http://www.informationweek.comInformationWeeken-usCopyright 2012, UBM LLC.2012-11-06T08:34:00ZThe problem isn't a shortage of products. It's a shortage of clarity and vision.http://www.informationweek.com/news/240044381?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareThe conversation about data governance has moved on from the why to the how stage. Bold suggestions on budgeting data governance activities are as routine as those for marketing campaigns and technology purchases. Gartner goes so far as to predict that by 2016, <a href="http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1898914">20% of CIOs in regulated industries will lose their jobs</a> for failing to implement information governance successfully -- and for that to happen, spending on that governance needs to increase five-fold. <P> I keynoted last month at the <a href="http://www.information-management.com/conferences/1_17/Track-Keynote-Multidomain-MDM-10022708-1.html">MDM & Data Governance Summit</a> in New York, and if attendee questions and interest are any indication, data governance is further along than it was earlier this year, when I presented in San Francisco. Unfortunately, what's also clear is that this zest for data governance isn't yet matched by clarity of vision, or consensus on how exactly to go about doing it. <P> The most fundamental thing to keep in mind is that data governance -- like any form of governance -- is as much art as science. I've seen lots of definitions that cover policies, processes and people but miss out on another key dimension: politics. Like it or not, you're going to have to hone your political skills to line up initial and ongoing support for your data governance program. <P> And despite all of the talk, there's still confusion about what data governance is exactly. Is it about data quality? Metadata management? Taxonomies? Reference data? Master data management? Transactional data governance? Business analytics? All of those things? <P> <strong>[ Once you have a plan you will need people. Read <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/recruiting/big-data-talent-war-7-ways-to-win/240012658?itc=edit_in_body_cross">Big Data Talent War: 7 Ways To Win</a>. ]</strong> <P> Without a clear vision, your situation can be described by this proverb: If you don't know where you are going, any path will do. Or the related proverb: If you don't know where you are, a map is of no use. <P> Complicating matters is the fact that there's no single tool for data governance -- something that was evident from the vendor offerings and other presentations at the New York conference. <P> The problem isn't a shortage of products. There's the master data governance software from <a href="http://www.sap.com/index.epx">SAP</a>. There's a suite of data quality, data analysis, RDM and MDM tools from <a href="http://www.ataccama.com/">Ataccama</a>. There's data governance software from <a href="http://www.collibra.com/">Collibra</a> that, under the hood, looks more like a business semantics and metadata management tool. There's software from <a href="http://www.titus.com/">Titus</a> that takes a different tack altogether, toward information security and asset management. There are confusing "data governance services" offered by the likes of data quality tool vendor <a href="http://www.trilliumsoftware.com/">Trillium Software</a>. Ponder these products and you'll quickly realize why a "data governance solution" is more wishful thinking than something tangible. <P> Seeking another perspective, I reached out to Rob Karel, a former Forrester analyst and now head of product strategy for <a href="http://www.informatica.com/us/">Informatica</a>. (Disclosure: My company uses Informatica products.) Karel holds the view that data governance is a decision-making framework tied to a cross-functional organization that aims to optimize a company's return on its data assets -- so no single tool can provide the foundation. <P> For example, change management is core to data governance, and no single tool can help accomplish that. Yet, as Karel points out, many enabling technologies support end-to-end data governance and stewardship processes, including "data profiling tools, business glossaries, data modeling tools, data quality and MDM tools, data security tools, data integration tools, spreadsheets, email, collaboration platforms, network drives, wikis, business process management tools, BI and reporting tools, whiteboards, paper and pen, etc." Karel maintains that many of the common tasks performed by data stewards are being consolidated into a more unified stewardship user interface. <P> Vendors such as SAP and Ataccama have some nice governance capabilities, and Informatica's IDD (Informatica Data Director, the GUI sitting atop Informatica MDM) is improving with every iteration. Yet we're far away from having a reasonably complete solution for even the more structured components of data governance. <P> So where does that leave you? <P> In short, if you're looking to implement a data governance program, stop looking for a single, comprehensive solution. It doesn't exist. Instead, build up a portfolio of solutions, small and large, customizing your approach (and architecture) to your own organization.2012-07-05T08:26:00ZThere's an argument for integrating master data management with big data, but much work needs to be done before that happens.http://www.informationweek.com/news/240003145?