InformationWeek

December 14, 1998

Most Important Products Of 98

Most Important Products Of 98:

Enterprise Application Integration Software

Teamware

Enterprise JavaBeans

SQL Server 7.0

Network-Attached Storage

Application Servers

NetWare 5

Customer-Management Applications

Midmarket ERP

Transaction Management

Runners-Up

SQL Server 7.0
Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0, which shipped this month, is the product on which the company has pinned its enterprise hopes--at least until Windows 2000 ships. It's the first database-management system to ship with an online analytical processing server built in, and at no additional cost. Perhaps as important as SQL Server 7.0's OLAP server is the slew of third-party developers that have committed to writing or modifying their products to work with it.

On that list are Appsco Software, Ardent Software, Brio Technology, Business Objects SA, Cognos, Comshare, Data Junction, Datawatch, Decisionism, Evolutionary Technologies International, Informatica, Knosys, Platinum Technology, Portola Dimensional Systems, Prism Solutions, Sagent Technology, Seagate Software, Speedware, TopTier, Unisys, and Wall Data.

Another feature is the system's capability to store databases larger than 1 terabyte. Unisys recently demonstrated a 2-terabyte banking database running on SQL Server 7.0. Users also say their tests show that performance has doubled over SQL Server 6.5, an important gain for those working with heavy transaction rates on large databases.

Consistency check functions that take more than 60 hours to run under SQL Server 6.5 take one-sixth of that time with 7.0, says David Lish, VP of IS for the Transamerica Flood Hazard Certification division of Transamerica Corp. "My database administrator says it makes life seriously easier than 6.5," Lish says. Row-level locking, designed to provide faster response to multiple users while maintaining data integrity, is also sought by many yeoman database administrators. SQL Server 7.0's Data Transformation Services may also prove significant for users that have data in other databases.

The package can replicate bidirectionally with Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase, and Informix databases. Additionally, the Standard and Enterprise editions include a desktop version that runs on Windows 9X and Windows NT.

--Stuart J. Johnston

next product: Network-Attached Storage