Oracle vs. SQLServer Argument Hits eDiscovery Market

Having spent the last 20 years in the enterprise class software market I am very familiar with the age old argument about whether Oracle's DBMS or Microsoft's SQLServer is better. The Oracle bigots will tell you that SQLServer is slow, doesn't scale and just wasn't architected for true enterprise class use. SQLServer Biggots will tell you that Oracle is way too expensive. I will get in to some of the specifics later in this post. However, first I wanted to point out that the Oracle vs. SQLServer argument has now hit the eDiscovery market with CaseCentral's announcement that they have Migrated their On-Demand eDiscovery Platform to Oracle® Real Application Clusters.

Given the fact that Tom Thimot, CaseCentral President and CEO served as the vice president of central U.S. sales at Oracle, where his team grew license revenues from $50 million to more than $250 million in a two-year period and was also a key leader in the worldwide Oracle applications vertical organization that grew revenues by more than $100 million, it is no big surprise that he is an Oracle Biggot.

The Full Text of the Press Release is as follows:
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

-- CaseCentral, the leading secure SaaS platform for corporations looking to take control of eDiscovery, has migrated its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters to deliver better performance, scalability and availability, Oracle announced today.
-- CaseCentral's platform allows corporations to apply disciplined business process to litigation and regulatory matters, reducing risk and business disruption, boosting productivity, and controlling costs. CaseCentral has delivered its proven, SaaS platform to over 1,100 customers and more than 7,250 registered users.
-- CaseCentral actively manages several hundred terabytes of evidence -- 95 percent of which is unstructured data such as emails, office documents, and images -- and has hosted over 25,000 individual litigation matters.
-- San Francisco-based CaseCentral initially deployed its clustered database environment in 2007. Its purpose-built Java-based platform is deployed on a multi-node cluster of HP BladeSystem servers running Linux.
-- CaseCentral utilizes Oracle Enterprise Manager to help provide the monitoring and management necessary to meet the mission-critical needs of their clients. CaseCentral will migrate customers currently supported by Microsoft SQL Server to the clustered Oracle Database environment.

Supporting Quote
"CaseCentral offers a highly scalable, on demand software platform that allows companies to own the eDiscovery process and their law firms to own the execution," said Ted Sergott, Chief Technology Officer, CaseCentral. "At a moment's notice, a new or existing client can send us millions of documents and terabytes of data to support an eDiscovery matter and thanks to our architecture, we are fully prepared to accommodate that volume of mission-critical data. Running on Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters, CaseCentral offers customers a scaleable, secure and available platform to meet their eDiscovery needs."

Supporting Resources
About Oracle Database: http://www.oracle.com/database
About Oracle Real Application Clusters: http://www.oracle.com/clusters
About Oracle Enterprise Manager: http://www.oracle.com/enterprise_manager/index.html
To download free, evaluation versions of Oracle software, go to: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html

About CaseCentral
CaseCentral is the leader in on-demand eDiscovery software for corporations looking to take control of eDiscovery. CaseCentral enables companies to efficiently and defensibly respond to today's legal and compliance challenges, consistently, accurately and faster, while delivering overall savings of 30-60 percent and increasing earnings per share (EPS) by up to 1.1 percent. The company's on-demand eDiscovery software platform, with its secure, multi-party architecture and configurable litigation workflow engine, includes best-practice solution templates that enable companies to be operational within hours. CaseCentral is the first to provide eDiscovery business intelligence dashboards giving customers real-time insight into review rates, quality rates and costs per document by case, firm or user. CaseCentral is used by more than 25 of the Fortune 100 and 81 of the AmLaw 100. Founded in 1994, CaseCentral is consistently chosen to handle many of the most complex and highly visible litigation projects in the nation. For more information, call 1.800.714.2727 or visit http://www.casecentral.com/.

About Oracle
Oracle (ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com/.

Oracle vs. SQLServer
According to a recent whitepaper available on the Microsoft site title "Leaping Forward: SQL Server 2008 Compared to Oracle Database 11g", Microsoft SQL Server has steadily gained ground on other database systems and now surpasses the competition in terms of performance, scalability, security, developer productivity, business intelligence (BI), and compatibility with the 2007 Microsoft Office System. It achieves this at a considerably lower cost than does Oracle Database 11g.