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareAs the discussion around big data gains momentum and substance, questions are being raised about how master data management (MDM) fits into the picture. From what I've seen, the amalgam of master data management with big data is a lot like the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark--what's noteworthy is that there's nothing of note. <P> I heard (or rather, didn't hear) something similar at the recent MDM and Data Governance Summit in San Francisco, where I presented as well as was part of a panel on master data management and data governance. The message in a nutshell, is that there's definitely a use case for integrating master data management with big data, but there hasn't been much distance covered yet. <P> The value proposition for bringing master data management into big data analytics is essentially no different from the standard MDM use case: providing identity (i.e. uniqueness) to entities. <P> Take the product marketing team that's interested in collecting and collating comments made by consumers across the Internet, in discussion forums, personal blogs and other hard-to-decipher places. The data it collects follows a typical big data pattern: <P> 1. Large in size and can quickly go into hundreds of terabytes and beyond. <P> 2. Semi-structured. (Take the phrase "unstructured data" with a grain of salt, because the contents may be free form, but there's almost always some sort of interesting structure around it that can be leveraged for analysis.) <P> 3. Velocity of data is usually high, coming in fast and furious, which poses a challenge to conventional data extract, transform, and load (ETL) architectures and relational databases. <P> The product is the central point of intersection of master data management and big data. There's potentially important information in all the consumer feedback, but unless we tie in the free-form comments to our product catalog, what use is all that information? <P> This requires a classic both-ends-to-the-middle approach--technologies and techniques (like natural language processing) to help make sense of the free-form comments at one end, and an accurate and consistent product hierarchy (the product master) at the other end. MDM is clearly an enabler here. <P> I've heard similar stories elsewhere. At a recent user group conference for a large data warehousing appliance vendor, a pervasive message was the need for mastering identity to support consumer analytics. <P> Back at the MDM-DG conference, I had an interesting chat with the founder and CEO of Reltio, a venture capital-funded big data initiative, (don't bother visiting the website since it's in stealth mode right now). He had a sound understanding of the challenges of integrating MDM with big data, having previously led product marketing and strategy at a leading MDM vendor. His thoughts around using MDM to support big data analytics resonated with the emerging theme: MDM helps lay the foundation for big data analytics, but we're in the early stages of defining this integration framework. <P> Beyond big data, the conference featured the usual (and successful) mix of decision-makers, practitioners, and vendors. For example, an interesting presentation on a data governance approach formulated on the basis of Malcolm Gladwell's tipping point theory (loosely defined as a quick and unexpected change that dramatically transforms a situation) can be leveraged to drive data governance deeper and wider in the organization. <P> The challenges of data governance are fairly ubiquitous. The most common is a shortage of budget and resources, though not, in a curious twist, particularly driven by a lack of executive-level interest in data governance. The mantra for data governance seems to be "doing more with less". <P> In the products section, two offerings caught my eye, neither of which are new, but seem to have evolved into mature products worthy of attention. <P> <a href="http://www.orchestranetworks.com/">Orchestra Networks'</a> MDM/DG product offers a pleasant change from the integration-heavy architectures of the dominant MDM platforms out there, e.g. IBM, Informatica, Oracle, etc. Orchestra Networks starts with a facility to model your data and take it from there, which presents a much cleaner and more manageable approach, particularly, I suspect, for departmental and smaller MDM implementations. <P> <a href="http://www.talend.com/index.php">Talend</a> continues its foray into open source and the cloud. It's a product range that's expanding and maturing fast, and seems to be at or close to the point (call it the "tipping point") where it merits serious consideration in your MDM strategy, especially if you aren't already locked into the IBM, Oracle, or SAP stack. Keep in mind, of course, that "open source" doesn't always equate to "free." <P> <i><strong>Rajan Chandras</strong> has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading business technology initiatives, with a focus on strategy and information management. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.</i> <P> <i>At this year's <a href="http://informationweek.com/conference">InformationWeek 500 Conference</a>, C-level execs will gather to discuss how they're rewriting the old IT rulebook and accelerating business execution. At the St. Regis Monarch Beach, Dana Point, Calif., Sept. 9-11. </i>2012-02-16T10:28:00ZRogue IT groups outside the main IT organization pose both pros and cons--and won't disappear anytime soon.http://www.informationweek.com/news/232600984?