very inefficient, tying up disk and memory resources on UNIX or Windows NT, and clogging the network with data traffic.
"This move by Hitachi Data Systems and Constellar to offer Project Orion on the OS/390 platform," continued Olofson, "means that these enterprises will be able to filter, transform, and integrate mainframe data on the mainframe, close to the source, reducing communications while taking advantage of the mainframe's scalability and robustness. This is an important development that will serve their customers well, while neatly fulfilling the strategic product requirements of both firms."
Reseller Agreement
Under the terms of the reseller agreement, Hitachi Data Systems will market Constellar's Hub 3.0 as part of its CARE portfolio of software solutions.
Constellar Hub 3.0 enables companies to build new integrated applications that reuse components of existing applications while adding some logical process flow to move a transaction around disparate systems and applications. Hub 3.0 also provides a bridge for companies that need to move and integrate data between disparate systems via bulk transfers, where EAI has its roots, as well as via message queues, one of the fastest growing segments of the EAI market.
Constellar Hub 3.0 supports Sun Solaris™, HP-UX®, IBM AIX®, Windows NT 4.0 SP4, Sequent Synix®, and Digital Alpha® UNIX.
Furthermore, Hitachi Data Systems will market Project Orion, Constellar's next- generation EAI solution, which will provide expanded product support and important new EAI functionality, including connection to a wider variety of data sources.
"New e-business and Internet applications must be integrated with back-office databases and applications. Mergers, acquisitions, and the push to rationalize businesses all require application integration. The alliance announced today leverages the complementary strengths of Hitachi Data Systems and Constellar, and will enable us to further address the rapidly emerging application integration needs of today's complex Internet-driven marketplace," said David Coombs, Executive Vice President of Operations, Hitachi Data Systems. "Most of all, this alliance supports Hitachi's vision of helping customers transform their information technology into business success."
Under the terms of the porting agreement, Hitachi Data Systems will port Project Orion to OS/390, making the next-generation EAI solution ready for S/390® data center environments.
By porting Project Orion to OS/390, Hitachi Data Systems will ensure that the EAI solution will run on Hitachi S/390-compatible mainframe processing platforms.
Hitachi Data Systems and Constellar expect the porting agreement to result in the first-ever implementation of an EAI solution hosted on an OS/390-based platform, thereby allowing Constellar to leverage its technology in the S/390 market.
"Mainframes are still very much at the heart of the corporate data universe," said David Spenhoff, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Constellar. "With the huge projected growth of e-business, coupled with new, data-intensive applications, leading analyst firms are predicting that installed mainframe MIPS will increase by as much as 400 percent over the next few years. In essence, mainframes will be the only way to provide the scalability and availability that enterprises will require to facilitate the extreme levels of Web traffic and e-transaction processing that lie ahead.
"Furthermore, we are receiving a growing number of requests from CIOs, system architects, and IT managers to deliver our data transformation solutions to the mainframe market, and our partnership with Hitachi Data Systems will enable us to do that. The marriage of Constellar technology with the superiority of Hitachi's industry-leading mainframes will provide an incredible edge for our e-customers."
Constellar Corporation is a pioneer in the EAI industry, successfully delivering real EAI solutions for nearly 11 years. Today, Constellar is at work in over 300 installations at more than 50 major global organizations, including Citibank, General Electric, Sprint, US WEST Long Distance, ScottishPower, London Stock Exchange, and Deutsche Bank. Using Constellar solutions, customers are able to implement highly scalable network- wide data and application architectures for e-business applications including e-commerce, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), data warehouses, and ERP. Constellar has its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California with field offices throughout the U.S. and in Europe.
Recognized as a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most IT-intensive corporations, Hitachi Data Systems offers professional services, multi-platform storage subsystems, and the industry's broadest line of high-performance servers. The company's extensive range of products and services, coupled with its business alliances with key industry leaders, enable it to transform IT into business agility for high-end and middle-market customers. Hitachi Data Systems is owned by Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) and has its headquarters in Santa Clara, California.
Contacts: PR Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. OS/390, S/390, AIX, and Synix are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems. HP-UX is a trademark of Hewlett Packard. Alpha is a trademark of Compaq Computer Corporation. DG-UX is a trademark of Data General
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