Summary

In today's data rich environments, data is seemingly everywhere and in many different forms. Paper based, electronic via the Web, in differing databases, local and remote, in structured and unstructured forms. How can such data be managed and integrated within a controlled environment? Providing a consistent information source from disparate data sources, is one of the key challenges organisations face today to enable management information reporting from this source and the efficient decision making processes that can then follow.

Simpson Associates answers this challenge by using a strategic solution, harnessed to the company's core skills in providing an automated, robust process of combining all such data feeds and building an information source from which Business Intelligence reporting can be based.

DataMirror Transformation Server

DataMirror Transformation Server (TS) is a very powerful and flexible data transformation and replication tool that simplifies the process of working in a heterogeneous world. Supporting uni-directional or bi-directional transfers DataMirror Transformation Server supports the full spectrum of data transfer combinations migrating data significantly faster and more efficiently than in ODBC, hub/spoke and other "pull" technology based environments.

AS/400, MS-SQL, Sybase and Oracle Environemts

DataMirror Transformation Server operates dynamically in AS/400, MS-SQL Server, Sybase & Oracle environments, where it runs a native component on each of the native support platforms.

This enables dynamic database changes to be identified and "pushed" from the source system to it's target or targets as they occur. Operating asynchronously, DataMirror Transformation Server minimises network bandwidth requirements, moving only the changed data, not necessarily the whole file or table.

Alternatively, changes can be issued in batch mode providing full flexibility for data migration strategies at table or file level. DataMirror Transformation Server supports a vast range of communications modes, requiring IP address support only in order to function. Therefore data migration across VPN, Internet, analogue and digital links are supported.

Should a communications link fail during data transfer DataMirror Transformation Server is able to recover from the point of communications failure, not the point of data transmission, an important factor when considering operational constraints and service levels.

Logical Targets

DataMirror Transformation Server uses a concept of logical targets, via selection of the tables that you wish to replicate from your source database and attach them to a logical target.

The logical target itself is easy to set up and defines the route from a source system to a target system. On the target system your selected source tables are assigned to target tables, which may or may not have the same name. The target system may or may not be the same platform or even the same database type.You can replicate data through this logical target between two or more different physical machines, or you can do the same thing on just one system and replicate data to another library, directory or database, table name on the same machine.

Logical targets are important because they allow you a lot of flexibility in your replication environment. If we wish for example to simply move data from one table to another we call that uni-directional replication. If data changes in one table and then that gets replicated to another and that in turn causes data to be replicated to a third, we call that cascade replication.

We can bring data from two or more tables into one table, we call this consolidated replication. TS can take data from one table and replicate it either in whole or part to two or more tables, this is called distributed replication. TS can also move data in two directions between two systems and two different file sets, this is called uni-bi-directional replication. If we do the same however for the same file set we call that bi-directional replication. Bi-directional projects are typically the most complex, however many of our customers have discovered the great benefits of this technology.

If you have multi-processor servers and wish to maximise throughput, multi-threaded replication allows two or more processors to be used simultaneously. Two threads provide almost twice the throughput of a single thread. You can combine all of these techniques almost any way you like.

Further Product Information

> www.datamirror.com/products/tserver