Solving the Challenges of Exponential Data Growth

Solving the Challenges of Exponential Data Growth: "What are some of the challenges facing IT departments today? One way to answer that question is to look at what IT has to deliver - and that is mission-critical applications. Examining these applications in depth, the underlying architecture can be described using Bill Inmon's Corporate Information Factory (CIF). "

Analyzing Retail Transactions: Avoiding Obstacles

Analyzing Retail Transactions: Avoiding Obstacles: "Don�t copy the POS data model into the data warehouse�Take the time to create ETL processes that actually transform the data into more usable models. De-normalize and pre-calculate information without leaving out necessary information. For example, adding a field for the number of items in the Transaction Header table saves you from accessing Transaction Detail. This also eliminates the need for counting rows at analysis time. You should also solve the transaction primary key problem to avoid complex, multi-column joins for the reports that need to access multiple transaction-related tables. Create good aggregate tables (you will need these even if your vendor says otherwise) for item movement analyses that don�t need to be recreated upon a product re-class. "

MySQL Releases Most Ambitious Database Yet

More on the new MySQL features...

MySQL Releases Most Ambitious Database Yet: "MySQL 5.0 also packs new storage engines, tools and extensions. For example, the Archive Storage Engine is designed for storing large amounts of data without indexes in a very small footprint. That's intended to handle historical data to keep enterprises in compliance with audits, such as with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations."

MySQL AB :: MySQL 5.0 Beta 1 Downloads

MySQL AB :: MySQL 5.0 Downloads

What's here? Let's see... stored procedures, triggers, views, and a federated storage engine option.

Whenever this goes live, that day will be dubbed My-day. This is a big deal, don't get caught flat footed if you're a DBA.



MySQL is proud and excited to announce the first Release Candidate of MySQL 5.0. This milestone signals that we are nearing what is certainly the most important release in MySQL's history. MySQL will be giving away Apple iPod nanos, and even full conference passes to our 2006 MySQL Users Conference, to those who deliver the most valuable Bugs and Blogs.

Telecom Business Performance Management Metrics

Telecom Business Performance Management Metrics: "Over time, these metrics have changed from subscriber additions to average revenue per user (ARPU) to churn. A recent Informa Telecoms & Media Study shows how most of the 'old' standbys are still valid performance metrics. These standbys include:

Subscriber data
Pre and post paid ARPU
Pre and post paid minutes of use (MOU)
Churn
Subscriber acquisition costs

Each of these points directly to the growth of business for telecom service providers and has had their 'day in the sun' as a Wall Street favorite metric. But are they still the appropriate internal dashboard and scorecard measures for your organization? "

Healthcare Uses Business Intelligence to do Extraordinary Things

Some very good anecdotes.

Healthcare Uses Business Intelligence to do Extraordinary Things: "Stacy was the buyer for towels at a discount retail chain. Her primary goal was to increase gross margins for her line of business by one percent. On $30 million in annual towel sales, this means she would add $300,000 to the bottom line. Her strategy was segmentation, which is the process of merchandising in layers of good, better and best. The company had just implemented a data warehouse of sales, margin, purchases and inventory data. Using the reporting and analysis front-end to slice, dice, sort and drill into her data, we worked together to find her one percent. It took one week."

SQL BI : SQL 2005 Data Mining articles and books

SQL BI : SQL 2005 Data Mining articles and books: "This useful post of Karen Watterson has a link to the first chapter of the upcoming book Data Mining with SQL Server 2005 by ZhaoHui Tang and Jamie MacLennan. In the same post there are other useful links to articles and video about Data Mining on SQL 2005."

It's Onward and Upward for a Refreshed Oracle

It's Onward and Upward for a Refreshed Oracle: "You know how you feel after you've eaten enough to turn your belly into a blimp on Thanksgiving? A bit slow, a bit groggy, and pretty happy with your lot in life, right? "

Customer Intelligence: Red Alert! All Hands Battle Stations!

