Capella Education Taps DataFlux to Facilitate Enterprise-Wide Data Quality Initiative.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 13, 2002

World's leading e-learning institution enables cost-effective

real-time data quality management across disparate data systems with

DataFlux Blue Fusion CS

DataFlux Corporation, a SAS Company and leader in the development of data management solutions that increase the accuracy and usability of enterprise- wide database assets, today announced that Capella Education, Minneapolis, MN, has implemented DataFlux Blue Fusion(TM) CS (Client Server) software.

Capella Education is the parent organization of Capella University, the world's leading accredited online university offering courses, certificates, undergraduate and graduate degree programs in over 40 areas of specialization.

DataFlux Blue Fusion CS software enables organizations to control the accuracy and usability of their data at point of entry, or at any point of data exchange/sharing between enterprise applications, databases and data warehouses. Blue Fusion CS will enable Capella to implement reliable, automated data quality management across multiple disparate data platforms.

As part of an overall Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and data quality initiative, Capella had sought an affordable, flexible, and easy-to-use solution to integrate multiple systems that were responsible for managing customer relationships, accounting and financial, documents, university support, and financial aid.

Since each system could contain different types of information about the same subject, keeping the information accurate and up-to-date between systems was a massive, labor-intensive, manual task before the implementation of Blue Fusion CS.

Capella Senior Enterprise Data Systems Architect, A. J. Durham, said, "Since our technology initiatives included EAI, it was clear to me that we needed a custom integration infrastructure and a sophisticated, automated data management tool to fit into that infrastructure. After conducting a thorough market analysis of every leading data quality product, I determined that DataFlux Blue Fusion CS met our criteria for being flexible, affordable and customizable."

Durham continued, "Capella Education handles well over two thousand new or changed records every day, and Blue Fusion CS eliminates the need for any manual intervention in managing those records. It facilitates positive identification of a given learner across our disparate data systems by matching existing records, and enabling us to resolve duplicates. It also helps us prevent future duplicate records by comparing incoming records to existing records." He concluded, "Blue Fusion CS's automated matching and de-duplicating processes will play a critical role in the operation of several of our major technology solutions."

Blue Fusion CS is targeted at organizations that want to integrate seamless data quality functions into their own real-time Web-based or other concurrent user applications.

These applications include intranet, extranet and Internet web applications, client/server data-entry and reporting systems, CRM applications, data warehousing, call centers, applications requiring fuzzy search capabilities, ETL, and other complex environments.

Developers can integrate the technology using the native development environment of their application rather than writing "wrapper" calls to a foreign development environment. Blue Fusion CS currently supports client libraries for the Perl, ASP, Java, COM, PHP, and C development environments.

The Blue Fusion CS Client Library is platform-independent and can run on any of the major Web server platforms including Linux, Sun Solaris, Microsoft Windows NT, IBM AIX and FreeBSD.

Tony Fisher, president of DataFlux said, "Capella Education recognized the need for enhancing and integrating their mission critical data assets across the enterprise, and we are pleased that they chose Blue Fusion as the data quality solution for their EAI initiative. DataFlux's Blue Fusion CS offers tremendous value as a data quality and integration solution for any organization that places a premium on enhancing and refining the quality of its critical data assets."

About Capella Education

Capella University is an accredited university that offers courses, certificates and degree programs in business, technology, education, human services and psychology. Through its online campus Capella University educates more than 4,200 learners throughout the United States and in 40 other countries.

Designed to inspire achievement, Capella removes institutional and logistical barriers to help individuals unlock their full potential in a changing world. With more than 500 online courses and degree programs, the University works to create and embrace innovative academic programs that have real time impact and enduring value.

Founded in 1993, Capella's proven experience encompasses stimulating curricula, individualized access to higher education and a strong sense of community. Capella University is affiliated with the for-profit Capella Education Company, headquartered in Minneapolis.

For more information, visit Capella University at www.capellauniversity.edu or call 888.CAPELLA.

About DataFlux Corporation

DataFlux is a North Carolina-based software company that provides leading edge, award-winning technology for data cleansing, data augmentation, data consolidation and conversion and data scrubbing.

The versatile DataFlux products are designed to significantly improve the accuracy, consistency and usability of an organization's critical data, enhancing the effectiveness of data-driven applications and initiatives such as data warehousing, e-commerce systems, data mining, customer information systems, sales force automation, marketing databases, customer/prospect profiling and list management.

Some of the companies currently using DataFlux solutions include Bank of America, US Patent and Trademark Office, and Wells Fargo. DataFlux is a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS Institute, the leader in decision support and data warehousing, providing integrated enterprise information-delivery solutions and e-business solutions. For more on DataFlux, visit: www.dataflux.com.

DataFlux and all other DataFlux Corporation product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of, or licensed to, DataFlux Corporation in the USA and other countries.(R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.