July 23, 2008, Chicopee, MA – Knowledge Integration Dynamics (KID), a Johannesburg-based company that delivers high-performance business intelligence, data warehousing, data integration, and data management solutions, has concluded a system integrator partnership agreement with U.S.-headquartered Apatar to distribute its open source data integration suite in South Africa. KID will use, consult, train, and offer support services for the Apatar integration package that offers a single interface into all integration projects across Mac OS, Windows, and Linux using an open source architecture and modular applications that deliver flexible deployment options.

The growing need for data integration across corporate South Africa

“South Africa is a quickly developing region and it is very important for us to fill the open source data integration niche,” says Sergei Lobanov, Alliance Enabler at Apatar. “With its presence in the South African market, KID, with the help of Apatar, will be able to satisfy customer requirements to integrate legacy and modern systems, applications, and databases through a proven track record of data quality services.”

Apatar already has in excess of 100 users in South Africa and expects KID to rapidly expand its penetration of the local market. KID is Apatar’s first South African partner, opening new opportunities and advantages for both parties. The companies reveal their main target is small and mid-sized companies in South Africa that have a need for a free, easy-to-use extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool.

“The growing need for data integration across corporate South Africa, from the smallest to the largest companies, necessitates an open source tool that operates in a number of environments and offers customers the greatest flexibility,” said Julian Field, Business Development Director at KID. “Apatar is at the forefront of the open source wave with an impressive international track record and a number of successful and highly recommended implementations.”

Benefits to South African business users

Two of the major benefits of Apatar are its visual job designer and visual transformation mapper, which are… Read more…

Apatar Controls Number of Scheduled Data Integration Launches

October 9, 2008, Chicopee, MA – The Apatar Team added a counter to limit the number of transformation launches within the Scheduling application of the Apatar Open Source Data Integration solution. The new feature allows Apatar users to specify how many times the transformation should run before it stops. Apatar users will find the new feature particularly useful whenever synchronization needs to occur multiple times throghout a specified time interval. That way, instead of having Apatar run constantly and check the same data over and over, users can set synchronization to run only whenever it is convenient and/or there is a need for it.

See the Scheduling user guide to learn more about the feature:

http://apatarforge.org/wiki/display/ADM/Scheduling

Apatar Open Source Data Integration features and benefits:

- No coding! Visual job designer and mapping enable non-developers to design and perform transformations, shortening implementation time
- Distributed under an open source model, reducing integration and maintenance costs
- Connectivity to Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, GoldMine, DB2, Sybase, PostgreSQL, dBase, EnterpriseDB, vTiger, InnoDB, Vertica Analytic Databse, Openbravo ERP, Compiere ERP, .CSV, XML, RSS, ATOM, HTTP queries, POP3, LDAP, FTP, WebDav, Autodesk Buzzsaw, any JDBC data sources, Amazon S3, Flickr, StrikeIron and CDYNE data quality Web services, and more
- Job scheduler and synchronization automate the data integration process
- Improves data quality with a variety of verification, filtration, and validation features
- Users have the ability to create, share, and re-use pre-built data transformations and publish data integration output as a custom RSS feed to ApatarForge, the online Apatar community
- Platform-independent, runs from Windows, Linux, and Mac OS

About Apatar

Apatar is the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market. With powerful Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) capabilities, Apatar… Read more…

Apatar Data Integration Sums Up Multiple Field Values

September 11, 2008, Chicopee, MA – The Apatar Team announced the Sum function that enables adding multiple field values and creating total sum combinations. The new function allows Apatar users not only to find the sum of multiple field values automatically, but also to add up any given integer constant to a specified field value. Apatar users will find the new function particularly useful in generating reports, when a total of data from different fields needs to be found.