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareOrganization structures for IT departments follow the same principles as those for any other department: structure, processes, culture and controls, all hovering around people, of course. The CIO has the same challenges as any other department head: recruiting and retaining talent, fostering teamwork, balancing accountability with reward, and driving motivation and innovation. <P> Yet, IT departments have a unique challenge: those rogue, shadow IT groups that sprout all over the company, usually unannounced and unheralded, yet curiously self-sufficient, well funded and with strong sponsorship and support. <P> What gives? In an era of strong information governance, tight management controls and stringent security policies--not to mention closely watched operational budgets and an increasing emphasis on centralized centers of excellence--how can groups of business-technologists create these undetected oases of expertise and grow them into powerful quasi-IT organizations in their own rights? <P> Proponents of shadow IT groups make one very clear point: There are regional and satellite sales groups so what's wrong with satellite IT groups? Business intelligence vendors and practitioners like to flaunt the mantra of self-sufficiency so why crib and cavil if, say, the Customer Service group brings in a BI tool it likes, and unleashes it on sales and CRM systems data, giving the group agility and self-control? <P> To understand the advent of shadow IT you have to look back at the history of computing. <P> The seeds of the shadow IT approach were sown, in part, when the tightly controlled and centralized mainframe computing paradigm gave way to minicomputers--computing capabilities that weren't just serving localized corporate groups, they could actually be budgeted and managed locally. The advent of personal computing gave further impetus; and data connectivity and adapters, and user-friendly analytic technologies like QlikView and Tableau, and of course the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel, made it easier than ever (and ever so tempting) to quickly reach out to the data you need and harness it to construct meaningful, focused local data stores and reports. <P> In other words, blame it on technology! But if that seems like not quite the full story, you're right. <P> Shadow IT groups serve a useful purpose, cutting short the time between making a request of IT and getting the answer (especially for a data extract or a few reports). But they also undercut good governance, reducing operational efficiencies, creating avoidable expenses and increasing exposure to risk. <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- GLOBAL CIO GLOBE --> <div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 15px; width:244px; float:right;"> <div style="margin:0; border-top:1px solid black; border-bottom:1px solid black; padding:6px;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1217/217ID_GlobalCIO_75.jpg" width="75" height="75" border="0" align="right" alt="Global CIO" style="margin:0 0 6px 6px;"></a> <div style="margin:0 0 6px 0; font-size:1.3em; font-weight:bold; color:#113e53;">Global CIOs: A Site Just For You</div> <span style="font-size:.9em; font-weight:bold;">Visit <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/">InformationWeek's Global CIO</a> -- our online community and information resource for CIOs operating in the global economy.</span> </div> </div> <!-- /GLOBAL CIO GLOBE --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> The shortcomings of shadow IT groups are many. <P> <strong>Procurement optimization and vendor management:</strong> Vendors are adept at detecting opportunities to "go directly to the user" and sell products and services in ways that compromise--if not outright bypass--centralized corporate procurement practices. The result weakens an IT organization's ability to obtain better pricing and purchasing terms with the vendor. <P> <strong>Enterprise architecture:</strong> Enterprise architecture groups, if they exist in your organization (and I sincerely hope they do!), exist for the purpose of defining architectural standards and best practices that best suit the company, and ensure that technologies procured and deployed align with a long-term architectural vision. Unregulated deployment of technology can disrupt architectural consonance leading to headaches down the road for all concerned. Implementing non-standard technologies can also lead to future architectural divergence, with more serious consequences. (How rigorously should EA standards and policies enforced? That's a topic for another time.) <P> <strong>Technology support:</strong> Technology support, including hardware, software, networking, storage, and telecommunications, can and usually do consume a significant portion of corporate IT budgets. Technology management is inherently fraught with uncertainty and complexity; balancing difficult-to-forecast requirements for infrastructure with myriad technology solutions and infrastructure management practices is far more difficult than it seems. And there is often a trade-off between cost and complexity; for example, savings accomplished using virtualization is often at the cost of