HP AND PRISM SOLUTIONS INTEGRATE PRODUCTS FOR EASY MANAGEMENT OF
METADATA-ENABLED DATA WAREHOUSES

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 18, 1995 -- Hewlett-Packard Company and Prism
Solutions, Inc. today announced that they have signed a letter of intent
to integrate the HP Intelligent Warehouse and Prism Directory Manager
products in order to share metadata and greatly improve the manageability
of multivendor data-warehouse implementations.

The combination of Prism Directory Manager and HP's Intelligent Warehouse
allows companies to take advantage of Prism Directory Manager's strength
in centrally storing technical and business metadata from a wide variety
of sources, and HP Intelligent Warehouse's strength in metadata-enabling
for a wide variety of popular data-access, and reporting and on-line
analytical-processing (OLAP) tools.

Metadata, literally "data about data," is crucial to making data warehouses
manageable for administrators and easy to use for end users. Examples of
administrative metadata include the following:

* the lists of operational databases from which a data warehouse is built;

* the rules for cleaning up and integrating data stored in a data
warehouse; and

* the logs showing how a data warehouse is used.

An example of business metadata is a set of business definitions for the
data elements in a warehouse. The problem with most metadata today is that
it is specific to a particular tool or database. Without any easy means of
centrally storing metadata and sharing it among tools, metadata must be
re-entered -- thus causing administrative problems and a high propensity
for error.

Many industry analysts stress the importance of metadata synchronization
for the successful implementation of data warehouses.

With the integration of Prism Directory Manager 2.0 and HP's Intelligent
Warehouse, companies will be able to share and centrally administer
metadata among the majority of popular decision-support and data-warehouse
tools on the market.

Prism Directory Manager 2.0

Prism Directory Manager 2.0 is a new release of Prism's
data-warehouse-management software that enables companies to build an
Information Directory from both technical and business metadata. Technical
metadata comes primarily from Prism Warehouse Manager, and Business
metadata comes from a variety of CASE tools and predefined tab-delimited
files. Specifically, Prism Directory Manager supports the import of
business models from Logic Works' ERwin, Bachman Analyst and DBA,
KnowledgeWare ADW and IEW, Oracle CASE, Texas Instruments IEF and any CASE
tools that are CDIF-compliant.

HP's Intelligent Warehouse

HP's Intelligent Warehouse is open middleware, together with administrative
and end-user tools for making data warehouses easy for administrators to
manage, easy for knowledge workers to use, and easy to upgrade throughout
an enterprise. Intelligent Warehouse uses centralized metadata to map
users queries from a wide variety of data-access, reporting and OLAP tools
to optimal summary tables in one or more relational databases making up
the data warehouse.

HP's Intelligent Warehouse also supports the integration of multiple,
potentially heterogeneous data warehouses into a single, enterprise
information resource. Intelligent Warehouse supports most popular
databases, including CA-Ingres, Informix, Oracle, Red Brick Warehouse,
Sybase SQL Server and MVS/DB2. On the front end, Intelligent Warehouse
supports most ODBC-compliant data-access and reporting tools and the
following OLAP tools: Andyne Pablo, Arbor Essbase, Cognos PowerPlay,
Comshare Commander OLAP, Oracle Express PC and Platinum Forest & Trees.

Prism Solutions is a 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 re-engineering 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.
Prism Solutions' corporate headquarters are located at 1000 Hamlin Court,
Sunnyvale, Calif, 94089; tel: (408) 752-1&88; fax (408) 752-1875

HP's Open Warehouse is part of HP's overall Mainframe Alternative (MA)
program. Implementing a data-warehouse is a good first step for users who
want better access to mainframe-based data. HP has migrated more than
1,000 companies successfully to open-systems, client/server computing as
part of its MFA program. HP believes its success in this program is based
on the company's ability to deliver mainframe performance with
high-quality applications from proven software companies; its strong
relationship with key partners; and its worldwide support, consulting and
customer-education organization.

Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global manufacturer of computing,
communications and measurement products and services recognized for
excellence in quality and support. HP has 99,900 employees and had revenue
of $25 billion in its 1994 fiscal year.
 
 =========================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service on...
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) and Delphi (GO COMP PROD)
 =========================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the
 company/author mentioned. For additional details, please
 contact them directly at the address/phone# indicated.
 Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
 =========================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  USA
 Email: rbakerpc@delphi.com  -or- RBakerPC (on AOL/Delphi)
 =========================================================
