Powerline: The Official SQL Power Newsletter

2007 | Q3 | Wednesday, Sept. 12

in this issue:

Articles
SQL Power Architect Surpasses 10,000 Downloads
Technology Showcase: Infobright's BrightHouse

Company News
Breakfast Seminar: Break Free from Proprietary Business Intelligence Software
The New & Improved SQL Power Website
Amazing Race Report
New Employees

Just For Fun
Ode to Golf
The SQL Side

Letter from the President

Q3/2007 was a busy and exciting time for SQL Power - we had several Production rollouts for our clients, added key individuals to our organization, revamped our marketing image, expanded our consulting team and still maintained our stellar reputation and corporate culture!

For years SQL Power focused on substance with very little marketing fan-fare. This quarter, we've decided to broadcast our expertise and achievement by unveiling a new corporate logo, a new web-site and updated marketing collateral (courtesy of our exceptional Marketing group).

We also decided to share our expertise globally by Open Sourcing our powerful Data Modeling and Data Profiling tool, the SQL Power Architect, on 7/7/07 - making SQL Power the first-to-market with a cross-platform, Open Source data modeling tool with ETL integration. The SQL Power Architect Open Source launch was extremely successful, generating over 10,000 downloads in just under 7 weeks!

Our consulting team continues to be regarded as one of the best in Toronto. The recent rollout of our Data Warehouse Doctor, Rapid BI and gDashboard packaged services now allows new customers to quickly experience SQL Power's consulting expertise and unique value-add first hand.

Attached please find our Quarterly Newsletter (the Powerline) further detailing recent SQL Power events, our upcoming Break Free from Proprietary BI Software Breakfast Seminar featuring guest speaker André Boisvert on September 20th - an in-depth look at how to recover a substantial portion of your annual BI Budget.

Hope to see you all at our highly anticipated September 20th Seminar!

Best Regards,
Sam P. Selim
President
SQL Power Group Inc.

SQL Power Architect surpasses 10,000 downloads in just 7 weeks!

SQL Power Architect raises the standard for data modeling tools

SQL Power Architect is Embraced by Data Modelers Everywhere
Since it's highly-anticipated Open Source release on 7-7-07, the SQL Power Architect Data Modeling Tool has been downloaded over 10,000 times by users across the globe. The 10,000 download mark was reached on August 25, just 7 weeks after it's release.

SQL Power Architect (the only java-based open source data modelling tool with ETL integration) has received accolades from all around the world, and the kudos keep pouring in: The SQL Power Architect "delivered an ERD which is as well laid out as I have seen: even high end tools I've tried couldn't make any better job of it in the first pass." -scotdb, Diary of a Database Geek (blogs.ittoolbox.com). The SQL Power Architect is being downloaded and acclaimed by Mac, Windows & Unix users alike, and is also gaining popularity as a lower-cost alternative to proprietary data modelling tools such as Erwin.

So Why Go Open Source?
SQL Power believes that database productivity tools are becoming a commodity. There are in fact several good open source alternatives to most proprietary database tools, and the industry is slowly starting to adopt them because they offer superior value. Experts in the field believe that Open Source software is the future for Data Warehouse & Business Intelligence projects, because clients can take the money they used to spend on license fees and use it towards value-adding development.

That's why SQL Power is choosing Open Source as the best course of evolution for their already-popular data modelling tool. "By embracing the open source model, we are leveraging the efforts of a vast world-wide community," says Sam Selim, president of SQL Power. "This allows us to focus more on our consulting while still maintaining our world-class productivity tools." And it's already working: input from worldwide users has been driving the development and making the SQL Power Architect more reliable & powerful every day.

SQL Power Architect Links
For more information on SQL Power Architect, visit the links below.

Free download: www.sqlpower.ca/page/architect

SQL Power Architect Forum: www.sqlpower.ca/forum

Google Code project page: code.google.com/p/power-architect

Articles & reviews: www.sqlpower.ca/page/news_PAopensource

Technology Showcase:

Infobright's BrightHouse delivers breakthrough performance and 10:1 data compression with a simplified Data Warehouse

Data Warehouses are Strained
More than ever, organizations must use information to gain a competitive advantage. This has resulted in an explosion in data volume growth and a dramatically increased demand to access data. Data warehouses of 5TB to 20TB are now common, and the cost and complexity associated with managing these huge databases is an important issue. Both business analysts doing deep analytics and operational users doing fast queries are experiencing performance issues as warehouse managers struggle to handle an increasingly diverse workload.

Infobright's Solution
Infobright provides solutions for companies that need to analyze very large amounts of data quickly and efficiently to make better, faster business decisions. Infobright's unique technology allows business analysts the flexibility to rapidly respond to changes in their business environment.