Customer Intelligence: Red Alert! All Hands Battle Stations!: "Triggers and alerts are the newest requirement from the customer-facing organization. Customers clue us into their moods and intentions during each interaction. If those interactions can be evaluated, disseminated and acted upon, customer-related issues can be proactively mitigated before resulting in sales losses or churn. One way to break down triggers and alerts is as follows:"

Over 44% Of Companies Without Information Management Strategy

Managing Information News: "According to a survey of Information Management and IT Professionals, conducted by Documation-UK and supported by Vignette, over 44% of respondents revealed that their company still does not have a document and information management strategy and over a fifth of the Information Management and IT Professionals surveyed indicated that more than 60% of their company's information was still held only as hard paper copies. These figures show that there is still much to be done in terms of streamlining operations for information management as well as a deep lack of understanding of the benefits of electronically managing information."

Maximizing your BI and Data Warehouse Investment with Powerful Usage Metrics

Great title for a webinar...


Event Registration (EVENT: 15668): "Maximizing your BI and Data Warehouse Investment with Powerful Usage Metrics"

Automatic Email Alerts for Low SQL Server Disk Space

Automatic Email Alerts for Low SQL Server Disk Space: "

Usually SQL Server database administrators use the feature 'Auto Growth' in the database configuration, in order allows automatic file growth when the database tries to expand. Though it is a good feature, sometimes SQL Server runs out of hard disk space. This article illustrates how to set up email notification when SQL Server is running out of Hard Disk Space."

Is Your Marketing Data Warehouse Paying Dividends Yet?

Is Your Marketing Data Warehouse Paying Dividends Yet?: "To determine whether your marketing data warehouse is paying dividends, you first want to ascertain if it at least is getting a good return on investment (ROI). To measure your ROI, we want to look at more than whether the project finished on time and on budget."

Shaju Thomas : SQL SERVER 2005 September CTP available

Shaju Thomas : SQL SERVER 2005 September CTP available: "The September CTP is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2005/productinfo/ctp.mspx"

MSSQL Server Reporting Services: Mastering OLAP Reporting: Relationally-Based Picklists for OLAP Reporting

MSSQL Server Reporting Services: Mastering OLAP Reporting: Relationally-Based Picklists for OLAP Reporting: "As I have stated since the charter article of the series, published about the time Reporting Services was first publicly released, my conviction is that Reporting Services will commoditize business intelligence, particularly in its role as a presentation component within an integrated Microsoft BI solution. Having been impressed from my first exposure to this exciting application, when it was in early beta, my certainty in its destiny grows stronger by the day, as I convert formerly dominant enterprise business intelligence systems, such as Cognos, Business Objects, Crystal, and others, to the Reporting Services architecture. I receive constant requests to conduct strategy sessions about these conversions with large organizations in a diverse range of industries � the interest grows daily as awareness of the solution becomes pervasive. Indeed, the five- to six-plus figures that many can shave from their annual IT budgets represent a compelling sweetener to examining this incredible toolset."

The Need for a Standard Business Process Depiction Language (BPDL)

The Need for a Standard Business Process Depiction Language (BPDL): "As companies move towards a process centric organizational model, the standardization of their business process maps becomes an increasingly important issue. The maps need to have the same general format, use the same set of symbols and be able to be read the same way. Doing so can save large organizations literally millions of dollars, in typically hidden costs, by reducing training times, cycle times and time to market in the long run and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the short term production, by eliminating the need to re-explain to others what the maps made in one group mean to others that weren�t in the group when the maps were made."

Limitations of Recency in the Context of Loyalty

Good info here if you are unfamiliar with how to quantify customer loyalty...

