Free Snap Connects Practically Any Data for Dashboards and Analytics;

Free Webinar to Showcase GoodData Integration Capabilities

Aug. 10, 2010 — GoodData and SnapLogic, the visionary cloud integration company, today announced the addition of the free GoodData Snap to SnapLogic’s SnapStore.  The Snap makes it easy to bring data from relational databases, internal applications, and other systems into GoodData for fast and comprehensive dashboarding, visualization, reporting, and data analysis.  In addition, GoodData can connect with any other data connector available in the SnapStore, including common SaaS, Social, and Enterprise applications.  The GoodData Snap is now available for download at http://store.snaplogic.com/products/good-data.

To demonstrate best practices in GoodData integration, the two companies will host a free webinar titled “Data to a Dashboard in a Week” on Thursday, Aug.12 at 10:00 a.m. PDT.  To register, visit:

http://www.snaplogic.com/l/webinar-gooddata.html?lf1=9487942f91721132318d175345.

GoodData provides a comprehensive Business Intelligence service that delivers everything businesses need to create dashboards, to perform operational reporting, and to conduct deep ad hoc data analysis quickly and easily.  These powerful features sit atop a robust business intelligence and data-warehousing platform.

“We promise our customers data to dashboard in a week instead of complex business intelligence implementations,” said Sam Boonin, vice president, marketing, GoodData.  “Working with SnapLogic makes data integration with GoodData as easy as a snap.”

Key features of the GoodData Snap:

• Seamless GoodData Integration: Integrate GoodData with CRM, ERP, and other systems to raise business intelligence to the next level
• Visual Modeling: Map DataFlows with drag-and-drop visual tools without writing a single line of code
• Automated GoodData: Create GoodData data marts directly within SnapLogic or add data to existing projects

“Great partners like GoodData with disruptive technology and innovative solutions are key to our success strategy for the SnapStore,” said Sanjay Raghu, director, strategic alliances and SnapStore,  SnapLogic.  “We are excited about the launch of the GoodData Snap and the tremendous integration value it delivers to GoodData customers.”

About GoodData

GoodData is the first company to offer a complete business intelligence platform-as-a-service (BI PaaS), providing our customers and partners operational dashboards, advanced reporting and data warehousing at a fraction of the cost and complexity of other approaches.  GoodData is headquartered in San Francisco and located in the cloud at www.gooddata.com.

But what about data portability in the enterprise? This is a major concern for businesses that want to ensure that they still have ownership of their content, even when its storage is outsourced to a cloud vendor. At Box.net, we believe wholeheartedly in data portability, both as a safeguard for businesses, but also as a driver for vendors to build a better product. If you build a superior service in line with your customers’ needs, data portability can only help you; if your product is lacking, your customers and their data should have the freedom to go elsewhere.

This is why we’re excited to be working with SnapLogic. Their integration platform makes it easy to connect services and – if we’re doing our job right – it will encourage more users to move their content to Box by greatly simplifying data migration. But data portability is not just about moving files off of one platform and onto another; it’s also about maximizing the value of content by sharing it between services. Box is already integrated with popular cloud services like salesforce.com, Google Apps and NetSuite, but there are a multitude of applications that we have yet to integrate with, or that serve very specific use cases. We want our customers to be able to extend the content they manage on Box to any business application, and by using the Box Snap, they can easily connect Box with other platforms on their own. Of course, all of the tools that make it easy to move content onto our platform also make it easy to move it off of Box. Our APIs are open to the public, so businesses can use them to move and share their content as they see fit – even if that means taking it to a competitor. This drives us to constantly innovate and build a better product. We’d rather invest our engineers’ time and effort in constantly improving our product, not designing tricky ways to prevent users from leaving.

So remember, good companies don’t trap users by holding their data hostage. Good companies keep users by giving them the best features and service – they don’t make users stay, they make users want to stay.

-Alex Willen
Business Analyst for Box.net

First, a bit of history.  In a former life, I co-founded Data Integration company Informatica in 1992 in the proverbial garage (too drafty; we soon moved it to a spare room) on the assumption that client-server computing would prevail over the mainframe and indeed we were right about that in spades. However we were dead wrong about one thing.

I was dead wrong to assume that the mainframe was going to die in the last century. I was in my twenties, Windows 3.0 was out, downsizing to Open Systems was all the rage and now ahem, certainly older and perhaps wiser, I’m here to tell you that the mainframe will outlive me and all the Unix revolutionaries who predicted its demise.

SnapLogic was founded in 2006 on the premise that cloud computing shall prevail in this decade. The learning of the past decades is that integration with on-premise systems will be required by businesses large and small.  Whether it’s a small business using QuickBooks, or a large business using a legacy system with sensitive financial data on premise, these systems are not going away anytime soon.

Likewise integration has to mirror this hybrid computing reality and be available on premises, in a public cloud for many or in a private cloud for Fortune 50, tech savvy customers.  As long as the integration technology is web-savvy and thus able to deal with versioning intelligently, and scalable enough — having your head in the cloud but feet on the ground may be the best policy.  Witness how iTunes does this very well in the consumer world where an on-premise app links to a big multi-user store in the cloud for over a Billion users.