So, Microsoft contends that Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 outperforms Oracle in the areas that matter to your business. The following summarizes some of the mission-critical areas in which SQL Server 2008 excels:

Performance and Scalability: SQL Server scales to some of the world’s largest workloads, evidenced by strong industry standard benchmark results. Customers such as Unilever, Citi, Barclays Capital, and Mediterranean Shipping Company support their most mission-critical applications on SQL Server. Customers running SQL Server 2008, including large ISVs such as Siemens and RedPrairie, report excellent experiences with the latest scalability enhancements. SQL Server is recognized as Best Seller and Top Growth Best Seller by CRN Magazine.

Security: The National Vulnerability Database (NIST) reports over 330 critical security vulnerabilities in Oracle database products over the last four years. During that same period, SQL Server 2005 experienced ZERO vulnerabilities. This result comes from secure engineering processes as part of the Trustworthy Computing Initiative, comprehensive security features, and a robust Microsoft Update infrastructure. This winning combination reduces both security risks and patching downtime for customers. According to one expert, Oracle is five years behind Microsoft in patch management. Computerworld reports that two-thirds of Oracle DBAs do not apply security patches.

Developer Productivity: SQL Server works with Microsoft Visual Studio® to help provide an integrated development experience, allowing developers to work in one environment across the client, mid-tier, and data-tier. SQL Server 2008 takes a step further with new development features. In contrast, Oracle’s array of tools and SDKs, assembled via acquisition, require developers to learn and work across numerous interfaces. In fact, IDC reports that Microsoft is the number one application technology platform of choice.

Business Intelligence: SQL Server is part of the Microsoft integrated Business Intelligence platform, which spans data warehousing, analytics and reporting, score carding, planning, and budgeting. SQL Server is in the Leader’s quadrant in both Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms and Magic Quadrant for Data Warehousing. SQL Server 2008 introduces more innovation with new data warehousing and business intelligence features. According to Oracle’s latest price list, the company currently charges up to an additional 800% or more on top of their base database fees for similar functionalities.

Microsoft Office System Integration: SQL Server helps customers gain better business insight and make faster decisions through the product's tight integration with the familiar Microsoft Office System user interface. For example, add-ins such as Data Mining for Excel uses both SQL Server and Microsoft Office to provide insight into customer data. IDC recognizes Microsoft as the fastest growing BI tool vendor. Oracle has Microsoft Office Plug In, which includes subset of the functionalities that SQL Server provides, but charges an additional $30,000 per processor.

Total Cost of Ownership: SQL Server has a simple tiered SKU licensing model. Oracle, on the other hand, has a complex array of options and add-ins that are required to develop, deploy, and manage most large-scale applications. The SQL Server integrated development environment and easy-to-use development tools lead to improved Time to Solution and Time to Value for applications and business insight. SQL Server is highly successful in the areas of self-tuning and automated administration, resulting in a much simpler deployment and management profile than Oracle Database 11g. SQL Server is designed to work seamlessly with the rest of the Microsoft software stack, which can help provide smoother development and deployment experience and higher performance than Oracle.

Summary
As I started this post, I grew up in the enterprise software market and therefore learned to tow the Oracle line and bash SQLServer as a nice little departmental database that would never have what it takes to play in the big leagues. However, I believe that Microsoft has come a long way and now that I am "playing" in the legal market, I would recommend that any technologies sitting on the SQLServer platform will have to be considered just as strong as the technologies sitting on Oracle.

And, I hope that someone out there in the litigation market challenges this position so that we can rekindle some of the debate that was so much fun for so many years in the general enterprise markets. And, it is arguments / debates such as these that will help to usher the litigation market into the world of leading edge technology.

Labels: CaseCentral, DBMS, Oralce, ORT, SQLServer

posted by Charles Skamser @ 4:02 PM 0 Comments

ABA Issues Formal Opinion 08-451 Outlining SOPs for Outsourcing Litigation Services

On Monday, the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released a statement regarding a new ethics opinion (Formal Opinion 08-451), which concludes that U.S. lawyers can outsource legal and nonlegal work provided that they adhere to ethics rules regarding competence, supervision, protection of confidential information, reasonable fees, and not assisting in the unauthorized practice of law. The opinion, entitled "Lawyer’s Obligations When Outsourcing Legal and Nonlegal Support Services," outlines the ethics obligations of lawyers and firms that wish to utilize legal and nonlegal outsourcing.

Stating that "[a] lawyer may outsource legal or nonlegal support services provided the lawyer remains ultimately responsible for rendering competent legal services to the client," the opinion notes that lawyers and law firms engage lawyers and nonlawyers for various legal and nonlegal support services, ranging from "the use of a local photocopy shop for the reproduction of documents, to the retention of a document management company for the creation and maintenance of a database for complex litigation, . . . or even to the engagement of a group of foreign lawyers to draft patent applications." The opinion acknowledges, however, that "[t]he challenge for an outsourcing lawyer is . . . to ensure that tasks are delegated to individuals who are competent to perform them, and then to oversee the execution of the project adequately and appropriately."

