Middleware Links And Manages Databases

Database pioneer Michael Stonebraker is coming to market with new middleware for linking disparate databases across a company. Stonebraker is founder and chief technology officer of Cohera Corp., a startup whose technology provides a unified view of data in real time, regardless of its location or structure.

IBM, Oracle, Sybase, and other database companies already sell middleware for linking databases. The drawback to such products is that they're designed for centralized data management, a concept that doesn't work well in many companies, Stonebraker says. Cohera's software gives departmental database administrators control over their systems while providing some level of central management. Cohera's Data Federation System is a commercial adaptation of technology developed at the University of California, Berkeley, where Stonebraker is a computer science professor.

The first commercial release of Cohera's technology is scheduled for availability by May 1. Pricing starts at $150,000