Hummingbird Integration Suite
Date:
By: Philip Howard
Classification: Product Evaluation
Hummingbird’s Integration Suite component, Genio, is a data integration tool aimed primarily at the mid-market, though new parallel processing capabilities in the latest release mean that the product should now scale at the enterprise level.
Traditionally, data movement and ETL (extract, transform and load) products have fallen into one of two categories: either they are engine-based, ‘black box’ products or they are code generators. Hummingbird Genio represents a hybrid in that it is engine-based but uses a 4GL-based approach for developing transformation
logic. Another significant feature is that it also provides the ability to offload process execution onto the source or target system. This combination provides the performance benefits associated with engine-based products without losing the ability to define complex transformations that often fall outside the scope of traditional engine-based environments.
A further differentiation is that Genio was, as far as we know, the first ETL product to offer the ability to move not just data but content, which it has been doing for some years. Other suppliers are now starting to add this capability but Hummingbird has a clear lead on the market in this area and it has added significantly to its capabilities in the latest release, not least through the introduction of direct integration with the workflow component of Hummingbird Enterprise, which is the company’s enterprise content management solution.