Given the rapid rise in the cost of eDiscovery over the past 24 months coupled with the undeniable financial opportunities offered by our global economy and the recent application of Internet based technology to the litigating services market, this opinion is basically setting operating standards in a "market" where most of the horses have all left the barn, the door is still wide open and we are all wondering about the competence of the horses that haven't left.

All that being said, given the fact that this is not the mission of the ABA to endorse any practices and therefore, regardless of the press releases that are cropping up from litigation services vendors, this is not an endorsement of outsourcing your litigation services on-shore or off-shore.

It does, nonetheless, provide a framework and set of criteria for outsourcing as follows:

1. The outsource has the "legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary."
2. The client consents in writing, with a knowing acceptance of the risk of breach of attorney-client confidence.
3. Outsource work is properly supervised by US counsel, including appropriate protection of client secrets.
4A. The US lawyer checks background and references.
4B. The outsource legal education is comparable to a US legal education.
5. The outsource signs a confidentiality agreement.
6. The fee remains reasonable after including any US surcharge for overhead.

In an upcoming Blog posting, I will compare the costs of completing litigation services under several different scenarios:

1. Internally within the corporation
2. Externally, on-shore with outside counsel
3. Externally, off-shore with outside counsel
4. Externally, on-shore with a 3rd party service or technology vendor and/or consulting firm
5. Externally, off-shore, with a 3rd party service or technology vendor and/or consulting firm

I predict that some of your will be shocked at the wide variance in price and/or how much money you are leaving on the table.

Labels: ABA, ABA Formal Opinion 08-451, ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Amercian Bar Association, Litigation Service Providers, Outsourcing

posted by Charles Skamser @ 9:55 AM 0 Comments

New Litigation Software Review Site

With the potential changes to The Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey, I started to research alternatives for substanttive research on litigation technology. I am pleased to report that I have found LitiReview by Lexebe.com.

Launched in August of 2008, LitiReviews boasts the largest collection of free legal and litigation software reviews on the web. All reviews (100+) are full-text, and have been published in legal magazines, journals, websites and blogs. LitiReview links to copies of reviews available on the internet, or hosted by us at the author's request.

LitiReview enables users to:

- See the latest reviews listed below
- See only reviews from a specific software category or for a particular application by clicking on the links to the left
- Register for our free newsletter including recent reviews
- Receive our RSS feed in XML or in the following readers: Google Yahoo AOL
Send this page to a friend
- Find out more about the LitiReviews legal software reviews collection
- Add a legal software review to the collection
- Make a specific search in the box below

I would encourage anyone interested in researching litigation technology to take a look at LitiReview by Lexebe.com.

Example Reviews

CaseLogistixReview: Anacomp’s CaseLogistix 5.2, by Timothy Piganelli. Overall this tool has to be one of the top choices for document review with its native file review capability. Attorneys and law firms that have an in-house IT or litigation support staff to handle the SQL application would find CaseLogistix useful and very workable. My top three features are the Document Native Review tool, the IntelliFolders and their functionality, and the prompted search feature. Category: Electronic Discovery. Written: 2008. Added: 8-15-2008. Techno Lawyers

Trident 4.0 SoftwareTrident Suite from Wave Software, by Randall Consulting. Trident 4.0 Software suite is composed of five unique applications to assist in processing PST files: Email De-Duplication, Email Re-Generation, Message Exporter, Message Importer and Snapshot software. Category: Electronic Discovery. Written: 2007. Added: 8-11-2008. Randall Consulting

OneO Discovery PlatformFerris Research on OrangeLT™, by David Ferris. The integrated analysis, processing, and review is certainly an attractive feature, making life a lot simpler for the user. Today, these different phases are commonly handled by separate products. Over the long term, such integration is likely to win out over cobbling together best-of-breed solutions. Category: Electronic Discovery. Written: 2008. Added: 8-02-2008. Ferris Research

SafeCopy 2.1 MobileReview: SafeCopy 2.1 Mobile, by Bruce A. Olson. SafeCopy 2.1 Mobile by Pivotal Guidance is an inexpensive tool that may enable you or your client to maintain document security and validity as part of the discovery process. SafeCopy is not, however, intended to be a forensic application that can create a forensic image of a drive. SafeCopy offers a cost effective option that fills a needed niche. Category: Electronic Discovery. Written: 2008. Added: 7-12-2008. Technolawyer

