21 April 2006
Report supports BEA's data services vision and SOA leadership in service infrastructure market

BEA Systems Inc., a world leader in enterprise infrastructure software, has announced recently that Forrester Research has identified BEA's AquaLogic Data Services Platform (ALDSP) as the "most comprehensive" solution in the enterprise data virtualization market.

BEA's leadership position in the information fabric space, which Forrester defines as "a business-friendly view of diverse information," helps to validate the company's strategy for data services within the service infrastructure product category. BEA's SOA and service infrastructure strategy was announced in the summer of 2005, along with the company's Think liquid vision and full AquaLogic line of products.

In its January, 2006 report titled, "Information Fabric: Enterprise Data Virtualization," Forrester investigated the data services offerings of 11 vendors including BEA. Forrester identified four key features as the cornerstones of information fabric: distributed cache directory (DCD), distributed metadata repository (DMR), integrated data management (IDM) and distributed data access (DDA). These features, which are rich within the ALDSP, are designed to provide improved visibility and access to the data and a better line of sight into one's business.

The Forrester report concluded that of the 11 vendors it investigated, BEA ALDSP was the only product rated to receive a "Yes" grade in three of the four cornerstones. BEA received a complete, or 'Yes' grade, in DCD, DMR and DDA and a partial grade in IDM. None of the 11 companies received a 'Yes' grade in IDM.

"Being recognized as providing the most comprehensive solution by Forrester little more than six months after BEA announced its AquaLogic line, is testimony to the power of our data services vision," said Diyaa Zebian, General Manager, Middle East & Egypt, eSolutions BEA. "The bringing together of heterogeneous data sources to deliver customers a real time view of information across their organizations is an important part of deploying a service-oriented architecture. It is great to see Forrester recognizing AquaLogic Data Services Platform as one of the leaders in this area, which will further boost the demand for our solutions in the market."

BEA ALDSP is designed to automate the process of aggregating and service-enabling an enterprise's data sources, helping to enable data services to be easily built, maintained and reused. For efficient development of data services, ALDSP automation is designed to include query optimization and transaction management. For efficient administration, ALDSP is designed to include functionality for caching, security, auditing and tracking of Service Level Agreement (SLA) data. Since data access is a critical part of any service-oriented architecture (SOA) layer, web application or Portal application, ALDSP can help accelerate development and maintenance of these applications, which can lead to increased IT efficiency and can help deliver faster time to value.

BEA AquaLogic offers an open and independent platform for developing, deploying, managing and operating a complete service-oriented architecture in heterogeneous computing environments, including .Net, Java or legacy systems. BEA AquaLogic is designed to enable software services to be composed once and leveraged anywhere (COLA), so that it can help customers turn isolated or "frozen" IT assets into Enterprise Liquid Assets and can help enable them to respond faster to the pace of modern business. For more information about AquaLogic Data Services Platform or the AquaLogic family of products, please visit: http://www.bea.com/aqualogic

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About BEA
BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS) is the world's leading application infrastructure software company, providing the enterprise software foundation for 14,000 customers around the world, including the majority of the Fortune Global 500. BEA and its WebLogic brand are among the most trusted names in business. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., BEA has 81 offices in 34 countries and is on the web at www.bea.com. For local inquiries, eSolutions BEA can be contacted on e-mail sales.info@bea.ae, Tel: +9714 391 2992 and Fax: +9714 391 2991 and further information can be obtained from its website www.bea.ae

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© Press Release 2006