Sagent ships Sagent Solution 4.5i delivering 50 percent or greater performance increase

Susan Andre2001

Sagent, a leading provider of Business Intelligence solutions, today announced the general availability of Sagent Solution version 4.5i. With this new version, Sagent enhances performance by 50 percent or more and introduces iStudio, the industry's first Web reporting solution that leverages parallel data flow and Web server technologies to deliver the power of analytical transformation libraries to every user within an organization. Featuring a thin-client user interface, iStudio allows users to quickly create and share sophisticated queries, reports and multidimensional OLAP views. iStudio is a "zero administration" product that dramatically decreases the cost of developing and deploying enterprise business intelligence solutions.

Performance optimization in Sagent Solution 4.5i allows customers to increase both the size and availability of their data warehouse. Existing hardware configurations can process twice the amount of data in the same time, benefiting applications with increasing volume requirements or the need to shorten daily load windows. Even more dramatic performance is achieved when additional processors are brought to bear. Sagent's automatic threading model allows customers to execute massively parallel data transformations on Solaris and Windows 2000. Initial benchmarks conducted with the assistance of Sun Microsystems validate Sagent's linear scalability on SMP servers. For example, on a Sun Microsystems mid-range server, Sagent can comfortably transform and load more than 100GB of data per day into an Oracle database.

"Sagent Solution 4.5i is the first in a series of releases designed to provide a complete, open and thin BI solution," said Ben Barnes, president and CEO, Sagent. "Our product roadmap deepens and extends our traditional end-to-end value proposition with a new focus on enterprise-class performance and the ability to integrate our solutions with products from other leading BI and CRM vendors. Our 'complete and open' strategy makes 4.5i the preferred platform for OEMs and companies who need to rapidly develop cost-effective analytical applications and deliver them to large user populations."
Otis Educational Systems, a developer of educational solutions that address the data warehousing, decision support, workflow and reporting requirements of today's school systems, and MedInitiatives, a health care technology company focused on the development and management of decision support solutions for its customers, are two Sagent partners who have experienced the benefits of the Sagent Solution 4.5i, and iStudio in particular.

"Sagent has proven again that they are a solutions company that understands their customer," said Greg Newcom, vice president of engineering, Otis Educational Systems, Inc. "Our summary findings of the 4.5i release are a resounding positive as Sagent has addressed key issues with past version support and compatibility, increased scalability and increased functionality for both the designer as well as the end-user."

Newcom added: "In addition to compatibility and scalability, Sagent has not forgotten the end-user. iStudio is a quantum leap in Web-based ad-hoc query tools that are completely integrated with the total back-end solution. We are looking forward to providing complex analysis capability to our user base with very little deployment cost."

"Sagent's 4.5i release provided a 150 percent plus improvement in data load performance, which reduced internal efforts and decreased processing time for running data views," said Michael Tucker, vice president, technology solutions, MedInitiatives. "This is a direct benefit for our customers. With iStudio, we have developed an unparalleled health care analytical application with wizard-like ad hoc functionality that delivers three-dimensional views of key claim data for our customers."

Sagent

Sagent's suite of enterprise Business Intelligence solutions enables companies to measurably impact their business by implementing highly successful customer relationship and financial management initiatives.

Through Sagent's powerful enabling technologies, organizations can easily and rapidly turn company data into relevant information that can be used for effective decision-making, analysis and reporting. Information can be extracted from multiple sources (internal and external), optimized for decision support and delivered in a customized format for Web-based or client applications.

Even the most complex analytic application can be developed in weeks, not months.

More than 1,500 companies have selected Sagent software to enhance customer retention, cross-sell/up-sell, improve customer service, increase efficiencies of marketing campaigns, streamline business operations, analyze financials, and reduce costs.

Customers include AT&T, BP Amoco, Boeing Employees Credit Union, Bristol Meyers, British Telecom, California State Automobile Association, Citibank, GPU Energy, Hughes Aircraft Employees Federal Credit Union, Johnson & Johnson (UK), Kemper National Insurance, Provident Central Credit Union, Safeway and Siemens.

Sagent retains strategic relationships with partners such as Advent Software, Commerce One, Compaq, EDS, IBM, Microsoft, NEC, SAS and Sun Microsystems. Sagent is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and can be reached at www.sagent.com.

"Sagent" and "Sagent Solution" are trademarks of Sagent Technology, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.