As long as you have on-premise apps you’ll need an integration element on premise (often called an agent, or atom) and then you’re “slightly pregnant” with versioning, and whether your integration solution is multi-tenant or not you have to grok app versions and make it a core part of your value proposition to be successful in integration in this decade.

Certainly multi-tenancy helps keep the cost of integration down for integration vendors and when those savings are passed on to a customer its a good thing and we support that, but to suggest that muti-tenancy is only way to fly is to make the mistake of assuming that the mainframe will die!

Architecture matters. A strong, simple product that lets you easily tackle your integration matters. An open published API matters. That API used by the vendor themselves, creates an open integration platform which makes for cloud and cloud-to-ground integration solutions that fit well in any IT mix.  This lets you choose where to develop, test and deploy your solutions whether on premise, in a public or private cloud, based upon the best fit — and value — for your company.

In another big step in the evolution of the SnapLogic platform, we’re proud to announce the addition of Java and new enhancements in release 2.2 of SnapLogic available today!

This announcement is the next stage of evolution of our DataFlow platform by significantly extending its language support and adds the power, speed and enhanced enterprise connectivity of Java to the rapid development environment and support for a wide range of data sources that Python currently provides SnapLogic users.

From a SnapLogic user perspective, the new Java support is transparent. Java components can be mixed and matched with Python components in standard SnapLogic pipelines, and are fully compatible with one another. The key benefits of the addition of Java support are the addition of Java’s higher performance execution and support for parallel execution especially relevant in todays multi-core environment. Now you get choose the rapid development of Python and the fast execution of Java components as needed to optimize pipelines in a fully multi-threaded environment.

On the back end, for component and Snap developers, Java gets first class support, and is implemented through a new component container which runs in parallel with the existing Python component container. The component API’s are similar, providing the same consistent API for Snap developers, whether they use Python or Java.

So what have we added by including Java support in the SnapLogic platform? Lots, including:

Easy access to Java Libraries

The inclusion of native support for Java as a fundamental part of the SnapLogic Platform opens up access to a wealth of libraries and APIs from the Java community, including libraries that may already be in use in your environment

Snaps can now be built in Java, too

By embracing Java we let Snap developers use their Java skills and also make it easy for consultants to their Java tools into Snaps for the SnapStore, or to foster re-use in a enterprise environment through private Snaps.

Higher performance

Java components provide the option of faster execution for computational tasks wherever needed.

More parallelism

Java components are designed to take advantage of multi processor and multi-core systems, and since they also run in parallel with Python components provide the ability to optimize performance and rapid development.

JDBC compatibility

The Java database API has with extensive database vendor support, which opens up connectivity to many more enterprise databases in addition to those already enabled by Python.

Our dual language approach, similar to that used by Google App Engine and other leading web-era platforms, gives our developers the best of both worlds – they get the power of Python for fast development and support for a wide range of data sources, and they can leverage the performance of Java and it’s wide range of enterprise sources.

As usual, we also managed to squeeze in a number of additional useful enhancements with the most visible one being the inclusion of database connection resources directly in pipelines, which allows for full parameterization of all connection properties at runtime.

Java support joins with the rich functionality of SnapLogic Pro to further enhance its enterprise level capabilities and support while providing the richest most powerful and extensible platform that SnapLogic has offered to date.

The upgrade path is straightforward – SnapLogic 2.1.X installations and repositories are automatically upgraded to 2.2 at install time.

SnapLogic is kicking off the new year with our first Snap Developer Challenge !

Since we launched the SnapLogic SnapStore back in in November, there has been a lot of developer interest in building Snaps that allow them to monetize their development and integration skills.

We are now inviting everyone – data integration developers, application developers, and independent software vendors – to submit a Snap to be listed on the SnapStore. We’re offering an Amazon Kindle for every Snap accepted, as well at a chance for a win the grand prize of $5,000 and an hour with venture fund Andreessen Horowitz to share more about your product and/or service.

If you know your way around a significant application API, and are able to condense that into a clean interface for the SnapLogic platform, you’re a perfect contestant.

The SnapLogic APIs make it easy to package your knowledge for the SnapLogic platform, while the SnapStore provides a channel to generate revenue from your knowledge.

Additional details are available on the Snap Developer Challenge page. But don’t wait too long – the registration deadline is February 28th.

I have been invited to speak at the San Francisco Bay ACM Chapter meeting on November 18th.

I will be talking about the challenges involved in Integrating SaaS and On Premise Applications , with a particular emphasis on how the integration problem is changing as technology changes, and why integration technologies need to adapt.

ACM chapter meetings are free and open to all who wish to attend. If you’re in the Bay Area, I hope you can stop by.

Update: Slides from the talk have been posted on our Wiki.

Yesterday, we announced the launch of the SnapLogic SnapStore as a private developer beta, so this is a good opportunity for me to discuss some of the big things we have been working on at SnapLogic.

