The year in databases witnessed a major upgrade to Oracle, a modest update to IBM DB2, and three Beta rounds of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, aka Yukon. Oracle Database 10g not only received high marks in our review, but also trounced the competition -- namely IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase ASE -- in our XML data management shootout.
In addition to plumbing the depths of these leading relational databases, we got our hands on an assortment of databases for application builders, highlighted by IBM Corp.?s DB2 Everyplace, PointBase Micro, and an XML-enabled edition of Sleepycat Software Inc.?s venerable Berkeley DB. We saw friendlier faces on business intelligence, data mining, and analytics tools from Hyperion, SAS, and SPSS. We saw fast, effective, easy-to-implement and nearly maintenance-free Web search appliances from Google and Thunderstone.
And in case you didn?t notice, content management is back, but with a difference. We reviewed surprisingly easy, flexible, and affordable systems from Ektron Inc., Macromedia Inc., SilkRoad Technology Inc., and three vendors of hosted solutions. One hosted service, CrownPeak Technology Inc.?s, even proved capable enough to challenge heavyweights such as Documentum and Interwoven Inc.
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Analytics and reporting
Hyperion Essbase 7X
Hyperion Solutions Corp.
Very Good, 7.6
Cost: Starts at US$40,000 per server
Bottom line: With Essbase 7X, Hyperion fills out its BPM category vision. This version?s highlights include a smoothly interactive BI client, a performance-enhancing sparse data model, and upgraded administration tools. Those already committed to Hyperion or still seeking a solution will benefit from this release.
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SAS Enterprise Miner 5.1 for SAS9
SAS Institute Inc.
Very Good, 8.3
Cost: Typical client/server license (unlimited clients connecting to a common server), starts at $119,000
Bottom line: Enterprise Miner 5.1 extends the SAS data-mining powerhouse deeper into predictive analytics with new methods and improvements, including tools that accelerate building of neural networks. The interface is well-constructed for the business analyst.
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SPSS Clementine 8.1
SPSS
Very Good, 8.3
Cost: Starts at $75,000
Bottom line: Clementine?s client, server, and add-on products offer a deep set of BI, BA, and classic data-mining capabilities and an elegant, productive interface for a user team with an analytical background. Excellent import and export power makes not only data but also routines available to other applications.
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Content management
Clickability cmPublish Version 4
Clickability Inc.
Very Good, 7.4
Cost: One site and 10 users (includes newsletters, analytics, and site delivery), approximately $15,000, plus $1,500 monthly fee
Bottom line: A midmarket CMS, cmPublish won?t break your budget, but you?ll find essential content creation and admin features. The Java-based software supports several platforms while providing multiple users with publishing to separate development, staging, and production environments. Other modules include Web analytics and subscription tools.
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CrownPeak Advantage CMS
CrownPeakTechnology
Excellent, 8.6
Cost: Startup implementation, between $10,000 and $15,000, plus $3,000 monthly fee
Bottom line: CrownPeak is a complete CM system that?s very powerful yet won?t confound business users, resulting in stiff competition for the best installed apps. Interoperability standards let developers tie in to other apps. A long list of value-adds, from asset management to collaborative features, make the price reasonable.
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Ektron CMS400.Net 4.5
Ektron Inc.
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: One permanent URL and 10 users, $7,200; one permanent URL and unlimited users, $29,999
Bottom line: CMS400.Net covers all the Web content manager bases, such as flexible workflow and central user management. Yet for enterprises that have embraced .Net, Ektron?s offering will be of particular value, given than developers can use their Visual Studio .Net skills and take advantage of Web services.
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FileMaker Pro 7
FileMaker Inc.
Very Good, 8.2
Cost: FileMaker Pro 7, $299 ($149 upgrade); FileMaker Server 7, $999 ($499 upgrade); FileMaker Server 7 Advanced, $2,499 ($1,499 upgrade); FileMaker Developer 7, $499 ($399 upgrade); FileMaker Mobile 7, $69 ($35 upgrade)
Bottom line: FileMaker Pro 7 can?t be beat for user-friendly, front-end data applications. Increased limits for file and field sizes, relational abilities closer to accepted standards, more powerful scripting, and more granular security and administration don?t undermine its usability.
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Google Search Appliance GB-1001 Version 4
Google Inc.
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: $32,000 for searching as many as 150,000 documents
Bottom line: Google takes the same algorithms that power Google.com and packages them in a ready-to-run system for in-house use. The initial cost is higher than Thunderstone?s, but maintenance is included. Google?s solution delivers highly relevant results and requires next to no IT intervention to set up and keep running.
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Helios WebShare 1.0
Helios Software GmbH
Very Good, 7.2
Cost: 105 WebShare-only user licenses, $6,990 (includes $780 yearly maintenance); 105 user licenses for WebShare, ImageServer, EtherShare, and PDF Handshake, $24,950
Bottom line: WebShare provides easy, secure access to files located on the enterprise intranet, and it offers useful add-ons for Mac clients and design shops. Administration could be smoother, and the cost may be hard to justify if you don?t need image previewing and the other add-on services.
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iUpload Content Manager Version 5
iUpload
Very Good, 7.9
Cost: One site and three users, $600 per month; enterprise implementation, $12,000 to $20,000, plus $1,500 to $2,500 monthly fee
Bottom line: iUpload automates the publishing process with flexible workflows, in-context visual editing, and automated functions including link updating. Content Manager Version 5 supports multiple sites and lets you repurpose content for different venues, such as intranets or wireless. It has a fairly robust e-marketing campaign manager but lacks version control.
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Macromedia Web Publishing System 1.0
Macromedia
Very Good, 7.9
Cost: Starter 10-Pack, $2,495; 100-Pack, $24,990
Bottom line: Macromedia WPS is a practical alternative to traditional CMSes, or it can extend existing publishing systems. It does a very good job meeting the needs of Web developers, IT managers, and business professionals. Users easily publish to the Web in a centrally controlled, multiplatform environment.
