DataStage has a new name!

[vmcburney]

IBM have now completed the purchase of Ascential and announced the new names of the product suite:
http://www.ascential.com/products/name_changes.html

It is now official IBM WebSphere DataStage, part of the IBM WebSphere Data Integration Suite.

The IBM Ascential roadmap can be found at (the good news is that Hawk release is not delayed):
http://www.ascential.com/news/products_faq.html

IBM remains committed to delivering the next major releases of both the WebSphere Information Integrator (IBM Project Serrano) and WebSphere Enterprise Data Integration Suite (IBM Project Hawk) in 2005. These releases are expected to occur on schedule (in the fourth quarter of 2005) and with the functionality and enhancement previously planned prior to this acquisition.

Quite a lot of the Ascential framework will be adopted by IBM integration products, for example some of the IBM products will be rewritten to use the Hawk look and feel. It looks like early rumours that DataStage TX would bite the dust due to duplicate functionality are incorrect. TX has a lot of stuff that IBM do not have.

DB2 Warehouse Manager users will be migrated across to DataStage so we immediately get more DataStage sites.

[chulett]

Yah, noticed this when visiting ADN today - all of the forums were renamed with 'IBM WebSphere' stuck over the old 'Ascential' label.

[vmcburney]

But they haven't renamed AscentialWorld 2005 to IBMWebSphereDataIntegrationWorld 2005.

[ray.wurlod]

Not yet, anyway.

[vinaymanchinila]

Hi,
So what is the new name for the Ascential DataStage Enterprise Edition (with Parallel Extender) and are the training services given by Ascential be discontinued or changed in any way to suit the new products?.
Vinay

[kduke]

We get second billing to WebSphere. TX gets third billing. How long will that product last?

[vmcburney]

If you read the FAQ you will get answers to most questions, though the situation is likely to be different in 12 months. Ascential training and support will continue as is. Same numbers and same people. All products retain the same name with the word Ascential replaced by IBM WebSphere. It is now known at IBM WebSphere DataStage Enterprise Edition (formerly Ascential DataStage Enterprise Edition (formerly Parallel Extender (formerly Orchestrate (formerly a glint in a software engineers eye)))).

I think TX has a good future in the WebSphere suite. It gets merged in with the Business Intelligence Message Broker and provides a much better transformation engine.

[kiran_418]

Well name has changed. Did anybody geta chance to look into the newr version. I wonder what chnages did IBm make

[vmcburney]

There were rumours that DataStage Hawk would go into beta testing at the end of April. Anyone heard anything about this? I doubt the beta version will have any IBM WebSphere branding in it.

[ray.wurlod]

It is in beta; one of my clients is involved.

There will be three phases of beta testing (roughly end April, May and June). Not so many beta sites for phase 1.