IBM puts Masala into open beta

Rethink IT, July, 2004

IBM has released an open beta version of its so-called Masala extension to the DB2 Information Integrator software, which pulls in data from disparate sources and provides a single view in real time.

Masala's view of information assets will be independent of data type or location and will be able to take data from products such as Microsoft or Documentum.

The software works with the WebSphere MQ messaging middleware, the basis of the company's enterprise application integration strategy and of its move towards a service oriented architecture (SOA), which links data with business processes. These links are made in Masala by publishing changes to WebSphere MQ in order to update processes as data changes. For instance, a change in product prices can be triggered to the salesforce and channels via the existing messaging infrastructure.

Masala features over 100 new features compared to the first DB2 Integrator, and claims to get results from queries up to 10 times more quickly as well as reducing hand coding tasks. It is using IBMPs autonomic computing developments, enabling it to alert users to changes in the system as they happen. As well as structured data, Masala can access 85% of unstructured information such as web sites and documents, with response time of under a second.

Users are increasingly looking to integration of data and applications to reduce costs and produce a more efficient, real time system, but they need integration software that can be reused across any such project. This has not been the case with EAI to date, but is starting to become a reality with SOAs and products like Masala, significantly streamlining the business process and potentially making the organization more agile.

IBM is taking a cutting edge approach to SOA and sees it as critical to its broader move to on-demand computing to support modern business. The large resources it is throwing at Masala, which was a two-year development project shared between 11 IBM laboratories, shows how serious its threat will be to more specialized providers that are also taking the SOA route, from BEA and Tibco to Sonic Software.