PRISM SOLUTIONS DELIVERS INTEGRATED PRODUCTS FOR BUILDING, MAINTAINING AND
NAVIGATING DATA WAREHOUSES

DB/EXPO, SAN FRANCISCO, May 2, 1995--Prism Solutions, Inc., the leader in
data warehouse management software, today announced the availability of
the newest release of Prism Warehouse Manager, version 4.2, and the first
shipment of its newest product, Prism Directory Manager . With these two
offerings, Prism now provides the only tightly integrated products for
building, maintaining and navigating data warehouses.

Prism Warehouse Manager 4.2 software greatly reduces the time it takes to
build and maintain a data warehouse of consistent, subject-oriented,
historical information for analysis and decision making. It automates the
extraction and transformation of data from legacy systems and operational
applications into a data warehouse target database. This new version
contains several new features designed to enhance development and
maintenance productivity, and expands the number of source and target
databases supported.

Prism Directory Manager is a client/server product suite for building a
centralized directory of meta data, or information about data, to enhance
the understanding and use of data warehouse information. It integrates and
stores all meta data needed for information processing, creating a
comprehensive view of warehouse information expressed in both business and
technical terms. Organizations can also build customized views of the meta
data to assist diverse groups of users in finding relevant information for
analysis. Business analysts now can navigate a data warehouse easily and
independently, reducing the need for IS support.

According to Robert Moran, senior analyst at research and consulting firm
Aberdeen Group, "Prism Directory Manager's tight linkage with the Prism
Warehouse Manager software is a trend-setting step in eliminating data
warehouse shortcomings that have collectively diminished the ability of
both technical and business analysts to make truly intelligent
decisions."

"These products reflect the vision, knowledge and expertise that have made
Prism Solutions the leader in data warehouse management software," said
Jim Ashbrook, president of Prism Solutions. "We provide our customers not
only a highly cost-effective and rapid route to a data warehouse, but also
give them the meta data needed for navigating and understanding the
information collected."

Prism Warehouse Manager 4.2

Prism Warehouse Manager 4.2 generates code to extract operational data and
external data from source databases, integrates the data from the various
sources, and then transforms and loads the integrated data to a choice of
target databases on mainframe and client/server platforms. An extensive
selection of built-in transformations allows users to perform the data
conversions, summarizations, key changes, structural changes and
condensations needed to create an historical perspective of enterprisewide
information.

Prism Solutions has added more than 30 new features and capabilities to
Prism Warehouse Manager 4.2 in response to customer requests, resulting in
enhanced productivity for data warehouse development and maintenance.
Highlights include:

* Copy Objects--allows users to copy and reuse code, table layouts,
mappings, business rules and global parameters already used in other Prism
Warehouse Manager COBOL programs;

* Capture Variable Definitions--imports and stores working storage
definitions and user exit parameters in Prism Warehouse Manager's meta
data;

* DB2 Direct Read--reads a single, key-specific row in a DB2 source file to
validate codes, look up a value or select specific data for merging into
the warehouse;

* Tandem Update--allows users to apply changes to rows in Tandem NonStop
SQL data warehouses;

* Change Field Names--allows users to change a field name within a
directory while preserving all underlying transformation logic;

* New Source Database--Informix 7.1 and prior versions

* New Target Databases--Informix 7.1, Rdb and Teradata on UNIX.

"Developing data warehouses is an iterative approach, a process of
designing and redesigning. With Prism Warehouse Manager 4.2, especially
its new duplicate and copy functions, developing this way is simple," said
Jamie Cochlan, reengineering data architect at Mead Corporation. "It
allows us to make modifications quickly and efficiently, and to focus on
the design of the data warehouse, rather than on program development."

"Prism Warehouse Manager, combined with our OnLine Dynamic Server
relational database, gives our joint customers a superior data warehousing
solution to meet their needs," said Marianne Elkholy, product marketing
manager for data warehousing at Informix Software. "Our strong business
partnership also assures customers of our full backing of this solution.
We look forward to expanding our technology solution with Prism Warehouse
Manager 4.2 later this year."

Prism Warehouse Manager 4.2, together with a source and target, is priced
at $130,000.

Prism Directory Manager

Prism Directory Manager integrates and manages the proliferation of meta
data in a data warehouse environment. It imports meta data from several
sources, including the meta data collected by Prism Warehouse Manager
during warehouse development, as well as meta data from CASE tools in CDIF
format and predefined tab-delimited files. By building an integrated view
of warehouse information expressed in business and technical terms, Prism
Directory Manager helps users understand what data is in the warehouse,
where it came from, how it was transformed and how it has changed over
time.

Prism Directory Manager consists of three components:

* Directory Builder --gathers and integrates meta data from a variety of
sources to build the Information Directory, provides tools for customizing
views, and exports selected meta data to data warehouse analysis tools.

* Information Directory --stores integrated meta data as objects on a
relational database of choice, and manages relationships between business
and technical entities using an extensive information model.

* Directory Navigator --provides business analysts and technical users with
easy, point-and-click navigation of the meta data stored in the
Information Directory, using an outline-style format to show subject areas
and their relationships with one another.

"Prism Directory Manager will help us manage the meta data generated by
Prism Warehouse Manager, and will provide our business users and
developers with information to more effectively use and maintain the data
warehouse that supports our procurement reengineering program," said
Jonathan Geiger, data warehouse project manager at Florida Power & Light.

Prism Directory Manager is available now for Sybase server databases, with
support for Oracle planned in June and support for DB2 available later
this summer. Informix, Tandem NonStop SQL and Teradata support will be
available later in 1995.

Prism Directory Manager is priced at $35,000 which includes one Directory
Builder seat and five Directory Navigator seats. Additional Directory
Navigator seats can be purchased for $500 per seat.

About Prism Solutions

Prism Solutions is the leader in data warehouse management software for
building, maintaining and navigating data warehouses. Prism Solutions'
products and services provide the foundation for a variety of IT and
business projects, such as building decision-support systems, implementing
client/server architectures, migrating and converting data between
different computing platforms, and reengineering legacy applications and
business processes. Prism Solutions' customers include leading companies
in the finance, health care, insurance, manufacturing, public utilities,
retail, telecommunications, transportation and technology industries. As
of April 24, 1995, Prism Solutions' corporate headquarters are now located
at 1000 Hamlin Court, Sunnyvale, Calif., 94089; tel: (408) 752-1888; fax:
(408) 752-1875.

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