See the user guide to learn more about the Sum function: http://www.apatarforge.org/wiki/display/FUN/Sum+Function

Apatar Open Source Data Integration features and benefits:
- No coding! Visual job designer and mapping enable non-developers to design and perform transformations, shortening implementation time
- Distributed under an open source model, reducing integration and maintenance costs
- Connectivity to Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, GoldMine, DB2, Sybase, PostgreSQL, dBase, EnterpriseDB, vTiger, InnoDB, Vertica Analytic Databse, Openbravo ERP, Compiere ERP, .CSV, XML, RSS, ATOM, HTTP queries, POP3, LDAP, FTP, WebDav, Autodesk Buzzsaw, any JDBC data sources, Amazon S3, Flickr, StrikeIron and CDYNE data quality Web services, and more
- Job scheduler and synchronization automate the data integration process
- Improves data quality with a variety of verification, filtration, and validation features
- Users have the ability to create, share, and re-use pre-built data transformations and publish data integration output as a custom RSS feed to ApatarForge, the online Apatar community
- Platform-independent, runs from Windows, Linux, and Mac OS

About Apatar
Apatar is the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market. With powerful Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) capabilities, Apatar enables its users to easily link information between databases (such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle), applications (Salesforce.com, SugarCRM), and the top Web 2.0 destinations (Flickr, Amazon S3). Apatar provides support, training, and consulting services… Read more…

First Step of Apatar Refactoring Is Completed

August 15, 2008, Chicopee, MA – The Apatar Team announced today that the first step of Apatar refactoring is now completed. You may find a brief summary below.

Apatar refactoring: change log

1. Dependency between com.altoros.octoslave.thirdparty and com.altoros.octoslave.salesforcecom was eliminated.
2. Plug-ins were sorted by category: core, rich_ui_framework, connectors
3. funstion plug-in was renamed to functions
4. generaljdbs plug-in was renamed to ldap
5. All packages with names com.altoros.octoslave.PACKAGE_NAME were renamed to com.apatar.PACKAGE_NAME
6. Paths to plug-ins were simplified: com.apatar. was deleted from plug-in category folder names
7. mysql plug-in was divided into two: mysql and mssql
8. Unused msutil.jar library was deleted
9. postgresql plug-in was divided into two: postgresql and enterprisedb
10. xml plug-in was divided into two: xml and rss
11. OctoslaveMain class was renamed to ApatarUiMain
12. Node interface was analyzed and commented. Methods related to only the UI or only the code were defined.
13. Node interface was divided into two: Node and Node UI. Node UI now includes methods related only to UI. The node now includes methods related only to core.
14. AbstractReadWriteXMLDataActions class was added. This is the class that UI classes responsible for processing situations that require interactivity during loading or saving a project should be inherited from.
15. Exception class ApatarException was added.
16. ReadWriteXMLData class was refactored:
a) all writeXMLDate methods were renamed to writeXMLData
b) public static File writeXMLData(String fileSrc, Project project, boolean autoReplace) method now gives the following exception:
public static File writeXMLData(String fileSrc, Project project, boolean autoReplace) throws ApatarException
c) updatePane method was moved to com.apatar.ui.UiUtils
d) all readXMLDate methods were renamed to readXMLData
e) readXMLData method now returns file.getName() to caller. New method signature is:
public static String readXMLData(String fileSrc, Project project) throws SAXException, IOException This method now redirects IOException handling to caller code
This method now returns file.getName() string to set Application title
f) setDateAndTimeSettings method was… Read more…

Apatar Data Integration and Vertica Analytic Database Accelerate Corporate Data Analysis

New Apatar connector allows users to extract/load data from/to Vertica® Analytic Database, to improve data quality without any custom coding, and to deliver integrations across multiple data sources just in time.

August 6, 2008, Chicopee, MA - Apatar, Inc., the leading provider of open source tools for data integration, today announced connectivity to the Vertica Analytic Database, a high-performance, grid-based column-oriented database management system used for analytics and business intelligence. The new connector enables both developers and business users to migrate data between the Vertica Analytic Database and third-party applications without any custom coding and allows for this data to be filtered, validated, and cleansed.

Rapid and accurate analysis across a variety of data sources

According to Gartner, more than 25 percent of critical data in Fortune 1000 companies is inaccurate, incomplete, or duplicated, and three-quarters of large enterprises will make little to no progress towards improving data quality until 2010. While huge amounts of corporate data are scattered across enterprises and becoming outdated too rapidly, the connector for Vertica can help companies synchronize their most critical data before delivering it to decision-makers.

“Businesses are asking more questions against ever-growing volumes of data from multiple sources, so we are excited about our relationship with Apatar,” said Colin Mahony, Senior Director of Business Development for Vertica. “Vertica’s Analytic Database enables companies to store terabytes of information with blazingly fast query response times. With Apatar’s visual designer and integration tools, it becomes extremely easy to extract and load large volumes of data into Vertica quickly for rapid analysis.”