increased complexity of managing virtual machines and storage and application deployment thereon. <P> <strong>Corporate risk:</strong> Fostering localized fiefdoms of data and reporting creates big information security and compliance risks. Notwithstanding our years of experience with managing and disseminating information, maintaining strict information security is complex, expensive and remains an elusive goal. "Rogue" or "underground" data repositories and reporting mechanisms increase the risk that information may be shared inappropriately and with the wrong people. The consequences of such risk can be substantial, if not downright disastrous, as for instance in this case at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/us/stanford-hospital-patient-data-breach-is-detailed.html?pagewanted=all">Stanford Hospital</a>. <P> Is there a solution? Can we get rid of shadow IT groups entirely? <P> That's not likely. Most office jobs are now so information-driven that satisfying and regulating these information needs is next to impossible. However, defining clear data governance practices and establishing meaningful dialogs with these groups is a good first step toward achieving a balance between individual and group needs for information and the corporate need for information security and control. How exactly do we go about doing that? That's also a topic for another day. <P> <i><strong>Rajan Chandras</strong> has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading business technology initiatives, with a focus on strategy and information management. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.</i> <P> <i>IT's jumping into cloud services with too much custom code and too little planning, our annual State of Cloud Computing Survey finds. The new <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/020612/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Leap Of Cloud Faith</a> issue of InformationWeek shows you what to be aware of when using the cloud. Also in this issue: Cloud success stories from Six Flags and Yelp, and how to write a SAN RFI. (Free registration required.)</i>2012-01-09T08:30:00ZVoting rights issues are at stake in a case in South Carolina that poses a classic and complicated MDM problem.http://www.informationweek.com/news/232301438?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareThe State of South Carolina is at loggerheads with the federal Department of Justice over a matter that has perceived racial implications. At the heart of this issue is a problem that master data management practitioners know only too well. <P> Things came to a head a few weeks ago when the DOJ blocked a new South Carolina law, which would mandate that voters show photo identification cards to vote in state elections. Photo IDs would reduce voting fraud through impersonation, state officials said. The Justice Department sees the requirement differently--as a back-door way to suppress minority votes. <P> You can read the details <a href=" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/us/justice-department-rejects-voter-id-law-in-south-carolina.html?_r=3&src=me&ref=us ">here</a>. The crux of the disagreement lies in the reliability (or rather, lack of reliability) of classifying voters based on demographic and related characteristics. South Carolina provided data that included 240,000 registered voters that it said didn't have the required identification based on numbers received from the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV, however, questioned the numbers, saying the real number was probably closer to 80,000, once people who had died or moved away were accounted for. Now that&#8217;s a big difference. The DOJ went on to assert that the state failed to include several categories of existing registered voters, such as &#8220;inactive&#8221; voters who hadn't participated in several recent elections. <P> This is a classic master data management problem. <P> The solution is conceptually simple. Make an list of all persons living in or living outside but eligible to vote in South Carolina, attach a few key attributes such as current address, date moved into that address, past address, date moved into past address, Social Security number, driving license number, date of birth, date of death (if applicable), minority status, and last date voted &#8230; and voila, you can easily identify (a) total voters, (b) total minority voters, (c) statistics on active vs. inactive voters by minority status, (d) persons who voted in the last election but are now ineligible to vote because they died or moved away, and much more. <P> <strong>&#91; For more on master data management, see <a href= "http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/231900474?itc=edit_in_body_cross ">Master Data Management Comes Of Age</a>. &#93;</strong> <P> In theory, there are a number of solidly reliable sources where we can get these details: the U.S. Postal Service, the Social Security Administration, state motor vehicles agencies, state and federal election departments and commissions. Surely these organizations have up-to-date and reliable data. <P> Don&#8217;t count on it! <P>As anyone who has tried to compile a &#8220;reliable&#8221; list of, say, customers from equally &#8220;reliable&#8221; sources--websites, CRM and ERP systems, sales and marketing applications, established third-party data sources, and the like--has found out, this can be