Limitations of Recency in the Context of Loyalty: "Recency, frequency and monetary value (RFM) analysis is one of the most widely used tools in the direct marketing and loyalty marketing fields. "

Business Intelligence Project Pitfalls

Business Intelligence Project Pitfalls: "Most of us have heard stories of business intelligence failures. I assure you that it is rare for technology to cause the failure. Unfortunately, it is usually the �softer� issues that bring down the project. Here is a list of definite project pitfalls. By understanding these pitfalls, hopefully you will avoid them altogether or at least decrease their effects when confronted with them. "

What is Data Governance?

This article may has an introduction to that answer...

Data Governance: A Strategy for Success: "Data governance. It's not exactly the most scintillating topic. However, exciting or not, data governance - the process by which you manage the quality, consistency, usability, security and availability of your organization's data - is a critical subject that you should address sooner rather than later. "

Enterprise Reporting: Key Factors for Implementation Success

Enterprise Reporting: Key Factors for Implementation Success: "While most of these items seem self-explanatory, it is shocking how the simplest things are sometimes overlooked. Clearly, there are a few factors critical to encouraging user acceptance. These factors are:
Involving the end-user in the selection process for the application.

1. Soliciting end-user input in regards to all pertinent aspects of the implementation (i.e., front-end design and report specifications).
2. Providing end-user training before the official release of the reporting platform.

Obviously, you cannot always involve the entire user community in the first two points mentioned above. Because of this, it is best to choose a limited number of power users from each department."

USATODAY.com - Oracle to acquire Siebel Systems for $5.85B

USATODAY.com - Oracle to acquire Siebel Systems for $5.85B: "REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. (AP) � Business software company Oracle (ORCL) said Monday that it will acquire Siebel Systems (SEBL), which makes software to help companies manage relationships with their customers, in a deal worth about $5.85 billion in cash and stock. "

Of some additional interest, Siebel has a nice base of "Siebel Analytics" customers. I found a PT awhile ago on that here.

Competing on Analytics

Competing on Analytics: "In whatever industry a business trades, there is a set of qualities on which it competes. Competitive differentiation in action might include the leverage of branding, product innovation, core expertise, channel strategy, or business model. In every case, companies establish and promote distinct qualities in the ongoing mission of outperforming the competition."

Inside Scoop on J2EE (vs LAMP)

Inside Scoop on J2EE: "Few weeks back, I read an interesting interview with Mr. Peter Yared, former CTO of SunOne Application Server where he was quoted 'J2EE will lose to LAMP'. Now he works for ActiveGrid a company that provides solution based on LAMP, so his love for LAMP is crystal and clear. "

Ready or Not, Microsoft Expands DBA's Role

Ready or Not, Microsoft Expands DBA's Role: "Then I attended my first SQL PASS conference about four years ago. It seemed all they talked about was development issues. Where were all the performance geeks, I wondered?

Certainly the answer must be that Microsoft hates the DBA. Then came the CLR. Microsoft was now going to enable developers to run business logic within the database written in any .Net-approved language. Didn't Microsoft know that most DBAs have no clue about most programming languages? How did they expect the DBA to tune and troubleshoot stored procedures and triggers written in languages they cannot understand? "

Well I disagree... it is not unusual at all anymore to find very lrge databases in SQL Server 2000, and data warehousing features are a large part of SQL Server 2005. DB2 supports the CLR already... Oracle has a fairly robust integration with Java... I don't really get Charles' argument about what hates who or for what reason.

Sustaining Data Strategy: Aligning It with Application Strategy Governance

Sustaining Data Strategy: Aligning It with Application Strategy Governance: "The life cycle of a data strategy process shows a normal distribution curve: the initial start is usually slow, and the majority of the time is spent highlighting the value of data strategies to obtain the buy-in of the CIO, CFO, business and IS units. Oftentimes, there is an immediate business need on the agenda that gets addressed as part of the initial implementation when the strategy implementation is at its peak. After the immediate business need is addressed, the implementation of the strategy across the various other business functions may slow down and, in many cases, reach its lowest ebb - essentially, back to the point where it started."