SnapLogic was founded on the premise that the data integration market was in flux. Although the data integration problem has it roots in the mainframe to client-server migration of the 1990’s, and the rise of client server computing that followed, the integration landscape has changed substantially since then.

The single biggest change has been driven by the rise of business internet usage. Over that past 10 years, we have seen a buildout of new applications based on web technology. SaaS, social media, and the web in general have all resulted in an endless combination of applications and data sources.

The rise of the business internet has transformed data integration into a long tail problem – a problem that no single vendor can hope to address. The SnapStore addresses that long tail problem, by enabling a wealth of developers to contribute integration solutions.

Everyone who deals with data integration know that the bulk of todays integration logic is custom coded. There are tools that cover the most popular systems and interfaces, but that is just the top of the iceberg. The business economics for enterprise vendors don’t justify support for all the possible endpoints and scenarios. So custom code becomes the solution for all the speciaiized edge cases, and we end up with an integration market where about 20% of the spend goes to vendors, and 80% is custom development and consulting.

SnapStore combined with our DataFlow architecture addresses the problem from a different perspective – the realization that the only way to solve the problem is embrace the long tail as a fundamental characteristic of the problem.

The SnapLogic platform handles all the core functions related to Data Flow – creating, managing, executing, and sharing integration logic. The open API’s and interfaces allow anyone to extend the platform with additional components and integration logic, providing everything needed for custom integration scenarios.

The SnapStore provides a for developers to package and resell their integration expertise. That might be in the form of components extending the core SnapLogic functionality, or more commonly, a combination of components and integration logic, packaged as a reusable solution.

We’re excited about the potential of the SnapStore. In the coming weeks as the private beta progresses, we will be working with the developer and vendor community to refine the store and the processes
around it.

If you are a developer interested in the SnapStore, there’s a sign-up form on the SnapStore page, where you an join the initial beta program.

SnapLogic 2.1.4 has been released.

In this release, we have added a number of new features to the SnapLogic Designer, to simplify development. The main page of the designer now includes a browser for all available components, in addition to the repository of existing resources. Components can now be dragged directly into a pipeline in a single move. Operations in the Designer have also been streamlined, so most dialogs and clicks take you to the most commonly used operations.

It’s hard to describe all the features in words, so we have started a library of screencasts to demonstrate all the power of SnapLogic.

SnapLogic 2.1 is now available as a Beta release, and we encourage everyone to download and test it out.

The most visible change in this release is a complete reorganization of the SnapLogic Designer, to improve navigation and editing of transformation resources and pipelines, The new implementation uses a tree control that improved navigation for larger repositories, and an improved search capability. The available editing area is is now much larger, and the pipeline canvas now supports ’snap to grid’ capability.

Behind the scenes, there are quite a few improvements as well. We have enhanced the change detection in the server and designer, to simplify development and maintenance. When changes are made, the Designer now highlights the affected transformation resources in any affected pipelines, and allows viewing or automatic application of the changes to the pipeline.

The change detection is intelligent, and will only highlight relevant differences in view, parameter, and pass through settings. A popup provides detailed information about the changes, and allows the changes to be automatically applied to the affected pipeline.

Other improvements include help links from the general properties page directly to the documentation, support for duplicating transformation resources across servers, better management of multiple servers and runtime statistics directly in the Designer.

As always, the installer images for Linux and Windows make installation painless, and take care of all the dependencies. The SalesForce.com, NetSuite, and SugarCRM extensions have all been updated for 2.1 compatibility, and the Windows version now runs as a full windows service.

Loraine Lawson has an interesting post over at IT Business Edge that highlights a recent Forrester Research study on the Future of Software as a Service Technologies. In the study, Forrester predicts minimal success for BI and Integration delivered as SaaS.

This news is no surprise to me.

Back in late 2007, Goldman Sachs released "Getting SaaS savvy – successful investing in on-demand", a research report on SaaS from an investment perspective. (There’s a summary of the Goldman report at SandHill.com). Goldman used 10 criteria to assess applications and determine whether there are well suited for a SaaS model (and potential investment) . Among those, the amount of integration needed was a key criteria. BI and data warehousing fared poorly. Integration on demand was not included in the report, but using the same criteria, it would not have been done well either.

This news isn’t "bad news for SnapLogic" either. As a software vendor, we have always believed the customer should be able to control their deployment, so SnapLogic runs portably on multiple platforms, virtual machines, and Amazon Web Services.

There’s definitely ambiguity around the term ‘SaaS integration’. Integrating on-demand applications is not the same as on-demand integration; there are big differences between the two.

The decision on where to run the integration process should involve the location of the data, security constraints, and the customers preference.

If the bulk of the data is already on premises, then integrate by pulling the necessary SaaS data on-premises. Security wise, this approach doesn’t introduce major new issues related to the data.

If the bulk of the data is SaaS, then a hosted or on-demand approach to integration may be more appropriate. Security wise, it may not be possible to send on-premises data out, and that has to be taken into consideration as well.

One size does not fit all in data integration; there are too many changes afoot in the IT landscape, and everyone need to have options.