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Microsoft Visio 2003 Professional
Microsoft Corp.
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: $499
Bottom line: Microsoft extends Visio 2003 in many directions, shrinking file sizes significantly and improving the basic drawing tools. Although still a tad bloated and missing the auto-discovery tools of prior versions, this is the ubiquitous diagramming tool?s best incarnation yet.
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SilkRoad Eprise 2004
SilkRoadTechnology
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: Starts at $67,000; Software as a Service version, starts at $2,500 per month
Bottom line: Eprise 2004 distributes Web content management among nontechnical users. Dynamic content customization for each visitor continues to be a strong point for Eprise. This version significantly boosts performance, especially in large configurations, and integrates well with other applications.
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Thunderstone Search Appliance Version 5
Thunderstone Software LLC
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: Searching 250,000 documents, $10,000; searching 1 million documents, $20,000
Bottom line: Thunderstone gives you a quickly deployed, affordable solution for adding search results to Internet or intranet sites. It handles more than 45 queries a second, making it appropriate for larger sites. Efficient indexing returns relevant results from a variety of file types, but the admin UI could be improved.
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Xythos Software WebFile Server, Version 4.1
Xythos Software Inc.
Excellent, 8.6
Cost: Xythos WebFile Server, Document Manager, and 500 WebFile Server and WebFile Client user licenses, starts at $50,000
Bottom line: WebFile Server is a good choice for enterprise document management, because it is easy to install and maintain and provides excellent client accessibility. For local and remote users, documents are securely maintained with versioning and event logging available.
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Databases
IBM DB2 Everyplace Enterprise 8.1.4
Excellent, 8.8
Cost: Database Edition, $49; Express Edition, $79 per user plus $379 server license; Enterprise Edition, $15,000 per processor; SDK, free download
Bottom line: DB2 Everyplace is easy to set up; creating and managing users and subscriptions are equally straightforward. It?s an excellent choice for an organization that must have mobile database operations right away but that wants room to grow into more elaborate, customized mobile database apps.
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db4o 2.9
db4objects Inc.
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: Personal, $100; corporate development licenses, $1,000 on a yearly membership basis
Bottom line: A small object-oriented database, db4o is a snap to code with and scales extremely well. The query mechanism takes a bit of getting used to but grows on you. For all its peculiarities, db4o is remarkably powerful.
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FastObjects .Net
FastObjects Inc.
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: FastObjects .Net SKD, $3,000 per developer seat; run-time pricing depends on type and quantity
Bottom line: A top-of-the-line, object-oriented database engine comes to .Net, which will make OODBMS (object-oriented database management system) fans very happy. FastObjects .Net integrates smoothly into .Net development; its implementation is solid and fast.
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IBM DB2 8.2
Very Good, 8.0
Cost: DB2 Express Server Edition, $624; DB2 Enterprise Server Edition, $33,000 per CPU
Bottom line: DB2?s new self-tuning capabilities help maximize server performance. Backup enhancements reduce resource usage. DB2 also now learns from your workload and saves execution plans of related queries. It improves HADR (High Availability Disaster Recovery) with automatic log shipping and client redirect.
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Imceda LiteSpeed for SQL Server, Version 3.1
Imceda Software Inc.
Excellent, 8.6
Cost: Starts at $599 per server (single CPU)
Bottom line: LiteSpeed is an agentless and cluster-aware backup solution for Microsoft SQL Server databases. Extremely fast and intuitive, and providing 128-bit encryption and a tremendous compression ratio, it will easily pay for itself in storage savings alone.
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Lumigent Entegra for SQL Server 2.0.2
Lumigent Technologies Inc.
Very Good, 7.5
Cost: As tested, $16,000, including Entegra Base System ($10,000), Sentry Module ($1,000), and Privacy Module ($5,000)
Bottom line: Entegra doesn?t come cheap, and you?ll need a third-party reporting tool to get rich reports. For companies falling under strict compliance guidelines, however, it can provide enterprise-class auditing on hundreds of servers without severely affecting the performance of the product environment.
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Oracle Database 10g Release 1
Oracle Corp.
Excellent, 8.8
Cost: Standard Edition, $300 per user license or $15,000 per CPU; Enterprise Edition, $800 per user license or $40,000 per CPU
Bottom line: Oracle Database 10g?s new features may change the way enterprises use and manage databases. Its grid management capabilities allow servers to be dynamically allocated among business processes, and automated admin functions make it much easier to manage database servers.
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PointBase Micro 5.0
PointBase Inc.
Very Good, 8.5
Cost: $299 per seat
Bottom line: It?s hard to imagine how the database-engine portion of an application could get any smaller. PointBase Micro 5.0 is easy to configure, and remote loading moves data and code quickly. If you?re a relational database management system guru, this is the one for you.
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Quest Central 4.0
Quest Software Inc.
Very Good, 8.2
Cost: Single server running SQL Server, starts at $1,495; single server running DB2, starts at $6,552; single server running Oracle, starts at $11,800
Bottom line: Quest Central lets you generate data, write and troubleshoot SQL statements, manage security and jobs, and diagnose performance issues all from one interface. The tools are intuitive and extremely powerful but may be too pricey for some shops.
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Sleepycat Berkeley DB XML
Sleepycat Software
Very Good, 8.5
Cost: Free download for single-site use; licenses required for multiple-site use
Bottom line: Berkeley DB XML is a set of libraries for application builders, and those application builders won?t be disappointed by its sturdy, clever performance and open source characteristics. It?s hard to knock Berkeley DB off its feet, and Berkeley DB XML rides nicely on its shoulders.