difficult. There are three reasons for this: <P> 1) Data is vertically and horizontally fragmented across sources, because some sources have only some attributes. For example, one source has name, date of birth, and address, while another has name and Social Security number, making them vertically fragmented. Some sources have only sub-lists of customers, making them horizontally fragmented. For example, websites only have users who actually use the site, while CRM systems have current and some past customers. <P> 2) Data quality in nearly all our sources and systems is--and there's no kind way to say this--atrocious. Names are incomplete, Social Security numbers unreliable, addresses incorrect, and different sources have different values for the same attribute. <P> 3) Various organizations have different perspectives on the interpretation of information. Take something as simple as gender: To begin with, is &#8220;gender&#8221; the same as &#8220;sex&#8221;? <a href=" http://www.who.int/gender/whatisgender/en/" >Of course not</a>. How many categories of gender (or sex, as you will) do we need to define? <a href=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity" >Read this</a> and decide for yourself. Bottom line the definition of gender in your sources or databases will depend on what purpose the information serves at source. The same is true for many other seemingly obvious entities and attributes. <P> As a result, it becomes incredibly difficult to take a list of customers from, say, your website and another list from your legacy system, and merge them into one comprehensive, complete, reliable list: How do you determine if &#8220;G. P. Burdell&#8221; with birth date June 8, 1927, is the same as &#8220;George Burdel&#8221; with birth date 08-06-27? <P> This is where master data management comes in. MDM takes in data from multiple sources, weeds out duplicates, and creates a &#8220;golden record&#8221; for each entity instance. It takes the best value for each attribute--e.g. citizen, customer, supplier, etc.--from the sources, using fuzzy logic and algorithms to match the data. In our example, MDM determines that the correct person is George P. Burdell with birth date June 8, 1927. This approach is no silver bullet, of course, and can be expensive to implement, but it does a good job of creating a unique list of entities. <P> Coming back to voter identification, it&#8217;s not clear if either the state of South Carolina or the DOJ are using (or plan to use) MDM to arrive at an agreeable voter count. However, the matter is likely headed to the Supreme Court, so maybe that&#8217;s where we'll see an MDM solution implemented. I can see it coming handy in a variety of situations in years to come, and justice will be well served. <P> <i><strong>Rajan Chandras</strong> has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading business technology initiatives, with a focus on strategy and information management. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.</i> <P> <i>According to our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/121911/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Outlook 2012</a> Survey, IT should expect soaring demand but cautious hiring as companies use technology to try to get closer to customers. Also in the new, all-digital issue of InformationWeek: Inside Windows Server 8. (Free registration required.)</i> <P>2012-01-05T08:30:00ZSMBs must stay agile and creative to take advantage of the latest technologies and avoid IT failures.http://www.informationweek.com/news/232301307?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareAs far as I'm aware, there's no universal definition of what constitutes a small and midsize business, but a good rule is businesses that have less than 1,000 employees or revenue of less than $500 million fall into the category. Mind you, that's a far cry from even the smallest of the U.S. <i>Fortune</i> 500 companies, which has revenue well over $4 billion. <P> SMBs are different from large companies in many ways, but here's one way to look at them: Small and midsize businesses don't just have smaller IT budgets, they're also less able to afford major IT projects failures. Whereas a large company can--and, regrettably, often does--shrug off millions of dollars in failed IT initiatives, a small one can stagger, and possibly even go under, if a critical IT project goes awry. <P> That's not to say that smaller businesses are lagging in the application of technology. Quite the contrary: SMBs are quite innovative in using technology to accomplish their goals. In a recent study on the SMB software market--<a href= http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/demand_insights_smb_software_market_2011/q/id/60508/t/2 >Demand Insights: The SMB Software Market 2011</a>--Forrester Research analyst and lead author Tim Harmon notes three reasons for this: <P> >> The "millennialization" of SMBs: IT workers belong to the younger generation that's savvy in the use of (especially newer) technology; <P> >> The "enterprization" of SMBs: Seasoned managers and information workers have learned lessons elsewhere over the years and bring much-needed maturity; <P> >> The availability of inexpensive but high-performance hardware and new delivery models for software, including open source and software as a service. <P> <strong>&#91; For more on what small businesses can expect this year, see <a