Free trial UDACentral makes its debut
February 17, 2016
A corporate-grade migration tool gained a free trial version for datacenters including the HP 3000 this week, as MB Foster introduced UDACentral's latest version.
"Data migrations are challenging when you need to change database types or attempt to perform data transformations during the migration," said Myles Foster, the company's new head of product development. "With the availability of a free trial our data migration product UDACentral is now easier than ever to obtain.
Along with the free version, MB Foster is also offering corporate and enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) licenses for UDACentral. "I realized that SaaS models of UDACentral will help companies reduce costs to free up capital for other business priorities," Foster said, "and enable strategic decision-making around IT investments."
UDACentral isn't limited to MPE/iX hosts, but Foster said the tool's target includes HP 3000 sites. The software began its lifecycle in 2002 as a means to "gives migration projects the centralized switchyard for replacing data securely while preserving its integrity,” said Birket Foster at the product's rollout. For more than a decade the software was employed in migration engagements, integrated by MB Foster’s Platinum Migration Partner team, working alongside a customer’s IT group.
By now UDACentral converts and migrates data between more than 20 databases. The software uses a Data Explorer to generate an Entity Relationship Diagram. Within a year of its introduction, Graceland University used the software to make its transition from MPE/iX to HP-UX and the Informix database.
UDACentral is also a certified product in the BCIP software innovation program, run by the Canadian government. Software in this Built In Canada Program is available to government agencies and entities such as provincial departments and nationwide organizations. It's pre-qualified for integration into governmental datacenters.
"We used to employ UDACentral in jobs and get paid for our services," Foster said. "Now we're adding the strategy of making our power tools available for people to do the job themselves." The software is aimed at integrators, consultants, and datacenter managers.