[caption id="attachment_2836" align="aligncenter" width="518"] Attunity's Replicate software.[/caption] Attunity and EMC have partnered on a data-replication solution for the EMC Greenplum Unified Analytics Platform, both companies announced July 24. Attunity’s Replicate software allows organizations to load data more efficiently in data warehouses, make copies of production databases, lower downtime associated with migrations and upgrades, and offload queries from operational systems. It allows for heterogeneous and homogeneous data replication. In theory, when Attunity is paired with EMC Greenplum Unified Analytics Platform, the combined solution will give companies a way to mine data in a timely manner. Evidently, there’s a demand out there for processing information with all due speed; a recent IDC survey indicated that merely a quarter of organizations are satisfied with the effectiveness of their particular analytics solution. “Big data is forcing business process and organizational changes that many people in an organization may be reluctant to embrace,” Dan Vesset, an IDC analyst, wrote in a statement. “However, complacency is not an option. Enterprises must rise to the challenge of managing Big Data.” Earlier in July, rumors floated that EMC would spin off the Greenplum data-analytics property, which would combine with EMC subsidiary VMware’s cloud properties to form a new cloud-centric company. VMware executives shot down the idea in an internal memo obtained by CRN.

Data Retention

Attunity and EMC’s announcement comes on the heels of Dell announcing that it would combine its DX Object Storage Platform with data-retention software from RainStor, creating a platform for efficient data retention and retrieval. DX Object Storage Platform and RainStor technology offer an average data compression ratio of up to 40:1, according to Dell. The solution would be further enhanced with the addition of Dell’s Fluid Data architecture, which allows for the efficient access and movement of large data sets. As companies wrestle with storing and analyzing more and more data, there’s been an attendant rise in need for applications capable of handling those tasks. That’s a potential goldmine for IT vendors, but it’s a space fraught with competitive risk as more solutions appear on seemingly a weekly basis.   Image: Attunity