href=" http://informationweek.com/news/smb/ebusiness/232300521?itc=edit_in_body_cross ">4 Tech Trends For SMBs In 2012</a>. &#93;</strong> <P> Smaller business are focusing their limited IT budgets on improving content management, applying business intelligence and better (and cheaper) communication and conferencing, Harmon and his colleagues find. All of this essentially converges into a laser-like focus on customer intelligence, including customer experience, analytics, and communications. <P> Forrester has uncovered what the <a href=" http://www.sba.gov ">Small Business Administration</a> also happens to be advocating: a focus on e-commerce, which the SBA calls "a significant business leveler" (a now-trite phrase that came into being years ago, but holds no less true today). <P> As we embark on a very eventful 2012 (and I'm not talking U.S. Presidential elections), there's no doubt that the technology options available to SMBs are unprecedented in their depth and breadth. <P>To begin with, the Big Four IT vendors have discovered the joys of selling to smaller businesses. They're realizing, as the astute British humorist P. G. Wodehouse (who lived for most of his later years here in the good old U.S. of A.) wrote decades ago, that "every little bit added to what you've got makes just a little bit more"--and that these "little bits" can add up to a nice bit of revenue, thank you. That's why <a href= http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/midsize/index.html >Oracle</a> offers "enterprise-class, flexible and affordable solutions" for midsize companies, <a href= http://www.sap.com/solutions/sme/sme-portfolio-strategy/index.epx >SAP</a> asserts that "88,000 customers can't be wrong," <a href= http://www-304.ibm.com/businesscenter/smb/us/en/smallbusiness>IBM</a> has tantalizing "small business solutions for growing companies," and <a href= http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-small-business-server/default.aspx >Microsoft</a> has a server for SMBs: the Windows Small Business Server. <P> But what if, after spending countless hours with the sophisticated sales teams from these big vendors that descend disdainfully on your organization, you begin to suspect that the "We Love Small Businesses" sign is actually planted on the tip (<a href= " http://earth.rice.edu/mtpe/cryo/cryosphere/topics/icebergs/bigberg.html" >seven-eighths</a>? <a href= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg >eight-ninths</a>? <a href= " http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/icebergs.htm" >nine-tenths</a>?) of an iceberg of complexity and cost. What if landing on that iceberg begins to feel like a Titanic encounter? And if vendor lock-in is indeed inevitable, aren't you better off with a smaller, more agile and malleable vendor? <P> There's a fairly sizable group of highly vocal proponents of technology democracy that have two words of wisdom for you: open source. Kind of sounds like open sesame and, if managed right, that's not a bad metaphor. Companies from tiny to massive have successfully leveraged open source solutions to get and keep going. They're definitely an option from SMBs. <P> But even if you have to pay, there are creative ways to build upon small technology vendors' innovation at lower prices than those charged by big vendors. Risk sharing is a good example of this approach. <P> Small technology vendors have essentially the same problems that you do. By getting into a risk-sharing partnership for, say, advanced customer analytics, your company serves as a guinea pig for the vendor. You supply the raw data and in-house resources, and the vendor provides the software and consulting expertise. Together, you build something that adds significant value to your business at much lower cost than big-vendor alternatives. Your vendor partner, in turn, gets a case study and reference implementation (as well as the learning) to show other customers and prospects. <P> The technology landscape is exploding--we didn't even talk about SaaS, clouds, and virtualization. SMBs have a plethora of affordable options and a distinct advantage: You can make decisions and innovate without the bureaucratic tangle that ties up your larger competitors. But for that, you'll need to be agile and creative. To adapt from a well-known old nursery rhyme: <P> Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over The software shtick <P> Here's to a successful 2012. <P> <i><strong>Rajan Chandras</strong> has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading business technology initiatives, with a focus on strategy and information management. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.</i> <P> <i>According to our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/121911/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Outlook 2012</a> Survey, IT should expect soaring demand but cautious hiring as companies use technology to try to get closer to customers. Also in the new, all-digital issue of InformationWeek: Inside Windows Server 8. (Free registration required.)</i> <P>2011-05-19T19:04:00ZAmazon and Sony's recent problems highlight the vulnerability of doing business in the cloud but may end up helping improve cloud services.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229503443?