BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE ANALYTICS

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1 SOLUTION BRIEF > > CONNECTIVITY BUSINESS SOLUTIONS FOR INTELLIGENCE FINANCIAL SERVICES ANALYTICS

2 1 INTRODUCTION It s no secret that the banking and financial services institutions of today are driven by data. More specifically, their daily business is dependent on seamless internal or external exchange of transactional data lots of transactional data. Gone are the days of the terabyte, as the petabyte now lives at the top of the digital food chain. And if it hasn t already occurred, the zettabyte will soon dominate the data landscape especially when it comes to banking and financial services. The age of Big Data is here and it is here to stay. The size of Big Data can be relative to the size of the financial institution. Regardless, for banks and financial services providers, the volume of data they generate, consume, store, and access will increase exponentially year over year. Moreover, not only is volume increasing, but data complexity is ramping up in parallel, as is the speed at which data flows into the enterprise. And certainly in the interconnected world of today, security is an utmost concern. More and more, high-profile security breaches are impacting reputable companies. For example, eight out of the nine most costly breaches have occurred since In short, four Big Data factors Volume, Variety, Velocity, and Vulnerability hold deep operational implications. And as a result, secure, reliable, real-time data connectivity solutions are now, and will continue to be, a core business requirement for banks and financial service providers today and certainly in the years to come. THE IMPORTANCE OF MIDDLEWARE PROGRESS DATADIRECT CONNECT To get started down the path toward realizing the many benefits of Big Data for the enterprise, banks and financial services organizations must first consider the ever-so-critical arena of database connectivity and the growing requirements regarding high-performance, secure access. Progress DataDirect Connect drivers are function-rich and high value, providing security, quality, performance, and full standards compliance

3 2 for consistency across all databases throughout banking systems. The differentiating functions of DataDirect Connect drivers include: > > High performance built on the rock-solid foundation of DataDirect s wire protocol drivers for high-end performance and efficiency. > > Standardized DataDirect drivers are fully compliant and standardized for ODBC and JDBC. > > Multiple platform support Windows, Linux, AIX, and HP-UX with world class stability and reliability through industry-leading quality assurance and technical support. > > Breadth & Depth DataDirect drivers provide robust, standards-based functionality with extensive API, Database, version, and platform coverage. > > Production Ready DataDirect has an extensive customer base, a bullet-proof testing infrastructure, and award-winning technical support. > > Quality DataDirect drivers are proven high quality. The value-add features and function of the DataDirect solutions reinforce the ROI gained from using the drivers. Performance and resource utilization are key differentiators for the DataDirect products. BULK LOADING In any bulk load use case scenario, database connectivity is the cornerstone of performance. Over the years, technology vendors made great strides in database optimization as well as the performance of processors and other hardware-based server components. As a result, the performance bottleneck moved to the database middleware the software drivers that provide connectivity between applications and databases. The most popular commercial databases all include data connectivity components ODBC and JDBC drivers or ADO.NET data providers at no additional charge. The open source community, too, offers data connectivity

4 3 software. Attracted to the price tag, architects often use these free or open source components by default when connecting a particular database to various applications. By choosing the free options, architects are choosing drivers that have not been retooled for today s business data volumes. And when working with Big Data and bulk loading, the use of such free, but performance-limiting, data connectivity components can actually cost organizations more than they anticipate. In fact, within the context of bulk loading Big Data, if data connectivity middleware is not designed for maximum streamlined and efficient functionality, database driver performance is a critical risk factor within Big Data use case scenarios. Moreover, only when these organizations employ next-generation data connectivity technologies such as Progress DataDirect Connect ODBC and JDBC drivers or ADO.NET data providers do they: > > Guarantee the availability of any size data from any source. > > Manage single-driver connectivity to a wide array of enterprise databases and platforms. > > Deliver the best possible bulk load performance, scalability and reliability. > > Deploy with no application code changes or database vendor tools. Customer at a Glance Lloyds TSB Bank Lloyds TSB Bank leverages Fidelity Information Services Advanced Commercial Banking System (ACBS) to automate and streamline loan processing. However, ODBC traffic accounts for the majority of performance issues seen within ACBS batch environment. Performance monitoring highlighted excessive ODBC round trips. A typical batch run can incurs some 13 million ODBC round trips between the ACBS application server and database. This increases to around 19 million at month end. The volume of traffic is typically 20GB requested by the client from the server with 5GB being sent to the server from the client. This increases at month end by around 40%. Fidelity recommended and offered support for the DataDirect ODBC driver to Lloyds. Lloyds is now using DataDirect Connect for ODBC to connect to Oracle. On average we observed around 22% performance gain which reduces an average batch run by around an hour. > > Reduce the time, cost and risk of making new data sets available to enterprise users. OPTIMIZING PERFORMANCE In a well-tuned application, up to 90% of data access time is spent in the data connectivity middleware. Yet data connectivity is one of the most overlooked areas when it comes to optimizing application performance. Database drivers (for ODBC, JDBC, or ADO.NET) influence application performance on many levels by impacting the amount of disk I/O, network