Provide the quality and completeness of information before it’s too late

Prior to entering into the Vertica Analytic Database, data can be filtered, validated, and cleansed using Apatar’s data quality capabilities. Now both Vertica users and administrators can de-duplicate data received from multiple sources, verify e-mail and postal addresses, check customer socio-economic parameters, and more. The ease… Read more…

Apatar Provides Connectivity to Force.com Sandbox

July 30, 2008, Chicopee, MA – The Apatar Team announced connectivity to Force.com Sandbox, which is a separate on-demand application environment where developers can build, test, and deploy Salesforce-related applications. The team confirmed that Apatar Data Integration can now successfully process Sandbox’s data using the connector for Salesforce.com.

Sandbox is commonly used by Salesforce.com customers for testing new customizations or features before rolling them out to users, trying out applications from the AppExchange directory, creating a development environment for building applications, and providing a training environment for employees. For more, please visit: http://www.salesforce.com/platform/application-development/development-and-test-enviorment/

Apatar Open Source Data Integration features and benefits:

- No coding! Visual job designer and mapping enable non-developers to design and perform transformations, shortening implementation time
- Distributed under an open source model, reducing integration and maintenance costs
- Connectivity to Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, GoldMine, DB2, Sybase, PostgreSQL, dBase, EnterpriseDB, vTiger, InnoDB, Openbravo ERP, Compiere ERP, .CSV, XML, RSS, ATOM, HTTP queries, POP3, LDAP, FTP, WebDav, Autodesk Buzzsaw, any JDBC data sources, Amazon S3, Flickr, StrikeIron and CDYNE data quality Web services, and more
- Job scheduler and synchronization automate the data integration process
- Improves data quality with a variety of verification, filtration, and validation features
- Users have the ability to create, share, and re-use pre-built data transformations and publish data integration output as a custom RSS feed to ApatarForge, the online Apatar community
- Platform-independent, runs from Windows, Linux, and Mac OS

About Apatar

Apatar is the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market. With powerful Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) capabilities, Apatar enables its users to easily link information between databases (such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle), applications (Salesforce.com, SugarCRM), and the top Web 2.0 destinations (Flickr, Amazon S3). Apatar provides support, training, and consulting services for its integration solutions.… Read more…

New Apatar Blog Explores Key Trends and Challenges in Data Integration, Providing Best Practices and Tips

Alena Semeshko, Data Integration Evangelist at Apatar, started a blog on data integration, ETL, data quality, and related topics.

November 20, 2008, Chicopee, MA – Apatar, Inc., the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market, officially announced a new blog on the current problems and issues in the world of data integration. Ms. Alena Semeshko, Data Integration Evangelist at Apatar, provides news, tips, ideas, opinions, and thoughts on data integration, mashups, ETL, data quality, application integration (EAI), data management, business intelligence, etc. The readers will also find practical advice on the most controversial issues along with the most up-to-date information on Apatar’s progress.

“What I am basically trying to do in this blog is to create awareness, foster a better understanding, and keep my readers well-informed on the emerging problems and data integration practices of the day,” said the blog’s author.

The blog is available at http://data-integration-blog.apatar.com.

About Apatar

Apatar is the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market. With powerful Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) capabilities, Apatar enables its users to easily link information between databases (such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle), applications (Salesforce.com, SugarCRM), and the top Web 2.0 destinations (Flickr, Amazon S3). Apatar provides support, training, and consulting services for its integration solutions. Headquartered in Western Massachusetts, Apatar operates a development center in Minsk, Belarus. Apatar is currently used by 6100+ organizations and individuals worldwide. For more on Apatar, please visit www.apatar.com and www.apatarforge.org.

Read more…

Apatar Simplifies Migration of Customer History from GoldMine to Salesforce CRM, Reducing Workload by Factor of Five

New pre-built data integration solution from Apatar enables GoldMine to Salesforce CRM migration of customer activity history, prevents data loss, and ensures customer data quality, cutting development and maintenance costs.

October 28, 2008, Chicopee, MA- Apatar, Inc., a provider of open source tools for data integration, today announced the GoldMine to Salesforce History Migration solution, which migrates client activity history between GoldMine and Salesforce CRM. This pre-build solution allows Apatar users to integrate e-mails, calendar events, invitations, and other history activities from the MS SQL instances of GoldMine to Salesforce CRM, linking each to the right contact. Apatar customers can also save time and avoid loss of data by setting the solution to preserve correct links between activities and the users to which they are assigned. Implementing this solution lowers development and maintenance workload up to a factor of five compared to manual programming.

