IBM Releases Test Version Of Corporate Search ToolIBM Releases Test Version Of Corporate Search Tool

IT shops can now get their hands on the beta version of the forthcoming upgrade to IBM's DB2 Information Integrator. The product, code-named Masala, is scheduled for full release early in the fourth quarter, an IBM spokesman says. The beta version was released Monday.

DB2 Information Integrator, released last year, is software that's designed to let users in corporate environments more easily search through the vast amounts of business data that typically live in servers distributed across a company. The Masala edition features numerous enhancements. IBM officials say Masala will be significantly easier to implement than its predecessor, requiring 40% to 60% less hand-coding. It also gives users the ability to publish data from distributed sources and features new search capabilities designed to make the retrieval of data from company networks 10 times faster than the previous version. Nelson Mattos, IBM's director of information integration, says a new interface will let users use free-form text to search for data.

The new event notification feature uses messaging to notify users of changes within a data source, a capability Mattos says will be important within service-oriented architectures. Extended support for Web services and development environments such as .Net and Eclipse make it easier to build applications that run on DB2 Information Integrator. New autonomic computing features include a configuration wizard and a function that notifies administrators of changes within DB2 databases.

Masala even offers something for those who believe IBM and large IT vendors are bent on shipping all technology work offshore. The term Masala derives from an Indian style of cooking in which collections of fanciful spices are used.

Users can download a free beta version of the software from IBM here.