The nascent enterprise information integration (EII) category can be characterized as serving up a seemingly local view of enterprisewide data, regardless of where data are stored. EII vendors typically present a single, updated view of large data sets gleaned from many sources. In contrast traditional integration techniques focus on knitting together applications and business processes by moving small amounts of data over messaging buses.

EII pure-plays include Avaki, of Burlington, Mass.; Composite Software, of San Mateo, Calif.; Journee, of Austin, Tex., and New York-based MetaMatrix. BEA Systems' Liquid Data for WebLogic and the Information Integrator software from IBM, Armonk, N.Y. also compete.

Avaki based its technology on the computer science concept of the data grid, which names an organization's computing resources. Until this latest release, Avaki emphasized the ability to quickly grab large volumes of data from many data sources. With version 5.0, it now adds the ability to issue distributed queries -- the main strength of rival Composite Software -- as well as manipulate data and manage multiple integration techniques. Avaki attributes this last capability to what it calls its Enterprise Data Integration Framework. With it, IT organizations can expose as a service third-party integration offerings, such Ascential's extract, transform, load (ETL) software or IBM's WebSphere products.

"We can become the umbrella for data integration across the enterprise since everything becomes a service," said Tim Yeaton, Avaki president and CEO. "This allows us to expose Ascential's ETL engine a capability underneath Avaki, so that anyone can use it and invoke it. If it's a tool that can expose an API, we can service-enable that tool."

Data architects can use Altova Mapforce to define and deploy reusable data integrations. A visual tool from Altova, of Vienna, Austria, Mapforce enables users to define transformations and integrations by graphically connecting data sources to targets.

In addition, a new data service construct enables any integration logic, including Java, XML and third-party products, to transform, profile and cleanse data before it's presented to the user in a cohesive view. A new data grid query function allows users to submit SQL statements to Avaki, which will distribute the query against multiple databases and then join the results.

Other new enhancements include a Web services interface, more caching options, improved load balancing and fail over, and audit trails showing data usage.

Geared for the enterprise, an average Avaki deployment costs between $200,000 and $250,000. It is available now.