DataDirect Technologies Announces Expert Series Architect Tutorials 2008 and New XQuery Workshops

International, Multi-City Events to Address Data Connectivity Design Considerations for SOA and Virtualized Environments and Best Practices for Data Integration Using Emerging Standards

BEDFORD, Mass. — March 2008 — DataDirect Technologies, a leader in data connectivity and mainframe integration and an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), today announced the schedule and agenda for its bi-annual Expert Series Architect Tutorial events. Co-sponsored by the service-oriented architecture (SOA) research and advisory firm ZapThink LLC, the free seminar series is designed to provide software architects and software developers with thought-provoking information and actionable best practices for optimizing data access within SOA and virtualized environments.

The half-day educational seminar series will explore how SOA and virtualized computing initiatives can be in jeopardy, or fail to produce the development savings, performance levels and scalability desired if a sound data services strategy is not designed into the foundation of the application architecture. Attendees will gain valuable insights from the industry’s foremost data access experts who will highlight design considerations for successful architectural approaches in both SOA applications and virtualized environments. The information presented will provide attendees with mechanisms to improve application performance, flexibility and capability immediately.

The Expert Series seminars provide useful information for architects designing for Java™, .NET and other development platforms. Presentations address how best to handle a heterogeneous mix of data within the enterprise – whether relational, XML, EDI or proprietary data formats that reside on a combination of different platforms including Windows, Unix, Linux and the mainframe. The program agenda follows:

* Data Services Update with Industry Experts David Linthicum and Jason Bloomberg of ZapThink
* Architectural Considerations for High Performance Database Applications in a SOA Environment
* How to Plan for Data Access in Virtualized Environments

Dates and locations for the spring 2008 Expert Series Architect Tutorials in North America and Europe follows:

* Chicago – April 1 at the W Hotel Chicago Lakeshore
* Washington D.C. – April 3 at the Marriott Hotel, Falls Church, VA
* Atlanta – April 15 at the Marriott Hotel, Alpharetta, GA
* Houston – April 17 at the Omni Houston Hotel
* Amsterdam– April 21 at the Park Plaza Hotel
* Paris – April 22 at the Hotel Lutetia
* Munich – April 23 at the Marriott Renaissance
* London – April 24 at the Dali Universe, County Hall Gallery
* Southern California – May 1 at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Spa, Irvine, CA

In conjunction with the Expert Series Architect Tutorial spring events, DataDirect Technologies will also host the XML-based data services workshop, “XML and XQuery Workshop for Data Integration.” The three-hour workshop will address a typical data integration scenario where an IT organization needs to integrate data from relational databases, EDI feeds, XML documents and Web services within a SOA. The hands-on session will write, test and deploy these techniques live, in front of the audience. The workshops will take place immediately following the morning sessions of Architect Tutorials in Chicago, Washington D.C. and Houston. Additional workshops will take place May 20 in London and May 22 in Amsterdam.

“In all of our events, we strive for a no-nonsense, educational format where attendees can gain valuable insights without a big sales pitch,” said Charles Gold, vice president of worldwide marketing for DataDirect Technologies. “All of our content is based on the real-world issues that we hear from our customers every day. Past attendees have found these events tremendously valuable and we’re pleased to have extended them to more cities on an international scale.”