5 4 I/O, CPU efficiency, and memory usage. In fact, many application performance issues are actually bottlenecks caused by a poor quality driver. Very often the same application could support more users with the same hardware resources or return results faster simply by using a highperformance database driver. Choosing a high-performance database driver can benefit all types of banking or financial services applications, but offers particular benefits for: > > Mission-critical business applications. > > Applications that handle very large amounts of data. > > Multi-user, server-based application deployments. > > Applications running over slow, or high latency network topologies. > > Applications running within a virtualized server environment. DataDirect customers typically see a 20%-500% application performance improvement over competitive drivers. These advantages are critical to customers who need to comply with service-level agreements (SLAs) with regard to application response time and user satisfaction. That s because DataDirect drivers: > > Don t require database client libraries. Eliminating this extra layer of communication dramatically improves application response time, throughput, and scalability. > > Use network, memory, and CPU resources efficiently. > > Come with many tunable performance features. Examples of such features include bulk load, connection and statement pooling, load balancing, batching and throughput optimization, and more, all of which can be implemented without costly application code changes. > > Are rigorously tested and optimized for performance and scalability.

6 5 OPTIMIZING PERFORMANCE Unlike other alternative drivers, DataDirect Connect includes comprehensive security mechanisms as standard features, making it easy to provide robust application security. These security features ensure secure data exchange and address potential security vulnerabilities inherent in database access and networks without compromising usability. DataDirect Connect helps banking and financial services companies reduce risk and secure information assets by enforcing authorization control and by protecting data that is transmitted across the network. > > OS Authentication DataDirect Connect includes de facto industry standard OS authentication via the Kerberos and NTLM protocols, which integrate seamlessly into a Single Sign-On environment. This eliminates the need for multiple logins, user IDs, system IDs and for users to log in separately for each application. > > Network Data Encryption With DataDirect Connect, data exchanged between the application and the database is encrypted automatically using the TLS / SSL encryption standard or native database encryption. This significantly reduces the risks associated with the most common data thefts. > > Secure Architecture The design of DataDirect middleware reinforces application security because it eliminates the need for database client libraries, which effectively eliminates a point of vulnerability. BIG DATA DESERVING OF SUPERIOR DATA CONNECTIVITY Big Data is here to stay there is no denying this fact. And as banking and financial services institutions attempt to reap the benefits of Big Data, they must come to grips with the inherent limitations of most of the existing data connectivity tools on the market today. They must embrace the fact that Big Data and all of its potential to improve everyday intelligence and operations are deserving of a more robust,

7 6 yet flexible approach to database access. Only in doing so are they able to develop and deploy an advanced data architecture that enables the seamless and uninterrupted flow of Big Data throughout the enterprise. DataDirect Connect is the industry leader when it comes to highperformance, scalable, and reliable data access. DataDirect Connect ODBC and JDBC drivers and ADO.NET data providers are best-in-class technologies that deliver unrivaled functionality and superior runtime performance across all major databases and application deployment platforms. Moreover, by offering a more resource-efficient methodology to data access, DataDirect Connect enables enterprise organizations to realize the bottom-line benefits of complementary technologies such as virtualization. As volume, variety, and velocity continue to grow, Big Data presents an array of challenges for enterprise IT organizations. One thing is for sure, Big Data is here to stay, and with DataDirect Connect, Big Data immediately becomes an organizational asset, rather than an operational liability.

8 PROGRESS DATADIRECT Progress DataDirect is the only comprehensive provider of software for connecting the world s most critical business applications to data and services, running on any platform, using proven and emerging standards. Developers worldwide depend on DataDirect products to connect their applications to an unparalleled range of data sources using standards-based interfaces such as ODBC, JDBC and ADO.NET, XQuery and SOAP. More than 300 leading independent software vendors and thousands of enterprises rely on Progress DataDirect to simplify and streamline data connectivity for distributed systems and to reduce the complexity of mainframe integration. PROGRESS SOFTWARE Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global enterprise software company that enables businesses to be operationally responsive to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur to capitalize on new opportunities, drive greater efficiencies and reduce risk. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of best-inclass enterprise software spanning event-driven visibility and real-time response, open integration, data access and integration, and application development and deployment all supporting on-premises and SaaS/Cloud deployments. Progress maximizes the benefits of operational responsiveness while minimizing IT complexity and total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at or WORLDWIDE HEADQUARTERS Progress Software Corporation, 14 Oak Park, Bedford, MA USA Tel: Fax: On the Web at: Find us on facebook.com/progresssw twitter.com/datadirect_news youtube.com/progresssw blogs.datadirect.com/feed blogs.datadirect.com plus.google.com/ linkedin.com/in/progressdatadirect For regional international office locations and contact information, please go to Progress, DataDirect, DataDirect Connect, DataDirect Connect for JBDC, DataDirect Connect for ODBC and Business Making Progress are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation or one of its affiliates or subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Specifications subject to change without notice Progress Software Corporation and/or its subsidiaries or affiliates. All rights reserved.