03/23/2004

ObjectStore, a division of Progress Software (Nasdaq: PRGS) providing products and services to manage data in real-time, unveiled ObjectCache Version 2.0, with its new Data Source Synchronization (DSS) capability to integrate with corporate databases.

“ObjectCache extends corporate databases non-invasively to improve the scalability and performance of the systems that depend on them, and to add new services based on high performance access to existing data,” ObjectStore says. “ObjectCache provides middle-tier data cache management that allows rigid back-end systems to be extended. It is ideal for multi-tier architectures that require high-performance and transactionally consistent distributed data. Representative use cases include managing reference data for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) applications, new customer care services in telecommunications, front office applications in financial services, or any new applications that need to extend data from existing applications to support new functionality.

“ObjectCache Version 2.0 introduces DSS, which allows applications to identify part or all of an existing corporate database to be cached in the middle tier. That data is kept transactionally consistent - changes to the cache are transparently synchronized with the data source, and vice versa.

“ObjectCache also features the patented Cache-Forward™ architecture, which allows heterogeneous, distributed middle-tier caches to share data, with full transactional support for reads, writes, updates and deletes. Cached data is accessed at in-memory speeds for dramatic improvements in performance and scalability. Additionally, ObjectCache allows derived data to be created and stored in the middle tier, which enables new services to be added that extend existing systems.”

ObjectStore continued: “Orange PCS, the UK's leading mobile communications company, is using ObjectCache as part of a real-time customer service operation that receives 60 million inquiries every year, with 750 million calls handled by its interactive voice response system. With ObjectCache, Orange has extended exponentially the utility of its customer data to support the transaction requirements of tens of millions of subscriber interactions handled by its multi-site call center operation.”

"By caching customer data from our existing system, we have quickly added new services, provided sub-second response for automated self-service, helped our systems cope with rapid subscriber growth from 2 million to 13.6 million and preserved existing customer care technology investments-all at the same time," said James Conroy, common integration services manager, Orange UK.

“By distributing middle-tier caches,” says ObjectStore, “ObjectCache allows applications to scale in a predictable fashion, with no additional stress on the enterprise's corporate data sources. Customers can leverage existing investments while deploying more cost-effective hardware and software in the middle tier. Finally, ObjectCache supports multiple application server architectures - including support for J2EE® application servers like BEA and WebSphere, and CORBA application middle tier servers. This heterogeneous architecture ensures flexibility and scalability in deployment.

”ObjectCache provides a 10 to 1000 times boost in performance over files or relational caching methods through its patented Virtual Memory Mapping Architecture (VMMA), which simplifies a developer's need to hand-code scalable cache management functionality. The VMMA takes advantage of the fact that data can be accessed 1,000 times faster from memory than from disk and by mapping data and database locks into the application's virtual memory, thereby allowing database operations to occur at the speed of memory access. ObjectCache's DSS automatically transfers data from the back-end to the middle-tier cache, where it is managed by the VMMA; changes to cached data are automatically transferred back to the database of record.”

"Customers today need to do more with less, and ObjectCache is designed to help customers get more out of their existing data management investment without replacing it. While, at the same time, they're able to increase their performance and scalability by a factor of 10, or in some cases, by 1000 times," said Peter Sliwkowski, general manager, ObjectStore. "ObjectCache is ideal for environments with distributed data that require real time updates, extreme scalability, and little to no latency between tiers. Now, with the addition of Data Source Synchronization, ObjectCache provides the most comprehensive, complementary caching solution available."

ObjectCache 2.0 will be commercially available in April. ObjectCache supports data caching requirements for applications written in either C++ or Java®, as well as a range of infrastructure platforms, including Linux, Windows, and Solaris, and back-end databases, including Oracle.