Actian Partner Showcase – AG-Tech

Who is AG-Tech and What is the Company’s History?
AG-Tech is a company that specializes in bringing software developed outside of Japan to the Japanese market. This involves everything from the software and its documentation’s localization into Japanese, its testing with Japanese data and OSes, to its local support, marketing, sales and distribution into the Japanese market.

The company was formed in 1984 and has been selling a Japanese version of the embedded Actian Zen product line and its predecessors since 1987.

What Does AG Stand For?
The first 2 letters of “Aggressive”.

Wann und wie sind Sie Actian Partner geworden?
AG-Tech ist seit dem ersten Verkauf von Btrieve Version 4 auf dem japanischen Markt im Jahr 1986 an der Actian Zen Produktlinie beteiligt.

If You Had to Describe Actian With Just One Word, What Would it Be?
One word is hard, but if it has to be one word – “innovation”

What Are Some of Japan’s Specifics, Advantages and Challenges When it Comes to Data, Data Management, Embedded Databases, Edge and IoT?
Japan is faster than anywhere else seeing a decrease in its workforce and an aging of its population, leading to an urgent need to automate and deploy RPA (robotic process automation), AI and IoT in the factory, the office and society in general. Furthermore, Japanese companies are worldwide leaders in these areas. More than elsewhere, we have seen that security concerns are leading to a desire to keep data closer to where it is generated and to process it at the Edge, rather than upload it to the cloud. The Japanese market does however demand and expect very high quality, reliability and support for the software products it deploys. This all creates a growing demand and opportunity for the high-quality, reliable embedded data management solutions that AG-Tech and Actian provide the Japanese market.

What is the Most Interesting Actian Zen Design-in That You’ve Been Part of?
Although I have been involved in many interesting design-ins in the past, probably the most interesting are the ones ongoing at the moment. We are helping major Japanese manufacturers at the very forefront of AI use Zen as a fast, reliable datastore in their IoT devices.   Confidentiality prevents me disclosing much detail, but it has been a great pleasure to see Zen continue to be chosen by system developers for the same reasons as I choose it as a system developer 25 years ago – the sheer speed, controllability and simplicity of its transactional interface.

Which Actian Zen Features Stand Out the Most and Make the Product Outstrip its Competitors?
The reliability and quality of the product and its ability to just keep running by itself without any need for administration have and continue to be key to its success. Also, developers greatly appreciate Zen’s backwards compatibility that has allowed them to use new functionality and the latest programming languages and OS platforms, without having to alter or even re-compile their existing applications.

How is The Trend of Embedded Analytics Changing in Japan?
Traditionally analytics of data at the Edge in Japan has often meant assembly of data and analysis of it in the cloud, for presentation and user response on browser-based dashboards. With the increasing amounts of data being generated by IoT at the Edge, security concerns and the need for a faster response, system designers are increasingly looking to perform more of their analytics closer to where data is generated at the Edge, both at the gateway level and on IoT devices themselves. Increasing amounts of memory and CPU power in IoT devices have enabled greater use of more complex analytic algorithms and AI in the devices themselves. This is resulting in an increasing desire to embed analytics and the data for it securely at the Edge or on the gateway. The sheer number of devices and variety of platforms involved means system developers are looking to keep to an absolute minimum the complexity and maintenance needs of their systems.

Zen’s cross-platform standardized data format and API, and low maintenance needs make it an ideal data store in this market.

Es gibt auch einen Trend bei den Systemintegratoren, IoT-Systeme und ihre Analysen nicht mehr separat zu verkaufen. Die Endnutzer erwarten nun zunehmend IoT-Lösungen, die nicht nur die IoT-Geräte selbst, sondern auch eingebettete Analysen ihres Betriebs umfassen, damit die Nutzer On-Premises in Echtzeit Einblicke in ihre Leistung erhalten.

Was ist der denkwürdigste Moment, der mit Actian als Partner verbunden ist?
Ich erinnere mich immer an die exzellente Produktschulung, die ich bei meinem Eintritt in das ActianTeam erhalten habe, und wie diese durch die Arbeit im Support-Center bei der Beantwortung von Kundenanfragen am Telefon vertieft und getestet wurde. Es war definitiv ein Sprung ins kalte Wasser, aber eine ausgezeichnete Lektion, dass man am besten lernt, Fortschritte bewertet und Feedback bekommt, wenn man mit Kunden spricht.

Responding was Martin Sims, AG-Tech’s CTO.

About Actian Corporation

Actian empowers enterprises to confidently manage and govern data at scale, streamlining complex data environments and accelerating the delivery of AI-ready data. The Actian data intelligence approach combines data discovery, metadata management, and federated governance to enable smarter data usage and enhance compliance. With intuitive self-service capabilities, business and technical users can find, understand, and trust data assets across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. Actian delivers flexible data management solutions to 42 million users at Fortune 100 companies and other enterprises worldwide, while maintaining a 95% customer satisfaction score.