Attunity has announced Attunity Replicate, data replication software that the company says provides the same performance as similar software products from other major vendors but is much simpler to use, doesn't require users to install software on their computers and costs about half as much. Attunity Replicate is mainly intended for the replication of big transaction data from databases, including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2. The lower cost of the software means that users have a faster return on investment and a lower total cost of ownership, according to the company.
Most of the market share in the data replication market is taken up by IBM and Oracle, with products that are complex and very expensive, says Itamar Ankorion, VP of business development and corporate strategy for the Boston-based company. In comparison, the Attunity software uses a functionality it calls Click 2 Replicate that automates all the steps required to build a replication solution, either a full snapshot, an incremental delta or a schema that includes the database metadata. GoldenGate, Oracle’s replication software, would require a user to do many of those tasks manually and then orchestrate them, he says. While GoldenGate is a robust product, it takes a lot of effort to use it, he says.
While Attunity Replicate is on-premise for now, the company intends to provide it in the cloud using a software-as-a-service model, says Ankorian, though he did not say when this would be available. The software is also zero-footprint, meaning that there is no requirement to install software on either the source or the target machine, he says. In comparison, both IBM's and Oracle’s replication software products require the installation of agents, he adds.
Attunity is targeting a market that is growing in demand for a variety of use cases, and the company is attempting to deliver technology that is easier to use and lower in cost than that of competing vendors, says Ted Friedman, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner. He notes, however, that the product’s core functionality is not highly differentiated from its competitors. For example, other products have a greater breadth of source and target type support, and they do remote log reading, he says. On the other hand, by not doing remote log reading, Attunity can be zero-footprint on the source side. "The combination of ease of use [if proven by early adopters], zero-footprint on both the source and the target side, and low cost will be compelling to buyers," he says.
Attunity Replicate is expected to be available in November for prices ranging from $100,000 to $150,000--about half the cost of competing products, says Ankorion. Attunity recently acquired RepliWeb and expects next year to release additional functionality that will merge the best of both worlds--data replication and file replication--he adds.
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