Event Summary
SAS Institute, a vendor which delivers integrated data warehousing, decision support, and information delivery software, has announced the production availability of SAS/Warehouse Administrator software, Version 2.1. Demonstrated at the Data Warehousing Institute conference in Boston, this new version, as stated by the vendor "makes it easier to build a data warehouse through a new collection of built-in transformation and data utilities that eliminate much of the previously required (i.e., manual) coding". With an open component-based architecture, improved data access and management capabilities, thin-client interfaces, and other enhancements, it is an important component of the new SAS software V8.1, and the vendor states that it lays the foundation for new e-intelligence solutions from SAS.
Market Impact
According to Frank Nauta, SAS Institute's Warehouse Administrator product manager, "IT and business users will find significant enhancements when building and designing warehouses and ETL (extraction, transformation and loading) processes. SAS/Warehouse Administrator is designed for the IT professional responsible for creating and managing data warehouse processes. It is a customizable solution that offers a single point of control making it easier to respond to the ever-changing needs of the business community. All the while, SAS/Warehouse Administrator is creating a new corporate asset called metadata which documents all the processes involved in deploying your data warehouse."
He continued his explanation of the product with "SAS Integration Technologies provides support for distributed object models, open systems messaging and object middleware, and enterprise directories. It also includes a new publishing framework for automated information delivery through subscribers and channels."
Needless to say, despite the quote from Mr. Nauta, they haven't created metadata (generally defined as "data about data", either at the database schema level or the business process level), it's been around for a long time. What SAS has accomplished is to integrate many of the pieces of the warehouse process into one suite, much as Oracle has attempted to do with Oracle Warehouse Builder (for more information see "Oracle Warehouse Builder: Better Late than Never?"). SAS Institute can give Oracle and other "integrated data warehouse suite" vendors, such as Microsoft, a run for their money if they calculate their pricing and sales strategy properly.
User Recommendations
Companies looking at the capability to "two-stop-shop" for data warehouse tools should include the SAS Institute on their short list. SAS has long been known for their capabilities in the data-mining arena, and has expanded into most of the rest of the data-warehousing world. They are not a major player in the database engine area (i.e., Oracle, Microsoft, IBM).
The SAS Institute is currently the largest privately held software company in the world, although there have been numerous rumors around the industry that they may be strongly considering going public in the near future. TEC does not feel that this possibility affects either their short-term or long-term viability. They also have one of the lowest employee turnover rates in the industry.