ObjectStore Introduces the First Comprehensive Product for Real-Time RFID Application Development

ObjectStore, a leader in products for real-time data services, and an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), today announced ObjectStore RFID Accelerator, an easy-to-use, real-time data management solution for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) applications. Featuring the performance and scalability required to support the enormous event data volumes generated by RFID deployments, ObjectStore RFID Accelerator delivers a complete RFID application development environment featuring an innovative event query language, a persistent database for EPC-related data, support for industry-standard RFID readers to collect RFID data, and open interfaces to communicate RFID events to enterprise applications. (In a separate announcement today, ObjectStore highlights a German forestry company that is using ObjectStore RFID Accelerator for its log tracking application.

"RFID will fundamentally transform our ability to track any item in real time. But that visibility will result in a huge increase in data that will severely tax traditional data management technology," said Peter Sliwkowski, president, ObjectStore. "Based on our patented Cache-Forward(TM) Architecture, ObjectStore RFID Accelerator allows applications to handle the new real-time requirements of RFID systems, realize the benefits, and interface to existing enterprise applications."

ObjectStore RFID Accelerator includes the ObjectStore Event Engine(TM), the first commercial real-time in-memory event database to comply with the EPCglobal Tag Data Standard. EPCglobal is leading the development of industry-driven standards for the Electronic Product Code (EPC) to support the use of RFID. ObjectStore RFID Accelerator also features a standard way to query RFID data, RFID event data caching, reference data caching, RFID data aggregation and filtering, RFID reader connectivity, standards-based EPCglobal-compliant reader connectivity, and enterprise service bus (ESB) connectivity for the distribution of events identified as meaningful to enterprise applications.

The First Comprehensive Product for Real-Time RFID Data Management
ObjectStore RFID Accelerator is built on the ObjectStore Event Engine, a real-time data management product for streaming event data. The ObjectStore Event Engine provides event-driven applications with a reliable way to both manage high-volume, high- velocity data, and concurrently execute real-time queries on those event streams. The Cache-Forward Architecture (CFA) of the ObjectStore Event Engine uniquely combines the high performance and data persistence necessary to ensure the availability and reliability required by enterprise RFID applications. It also facilitates the scalability needed to handle RFID's volumes and velocity, such that ObjectStore RFID Accelerator can handle sustained throughput of 50,000 events a second, with subsecond processing. ObjectStore RFID Accelerator can be deployed on a full range of platforms with hardware-independent RFID reader interfaces. ObjectStore RFID Accelerator delivers the following benefits:

-Lower total cost of ownership due to both platform and RFID hardware independence;

-The performance required to support RFID implementations today and the ability to scale to support vastly increased volumes as tagging begins at the item level;

-The ability to execute real-time filters of low-level RFID event traffic, thus isolating meaningful events;

-Investment protection through adherence to RFID standards.

ObjectStore RFID Accelerator is the first product to combine these benefits in one package, resulting in the ability to gain deep insight in real time, with the additional perspective of RFID event history.

Revolutionary Query Mechanism for Current and Historical RFID Data
ObjectStore RFID Accelerator is uniquely designed as a service- oriented, event-driven architecture, in order to relate RFID events to business events. This architecture is fundamental to the successful implementation of an EPC Information Service (EPCIS), a standard under development by the EPGglobal EPCIS software action group. To support EPCIS, ObjectStore RFID Accelerator provides an extensible adapter model for the collection of RFID events from disparate sources, as well as the ability to query RFID event history with different formats and protocols. It includes a:

-Collection adapter for collecting RFID events from RFID middleware compliant with the draft Application Level Event (ALE) 1.0 specification as proposed by EPCglobal.

-Query adapter for querying RFID event history via SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). Queries are specified as XML-formatted Event History Specifications (EHSpec) and the results returned as XML-formatted Event History Reports (EHReport). The SOAP interface and the EHSpec and EHReport formats are patterned after similar components of the draft ALE 1.0 specification. This common model provides application developers with a more unified approach for operating on both current and historical RFID data.

ConnecTerra Provides EPC-compliant Middleware
ObjectStore RFID Accelerator includes ConnecTerra RFTagAware which is based on EPCglobal's ALE specification to manage RFID readers and collect RFID data. It offers broad support for popular readers, printers and tag formats. By combining ObjectStore technology with the ConnecTerra RFTagAware API, developers can quickly and seamlessly integrate collected RFID data into applications, such as ERP, supply chain and warehouse management systems. Both ObjectStore and ConnecTerra are members of EPCglobal.

To integrate and manage the flow of meaningful business events to applications and business processes throughout the extended enterprise, ObjectStore RFID Accelerator provides native support for Sonic ESB, the industry's leading Enterprise Service Bus. By reliably and securely delivering RFID business events directly to appropriate warehouse management and ERP systems, Sonic ESB obviates the performance bottleneck of hub-and-spoke integration, and can scale to manage large numbers of physically dispersed RFID readers and enterprise applications.

Finally, since RFID has applicability to many industries outside the retail, manufacturing, and supply chain sectors, ObjectStore RFID Accelerator incorporates an adapter framework that will support standards-based RFID tag formats for industry-specific standards like the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) baggage handling standards, as well as emerging technology standards based on XML and ISO.

"IDC estimates the spending on RFID for the retail supply chain for the United States alone will grow from $91.5 million in 2003 to nearly $1.3 billion in 2008, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 70 percent," said Christopher Boone, program director, US Vertical Research at IDC. "Forward-thinking companies realize that deploying RFID tags and readers will not by itself lead to long-term competitive advantage, but rather how they use more granular, real-time data to improve and change business processes will push them ahead of rivals. As more cases and pallets--and eventually items--are tagged with RFID and electronic product codes, companies will require complex event processing to manage and analyze this new data."