Most data migrations fail to meet expectations or never get built

According to Standish Group, 30% of data migration projects fail, while Bloor Research study found 84% of data migrations fail to meet expectations. The problem often lies in making source data comply with target formats and standards, which requires a lot of time and efforts on the developer’s side. That is why, to enable migration of GoldMine”s History to Salesforce CRM, Apatar came up with a pre-built solution that automatically matches fields and tables between the two systems. By connecting records based on GoldMine contact IDs, Apatar preserves links between tables, eliminates errors, and prevents data loss during migration.

“Avoiding manual coding, this solution will be of particular interest to corporate users of CRM systems,” said Renat Khasanshyn, founder and CEO of Apatar. “Migrating contact data or integrating customer history may take months of coding, lead to huge data losses, or simply fail.… Read more…

Apatar Explains How to Reduce ETL and Data Integration Costs by 80%

October 23, 2008, Chicopee, MA – Apatar released the white paper that aims to help organizations reduce ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) and data integration costs. This document analyzes the Total Cost of Ownership of a typical data integration project, measures the cost structure, and identifies ways to cut each cost down. Readers will also find best practices and examples of how major companies saved on open source and data integration.

With businesses of all sizes challenged to deliver their products faster and to manage more complex marketing programs with limited budgets, having the right data integration and data quality model proves critical. The white paper sets out the approach to data integration and ETL projects that will save your company a considerable amount of time, money, and efforts.

Among others, the white paper includes the following sections:

• Why Is Data Integration So Expensive?
• Enterprises Go Open Source
• Major Companies Recognize Lower TCO
• Measuring TCO Benefits of Open Source Data Integration
• Best Practices

You may download the Guide to Reducing ETL and Data Integration Costs by 80% at http://www.apatar.com/ETL_TCO_for_DW/

About Apatar

Apatar is the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market. With powerful Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) capabilities, Apatar enables its users to easily link information between databases (such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle), applications (Salesforce.com, SugarCRM), and the top Web 2.0 destinations (Flickr, Amazon S3). Apatar provides support, training, and consulting services for its integration solutions. Headquartered in Western Massachusetts, Apatar operates a development center in Minsk, Belarus. Apatar is currently used by 5600+ organizations and individuals worldwide. For more on Apatar, please visit www.apatar.com and www.apatarforge.org.

Read more…

Apatar Accelerates Customer Data Integration Between Open Source SugarCRM Package and 3rd-party Applications

New Apatar connector enables companies to integrate SugarCRM suite with databases, flat files, other CRM/ERP applications, and top Web 2.0 destinations, all without coding.

October 16, 2008, Chicopee, MA – Apatar, Inc., the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market, today officially announced connectivity to the SugarCRM open source suite. The new SugarCRM connector is designed to integrate data between the popular customer relation management system and a variety of 3rd-party data sources, allowing for this data to be filtered, validated, and cleansed. Provided with Apatar’s drag-and-drop interface, the SugarCRM connector does not require coding skills and can be deployed by almost any business user.

Solving the biggest client data management challenge

Extracting and normalizing customer data from multiple sources is the biggest challenge with client data management, according to the Aberdeen Group. With the new SugarCRM connector, Apatar enables its users to easily link customer information between databases (such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle), files (Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, CSV/TXT files), applications (Salesforce.com), and the top Web 2.0 destinations (Flickr, Amazon S3, RSS feeds).

“The SugarCRM connector will help us exchange data between our existing CRM system and Zimbra open source messenger, saving thousands of dollars and reducing implementation time,” said Mark Gordon of Sonoma Creative, a full-service Web development company. “Upcoming Zimbra and SugarCRM integration will also allow us to adopt new advanced capabilities into our own Zimbra-based products,” he added.

Integrate quality data without any coding

According to Gartner, corporate developers spend approximately 65 percent of their effort building bridges between applications. With Apatar’s visual toolset, SugarCRM users can perform even a complex data integration job without having to write a single line of a code. Upgraded with the new SugarCRM connector, Apatar simplifies the integration process and allows both users… Read more…