Press Releases

StreamBase Announces Industry-Wide Initiative To Standardize Next-Generation SQL Language For Stream Processing

Project StreamSQL Extends Familiar SQL-Based Gold Standard To Fuel Broad Adoption Of Complex Event Processing (CEP) Applications

BOSTON, MA – September 12, 2006 — StreamBase Systems, Inc., provider of the industry's fastest and most powerful real-time and historical complex event processing software, today announced the launch of Project StreamSQL, a broad industry initiative to catapult a SQL­based programming language as the standard for querying, processing, and analyzing streaming data. Created by experts from across the complex event processing community, the StreamSQL language enables enterprises to extend the familiar, easy-to-use SQL paradigm to real-time streaming data applications with a low-maintenance infrastructure that is flexible, scalable, and highly-available. StreamSQL reference documentation is available at www.streamsql.org.

"The rapid growth of the complex event processing marketplace suggests that the standardization of a programming language that processes and analyzes streams of real-time data would make sense," said Philip Howard, Research Director at Bloor Research. "One obvious approach to gaining greater interest in the CEP community would be standardization based on SQL — after all, it is widely used and popular. Acceptance of such a standard would facilitate adoption of CEP technology and enable enterprise developers familiar with current query languages to more easily build real-time streaming data applications."

By applying "SQL on streams", new, sophisticated real­time applications are being built to address a wide array of challenges in multiple industries. These applications include: financial transaction fraud detection and anti-money laundering compliance, monitoring Web-based adventure games to give players optimal gaming experiences, automated stock trading for increased investment profitability, clickstream and web site monitoring for optimizing real-time promotions and customer service, and much more.

"SQL has remained the most enduring standard querying language for stored data over three decades due to its combination of powerful data processing primitives, functionality, power, and relative ease­of­use," said Dr. Mike Stonebraker, CTO and Founder of StreamBase. "Years of research and customer experience have demonstrated that extending SQL to process streams is the right approach for real-time data." Analysts estimate that millions of relational database servers are running SQL today, with tens of thousands of SQL­skilled database programmers. In fact, many core principles for querying stored data can be applied to streaming data by extending the existing familiar paradigm of SQL.

The specification for StreamSQL, which adds time or event-based windows to standard SQL, was created by a team representing the leading stream processing research programs in the United States – including data management experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as well as Brown, Brandeis, and Stanford Universities. Based on historical precedents in the computing industry, emergence of a standard programming language is expected to facilitate broad adoption of CEP technology and enable enterprise developers familiar with current query languages to more easily build real-time streaming data applications. In a manner similar to the widespread standardization of other programming languages including C++ (launched by AT&T) and Java (brought to the public domain by Sun Microsystems), StreamBase is playing a key role with other global systems software companies to commercialize a SQL­based standard for CEP. As part of StreamBase's commitment to drive this standardization and continue its efforts to offer the industry's largest CEP developer community, Project StreamSQL includes a variety of initiatives:

• Developer CEP Resources – StreamBase has launched StreamSQL.org (www.streamsql.org), which features a blog written by leading CEP technologists, along with programming resources, and soon-to-launch forums and discussion groups. In addition, StreamBase has also created a Developer Zone, offering open access to the StreamBase Developer Edition software, which features StreamSQL, full documentation, and sample applications. And, to further evangelize the benefits of CEP, StreamBase launched the industry's first developer contest, "The Quest for the Da Vinci Coder," (www.thedavincicoder.com) with a current challenge to build the most creative and impactful CEP application with StreamSQL. A grand prize of $10,000 will go to the best application.
• In­Depth SQL on Streams Workshops – To further infuse the adoption of a "SQL on streams" standard for CEP, StreamBase provides multi-city, instructor­led training called the "Inside StreamSQL Workshop." This is an interactive, hands­on course for application developers to learn StreamSQL and build high­performance real­time applications. Typically, developers who are familiar with SQL learn StreamSQL within four to six hours. Current workshops are scheduled for September 12th – 13th and October 10th – 11th in New York City, and October 17th – 18th in Dulles, Virginia.
• Open-Community Training & Certification – Soon, developers will be able to achieve certification for StreamSQL to further validate their expertise in creating enterprise-class, real-time streaming data applications. In addition, StreamBase will also implement web-based training and StreamSQL workshops at various client and partner offices around the world to further increase adoption and support.

"In 10 years, more applications will be built to leverage real­time data versus querying stored data – and a standard programming language to support this next-generation computing infrastructure is emerging now," said Barry Morris, Chairman and CEO of StreamBase. "As we continue to see an explosion around new business challenges that arise from managing real­time data, the right infrastructure to support these high­performance, high­volume applications will fuel the widespread market growth of complex event processing. StreamSQL will be the ubiquitous programming language for building these real­time streaming data applications."

About StreamBase

StreamBase's award-winning Stream Processing Platform, fueled by the standards-based next generation query language, StreamSQL™ and an Eclipse-based development environment, offers the fastest Complex Event Processing software for processing of real-time and historical data. With StreamBase and StreamSQL, enterprises can query, process, and analyze real-time and stored data at rates of up to hundreds of thousands messages/second. StreamBase's combination of real-time performance, persistence, and programmability empowers enterprises in industries like financial services, telecom and networking, e-Business, government and military to solve new classes of business challenges in a more timely, scalable, and cost effective manner than custom-coding. StreamBase is headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and London. A downloadable version of StreamBase's software is available at www.streambase.com.

©2006 StreamBase Systems, Inc. All other trademarks or trade names are properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

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