Infobright's solutions deliver breakthrough performance without the complexity and administration requirements of traditional data warehouse solutions. Infobright's solutions aim to make the warehouse environment less complicated.

BrightHouse
BrightHouse (Infobright's flagship product) is an analytic data warehouse that provides high-performance analytics across terabytes of data. It was specifically designed to perform well on complex analytic or ad-hoc queries. BrightHouse can be deployed as a standalone solution, or alongside a general-purpose data warehouse to provide business analysts an environment where they have unrestricted access to large amounts of data for complex analysis.

BrightHouse features:
• High-performance on complex analytic queries across terabytes of data
• Complements existing warehousing environments on Oracle, Teradata, or others
• 10:1 compression (10TB raw = 1TB in BrightHouse) for a smaller, easier to manage database with improved query performance
• Low Total Cost of Ownership – fast install/set-up, no indexes to create, and runs on existing or commodity hardware
• Integrates with existing BI tools

For more information on Infobright technology, visit www.infobright.com.

MEET THE NEW POWER TRIO.
Introducing 3 powerful new BI/DW solutions from the experts at SQL Power:

Fully integrated with Google Maps and Pentaho Open Source BI

Regular check-ups to keep your BI Environment running at peak efficiency

Rapidly delivers reliable BI Metrics in just 30 days

Amazing Race Report

Canada’s Wonderland, August 17 2007
It was a sunny but cool Friday morning that saw 15 teams gather at the gates of Wonderland, breathless with anticipation as they poured over their instruction sheets. Glancing suspiciously at the other teams, they huddled up, discussing strategy and programming their phones – then came the starting whistle, and they were off!

Running through the park, gathering information, going on rides and solving puzzles, the teams displayed ingenuity and killer instincts as they battled for the win.

Finally, as the skies grew grey and overcast, the teams gathered at the finish line to turn in their answers and learn their fate. While everyone amazed us with their ability to find lucrative loopholes, only one team could win (though all contestants won fabulous prizes!)

Afterwards, the teams all gathered at the popular watering hole Wegz for food, drinks and billiards - and to compare notes and see what they might have done better. All in all, the 2nd Annual SQL Power Amazing Race was a smash hit and we were thrilled to be able to share it with all of you.

Amazing Race Pics

Congratulations to all the winners, and we hope everyone had a great time! We'll definitely have to make next year's race a lot more challenging now that we know what kind of brilliant minds we're up against!

For more photos of some of the more memorable Amazing Race moments, go to:
www.sqlpower.ca/ar2007.html

Amazing Race FAQ

Speed Statistics
The total race completion time for each team, as estimated by SQL Power's MISSION CONTROL Amazing Race Administrators, should have been about 270 minutes from start to finish. However, the winning team completed the course in only 57 minutes! Even the slowest team to complete this year's Amazing Race clocked in at only 140 minutes, still nearly twice as fast as the estimated time. It's always interesting to see the clever tricks contestants will resort to when winning is the only option!

Legacy of the Amazing Race
The original Amazing Race has been on the air since 2001 and is one of the longest-running reality TV shows, with official spin-offs in Europe, Asia and Brazil. The series has been awarded a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program every year since the category was created in 2003.

Welcome to SQL Power!
We are proud to welcome 2 new employees to SQL Power:

Consultant &
hockey-volleyball-soccer triple threat
Lily Singh

Lily has come aboard to strengthen two integral facets of SQL Power: our expert consulting team, and our Flying Monkeys soccer team.

Programmer &
gaming grand master
Jeffrey Mo

We look forward to J-Mo making many valuable contributions to our development team and demolishing all our Grodbots high scores.

Ode to Golf

I think that I shall never see
a hazard rougher than an tree;
A tree o'er which my ball must fly
if on the green it is to lie;
A tree which stands that green to guard,
and makes the shot extremely hard;
A tree whose leafy arms extend
to kill the six iron shot I send;
A tree that stands in silence there,
while angry golfers rave and swear.
Irons were made for fools like me
who cannot ever miss a tree.

The New & Improved SQL Power Website

If you’re a regular visitor to the SQL Power website, you will have noticed a lot of changes there recently. Aside from updating the graphics & colours to match our new visual identity, we've also improved the navigation features and added more useful content.

Recent upgrades include a new and improved navigation bar, a "Resources" section with instant access to BI/DW-related Articles & Frequently Asked Questions, and of course "The SQL Side" page.

...and don't forget to check out the new SQL Side comic!

POWERLINE | The Official SQL Power Newsletter | 2007 | Q3 | Friday, Aug. 31

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Powerline 2007 Q3