ConcordanceThe E-Discovery Hostess with the Mostest, by Dennis Kennedy. Lawyers beginning to delve into the world of electronic discovery often express surprise at how even simple cases can involve large amounts of electronic data. Help is usually the first word that comes to mind. With Hosted FYI, you and your team can review, process, store, retrieve, redact, and share documents in a secure, centralized, and always-accessible environment. Category: Litigation Management. Written: 2007. Added: 7-12-2008. Law.com

Discovery AttenderDiscovery Attender From Sherpa Software, by Brett Burney. Discovery Attender from Sherpa Software is a sturdy platform that enables you to search across electronic mailboxes, email archives, and folders of loose files. I found Discovery Attender to be an extremely simple and effective tool for searching through a hefty stack of email. It wasn’t overly complicated, and after a couple of searches, I became very comfortable with the logical steps involved in the Search Wizard. Discovery Attender is a nice addition to the tool belt of anyone who regularly needs to search through email to find messages relevant to a litigation matter. Category: Electronic Discovery. Written: 2008. Added: 7-10-2008. Technolawyer

CaseLogistixCaseLogistix Discovery Partner, by Jonathan Franklin. I like this product a lot. It’s powerful, easy to use and intuitive. Candidly, it’s the first program in this market segment that my firm wants to use. In fact, the firm now is using it. Dynamic document analysis and management. Its SQL-based system is powerful, highly scalable and robust. No predefined templates for library creation. An integrated training video would be nice. It exceeds expectations. Category: Electronic Discovery. Written: 2006. Added: 7-09-2008. Law Office Computing

IPROIPRO ePrint-IT, by Milton Hooper. EPrint-IT is very easy to use and features only one screen with which you mainly work. Once installed, you immediately can start putting ePrint-IT to use. The customizable options are easy to understand and adjust. It's a little pricey at $695 for the first year ($195 each year thereafter) and might not be worth the investment for someone who doesn't have a lot of electronic documents. If you are involved in EDD and don't have time to learn new software, ePrint-IT might be the right match for you. Category: Electronic Discovery. Written: 2008. Added: 7-09-2008. Legal Assistant Today

Labels: Lexbe, Litigation Software, LitReview, Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey

posted by Charles Skamser @ 12:19 PM 0 Comments

Another Round of eDiscovery Technology Enhancements as Vendors Stampede Towards Single Source Solutions

Although it is not the purpose of The eDiscovery Paradigm Shift to track litigation technology vendors and thier most recent releases, it appears that there has been a recent flurry of announcements regarding either the enhancement of early collection or the addition of further Early Case Assessment (ECA) analysis that futher enforce my contention that there is a variable vendor stampede towards single source solutions: eDiscovery Single Source Solutions.

This vendor stampede is great for end users in the short run as it appears that most of the more well know players in the litigation technology market are continuig to offer the missing components to bring their solutions up to the "single source" platform criteria.

However, in the long run as is always the case when market to through a paradigm shift and as we are now witnesses with the last days of NFL training camps, not everyone, not every vendor is going to make the cut. There is going to be consolidation, some complete failures and some near failures. And, in the long run this will be good for a stable mature eDiscovery markte. However, in the short run, even through end-users now have many "good" choices, they better consider other factors in choosing their vendors such as longevity.

In future posts to this Blog, I will offer some suggestions to end users to help them avoid choosing the wrong vendors.

August 2008 Vendor Announcements

Kazeon Extends eDiscovery Collection, Processing and Analysis with Legal Hold and Laptop/Desktop Product

Mountain View, Calif. - August 25, 2008 - Kazeon Systems, Inc., a leading provider of intelligent eDiscovery solutions, today announced the availability of Version 3.1 of its award-winning Information Server IS1200-ECS. The new version introduces a new in-place legal hold, KazHold™ and a new agent-less product for in-place analysis of and collection from laptops/desktops. These new products and functionality are key enhancements in helping organizations streamline their collection, analysis and processing for proactive and reactive eDiscovery processes and ensure that they discover all relevant and necessary information for any litigation related activity. These new capabilities provide extensive defensibility and audit ability for eDiscovery by ensuring no spoliation of data and no modifications to metadata attributes of files and emails, while saving significantly on network bandwidth and cost during the process of collection, processing and analysis. With Version 3.1 of its Information Server IS1200-ECS Kazeon continues to set the standard in addressing the most sophisticated eDiscovery requirements of organizations worldwide. The IS1200-ECS is now being used by hundreds of corporations worldwide, and has more than 50 billion documents and 3000 Terabytes under direct management.

