DataDirect Technologies Named Key Enabler for Service-Oriented Data Access in ZapThink Report

Business Wire, Oct 29, 2007

Leading IT Advisory and SOA Experts Find DataDirect[R] Products Key to Building Interoperable, Robust and Reusable Data Services

BEDFORD, Mass. -- DataDirect Technologies, the unparalleled leader in data connectivity and mainframe integration and an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), today announced that an independent report from ZapThink, a research and advisory firm specializing in XML, Web services and service orientation views data access technology from DataDirect Technologies instrumental to the technical foundation of Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs).

The whitepaper report, "Service-Oriented Data Access: Building Interoperable, Robust and Reusable Data Services," September 2007, looks at the necessity and requirements for building a data-services layer into an SOA environment. To overcome common data integration challenges associated with distributed computing in a heterogeneous infrastructure, the creation of a data-services layer has become an SOA best practice. By utilizing a single, well architected interface for accessing heterogeneous data sources, organizations can increase the flexibility and scalability of their SOA initiatives. A data-services layer, in turn, relies on high performance, interoperable and scalable data-access middleware.

The new ZapThink paper highlights an issue faced by practicing software architects every day -an SOA strategy is only as flexible and scalable as its weakest link. As organizations move to streamline their architectures using data services, it is critical to choose fast, reliable data access middleware. Otherwise, as the paper points out, organizations risk architectural failure given the domino effect associated with data access performance and its impact on services.

"SOA presents business functionality and data as abstracted services - as organizations move to this paradigm, the reliance on data becomes even more critical," said Jason Bloomberg, ZapThink analyst and managing partner. "Should the data access in an organization fail to perform, then the services at the center of the architecture will also fail. As such, it's important to choose best-of-breed data access middleware as a critical building block for any SOA initiative. The DataDirect Connect([R]) family of data access tools fits the bill."

For nearly 20 years, DataDirect Technologies has offered the most comprehensive, proven line of data access products available. The company's DataDirect Connect for ODBC and DataDirect Connect for JDBC(TM) database drivers and DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET data providers are heavily leveraged throughout the software industry, used by vendors of leading products for database management, business intelligence, integration services, application services and SOA in addition to 96 of the Fortune 100.

Differentiating DataDirect Technologies' products from native database drivers or open-source alternatives is its unique wire protocol design which eliminates the need for client library. This simplifies installation and administration, improves performance and offers a single, efficient layer between data services and the data sources. A single DataDirect driver can support multiple versions of single database and provide a common interface for accessing all major relational databases. No other alternative on the market provides this level of interoperability. The DataDirect drivers also optimize performance and scalability based on the direct communication between the data-services layer and the wire protocol.

"Data access has always been a fundamental application development building block," said John Goodson, vice president of product operations at DataDirect Technologies. "But in the SOA context, the importance of choosing scalable data access middleware is magnified. As our customers move toward SOA, they are increasingly turning to us to provide them with a solid foundation for building their data-services layers."

To download a copy the ZapThink report on Service Oriented Data Access, please visit http://www.zapthink.com/report.html?id=WP-0162.

About DataDirect Technologies

DataDirect Technologies is the software industry's only comprehensive provider of software for connecting the world's most critical business applications to data and services, running on any platform, using proven and emerging standards. Developers worldwide depend on DataDirect([R]) products to connect their applications to an unparalleled range of data sources using standards-based interfaces such as ODBC, JDBC(TM) and ADO.NET, XQuery and SOAP. More than 300 leading independent software vendors and thousands of enterprises rely on DataDirect Technologies to simplify and streamline data connectivity for distributed systems and to reduce the complexity of mainframe integration. DataDirect Technologies is an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS). For more information, visit www.datadirect.com.

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