Briefing: Sunopsis Integration Suite v4

• By Mike Gunderloy
• January 18, 2005

Sunopsis Integration Suite v4
About $50,000 for an average pilot project
Sunopsis, Inc.
Burlington, Massachusetts
(781) 238-1770
www.sunopsis.com

Previous versions of Sunopsis have concentrated on the ETL market - though with their own twist. They call it ELT, because the software is written to perform transform steps on the destination database server, rather than in a dedicated middleware server. ELT is still present in version 4 of Sunopsis, which is being announced today, but the company has also dramatically increased the capabilities of the product. I had a chance to review their plans, and here's what you can expect to see shipping by mid-year.

The new Sunopsis consists of four interlocking products in a suite that's designed to cover a variety of scenarios for moving application data around:

• Sunopsis ETL continues to cover to batch data movement scenarios. It uses native SQL and a distributed environment to do its work. This is the direct upgrade of previous versions, and new features include an improved GUI for designers and connectors for a variety of new data sources including Teradata, LDAP, and Web services.
• Sunopsis ActiveData introduces the concept of the Active Data Hub: a read/write centralized data store that can be replicated in real time with applications across the enterprise. Changed data is captured from source applications, cleansed, reconciled, stored (you can choose the underlying database for the hub) and then replicated out to target applications.
• Sunopsis DataBus lets you use Enterprise Service Bus concepts in scenarios where they make sense. It provides a message-oriented middleware and plugs into the same transports as the rest of the Sunopsis suite. You can route, filter, and transform messages as they move through the DataBus, with a net result being much the same as the Active Data Hub without persistent storage.
• Sunopsis DataServices lets you move all the way to synchronous integration using an SOA approach. It's designed to let you develop complex Web services, with good support for mapping things into an underlying database.

With the full suite, you can choose from a variety of approaches for integrating data across applications, from pull models using SOA to long-latency batch updates for less critical processes, with a variety of options in between. Underneath all four products is a common set of system services. Metadata can be shared between all of the tools, and the company offers a wealth of different connectors. Sunopsis products can talk to all of the major databases (both server and desktop), XML and flat files, packaged applications such as SAP and PeopleSoft, data warehouses, Web services, LDAP, and more.

The new versions are being delivered in staged fashion from now until the end of Q2. Pricing includes a core fee plus developer seats, but shouldn't move out of the five-figure range for most enterprises. At that price, a truly integrated set of solutions for moving data between applications could be quite a bargain.