FTI Announces Availability of Attenex® Patterns® 5.0

FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN), the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced from the ILTA ’08 conference the availability of Attenex Patterns version 5.0. The release of Attenex Patterns 5.0 marks the first product announcement since FTI Consulting acquired Attenex in July 2008. The new eDiscovery software includes a number of significant enhancements to help corporate IT departments administer and enforce a repeatable in-house eDiscovery process.

“Attenex Patterns is the eDiscovery standard for many law firms and corporations because it puts them in the best position to make the best decision on any matter—whether for investigations, legal or compliance needs,” said JR Jesson, senior managing director of FTI Consulting. “Enhancements in Attenex Patterns 5.0 benefit corporate IT teams tasked with developing a defensible and cost-effective eDiscovery process.”

Among the new features within Attenex Patterns 5.0, the software development kit (SDK) enables corporate IT teams to automate eDiscovery processing tasks, reducing unnecessary expenses and the risk of human error. The software’s open APIs help corporate IT teams leverage existing investments by integrating Attenex Patterns with complementary applications and data sources. Additionally, corporate IT teams can develop integrated utilities for custom eDiscovery processing tasks.

The dramatic growth of enterprise data collected during litigation, internal investigations and regulatory inquiries creates new challenges for corporate eDiscovery teams. Attenex Patterns 5.0 helps the in-house team rise to this challenge by delivering several new performance enhancements for managing eDiscovery matters—whether multinational or multi-terabyte. These enhancements include improved data processing and search performance with Asian languages, faster processing speeds for multiple PST and NSF files, as well as faster de-duplication and re-clustering capabilities to help eDiscovery teams more quickly make sense of the data during internal investigations and case assessments.

Businesses have identified Attenex as a top five eDiscovery software provider for the second straight year in the most recent Socha-Gelbmann eDiscovery survey. A longtime market leader in document processing and analytics software for eDiscovery, Attenex Patterns software consists of:

Attenex® Patterns® Workbench™, enterprise-class data and project management software used by leading corporations to implement repeatable in-house eDiscovery processes. More than a culling tool or appliance, in-house eDiscovery teams rely on Workbench’s unprecedented flexibility for filtering collected data, developing case strategy as well as tracking document decisions and work product throughout the process; and Attenex® Patterns® Document Mapper™, the choice of legal and compliance teams that need to quickly and accurately identify relevant information from electronic document collections of any size. An unparalleled visual interface increases review productivity with a multi-dimensional look at the collection’s main concepts and themes. Reviewers can quickly and accurately identify, analyze, review and categorize documents during internal investigations or case assessments.

Attenex Patterns can be deployed on-premise or on-demand through an Attenex Advantage™ service provider, providing flexible deployment options that can be customized to the needs of any environment. This flexibility, combined with new features in version 5.0, further strengthens Attenex Patterns’ position as the premier eDiscovery software for corporations that want to take control of their eDiscovery process.

StoredIQ eDiscovery Appliance 4.6 Increases Functionality Leadership with Expanded Platform Support and Enhanced eDiscovery Features

Austin, TX. August 25, 2008 — StoredIQ, Inc., whose innovative eDiscovery technology revolutionizes the way companies address eDiscovery and litigation readiness, announced today expanded platform integration support and enhanced eDiscovery functionality designed to improve the efficiency of IT and legal teams performing work within the eDiscovery lifecycle.
"StoredIQ automates more of the eDiscovery lifecycle than any other solution," said Steve Killan, Enterprise Server Manager at James Hardie, the world leader in fiber cement technology. "StoredIQ delivers unparalleled functionality in both breadth and depth from information management through the identification, collection, preservation and processing of electronically stored information."

StoredIQ V4.6 includes:

- Expanded Platform Support
- Ability to insert unstructured information as records into the most current version of EMC Documentum and place those items under litigation hold
- Ability to insert, retrieve and manage information within Microsoft Exchange 2007 and SharePoint 2007
- Deeper eDiscovery Capabilities
- Improved query report analytics to assist with "meet-and-confer" sessions
Ability to harvest additional email server objects such as tasks, contacts, calendar items, and notes
- Support of the EDRM XML V1.0 load file format
- Enhanced usability and productivity for pre-collection investigations

Labels: Attenex, Documentum, Early Case Assessment, eCapture, EDRM, FTI, Kazeon, SharePoint, StoredIQ, XML

posted by Charles Skamser @ 10:45 AM 0 Comments