SAS, the leader in business and analytical intelligence, has announced new features of SAS Enterprise ETL Server that increase the productivity and add flexibility to the extraction, transformation and load (ETL) cycle.

As the first vendor to offer advanced change analysis capabilities, SAS has significantly improved an ETL designer's ability to quickly identify and act on changes within existing data models, saving hours of manpower and frustration. In addition, automatic support for grid computing makes it even easier for businesses to take advantage of the massive speed and productivity gains offered by grid and distributed computing.

"With ETL design and development consuming an increasing number of internal resources, there is a growing need to optimise this cycle for greater efficiency and effectiveness," said Joe Augustine, product marketing manager for data integration at SAS.

"The enhancements to SAS Enterprise ETL Server show SAS's commitment to providing our customers with the most innovative technology available to help companies achieve data integration and business intelligence success, starting at the initial phase of the process.

"By further optimising the ETL cycle within the data integration process, our customers no longer need to worry about the accuracy, availability and reliability of their data, and can instead turn their attention toward using that data to create cohesive enterprise intelligence."

The newest features of SAS Enterprise ETL Server include:

• Unprecedented change analysis capabilities. ETL designers now have the power to proactively identify and discover how even the smallest change in a data model could impact a project. By having the ability to control precisely which changes should be made to their data models, designers can significantly improve the overall performance of the ETL cycle - from creation and maintenance to execution, saving hours of manpower and frustration.
• Automatic support for grid and distributed computing environments. SAS also announced that it is the first vendor to integrate grid computing management capabilities within its enterprise intelligence platform, specifically for its data integration and data mining applications. By grid-enabling SAS's data integration offering, businesses can better use their existing computing resources to handle larger amounts of data in less time and without the need for additional hardware.
• Major productivity enhancements. An improved user interface, enhanced debugging tools, wizard-driven table designers and improved collaboration support all help to shorten development time and reduce maintenance costs.
• Broad platform support, including 64-bit architectures. SAS has always supported the widest array of hardware and operating systems of any data integration vendor, and now SAS extends that support to include 64-bit platforms. This support gives users significant flexibility to adapt as their needs grow, accessing and running data regardless of the source.

"SAS Enterprise ETL Server is capable of reducing the time and frustration typically involved in handling complex data transformations. From metadata management to data migration, synchronisation and profiling, SAS handles it all with one product that can help companies achieve true data integration and BI success," concludes Augustine.

• SAS Enterprise ETL Server click here is an integral part of the SAS 9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform, which is an integrated, open and extensible foundation for creating and delivering accurate, in-depth intelligence. From data integration and storage capabilities to business intelligence and analytic intelligence tools, the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform helps decrease existing intelligence gaps and provides a solid business analytics architecture that supports business processes at any level of an organisation.

More information about the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform is available here: http://www.sas.com/technologies/architecture/.