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareThe Amazon Web Services disruption has led some analysts to question whether cloud computing is a viable business model. Is this the beginning of the (premature) end of cloud computing? My answer: No. I believe that cloud computing in fact will emerge much stronger for the experience, but there's no doubt that cloud computing vendors--and more importantly, their leaders--must head to the classroom for more learning. <P> The outage centered around the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)--specifically, Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS), which provides distributed and replicated data storage services for EC2 applications. Naturally, this outage impacted a number of businesses, some better known than others. And by impact, I don't mean a bit of a performance slowdown and a few unexpected page errors. I mean a debilitating business interruption for four days straight. <P> Amazon provided regular updates on its <a href="http://status.aws.amazon.com">Web services status page</a>, but if Amazon chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos stepped up early to take responsibility and assure his customers, I must have missed that. Amazon has posted a fairly detailed <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/">explanation of the outage</a> which, incidentally, provides a fascinating look into the brave new world of single-vendor, distributed, highly-available storage architectures, a fundamental building block of cloud computing and of the corresponding business model. <P> However, there are some astonishing other lacunae on the Amazon.com corporate website. For example, there's no mention of the outage in the online Media Room; no news release about the outage (04/26/11: "Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Sales up 38% to $9.86 Billion"; 05/03/11: "Amazon Announces MYHABIT.COM, a New Private Sale Site Featuring Hand-Picked Styles from Top Designer and Boutique Brands"); no letters from Jeff Bezos to Amazon customers (the last one is dated November 2007, introducing the Amazon Kindle); and no notices to Amazon shareholders. In other words, essentially a big yawwwwn from Amazon--the sort of lack-luster customer orientation that makes you wonder how they'd feel if Oracle went AWOL for days after a major Oracle technology failure at Amazon. (By the way, in an ironic twist, it appears that the outage was essentially caused by human error!) <P> Unfortunately, Amazon being the new technology bellwether that it is, the outage has shaken confidence in cloud computing in a customer base that already was skeptical about the paradigm. In a survey of 247 <em>Fortune</em> 1000 companies conducted by the 451 Group's TheInfoPro division and recently <a href="http://informationweek.com/news/storage/data_protection/229402850">reported in InformationWeek.com</a>, 87% of respondents had no plans to use cloud storage as an archive or lower tier &#8230; about the lowest rung in the storage ladder from a business perspective. In fact, even small and midsize businesses weren't interested in cloud-based storage, with about 90% "feeling apathy toward the technology". <P> The recent Sony PlayStation Network security breach has done nothing to restore business confidence in cloud computing. Internet bandits carried away personal details on more than 100 million customers in two separate intrusions over just days--that's one in every 70 people in the world, and includes names, addresses, birth dates and possibly more than 12 million credit cards. To make things work, Sony executives followed the new Executive Playbook for serious Internet gaffes: trivialize the incident with superficialities and shrug off responsibility. (Really, what are these guys thinking?) <P> Analyst and observer response to these incidents, as reported by Reuters, is less than encouraging. "Nobody is secure. Sony is just the tip of this thing," said Eric Johnson, a professor at Dartmouth University. "If you're doing anything that is critical to your business, you need contingency plans," says Gartner cloud security analyst Jay Heiser. "The marketing messages of some cloud computing companies have urged people to gloss over this need for contingency plans." <P> Forrester Research analyst Vanessa Alvarez is downright scathing: "The outage is evidence that companies can't wholly rely on cloud services to handle important functions. Customers need to start asking tough questions and not assume everything will be taken care of in the cloud, because it will not. They shouldn't be counting on a cloud service provider like Amazon to provide disaster recovery." <P> These are harsh words (and unfortunately, justifiably so). However, the truth is that there's too much momentum for cloud computing. It's an unstoppable force with no immovable object in sight. As the aphorism goes, that which does not kill you makes you stronger. I believe it's apt for the current crisis in cloud computing. <P> <i><strong>Rajan Chandras</strong> has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading business technology initiatives, with a focus on strategy and information management. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.</i> <P> <i>In the new, all-digital issue of InformationWeek: Our 2011 Strategic Security Survey shows increased executive interest in security. Here's what you should do next. <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/050911/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download it now</a>. (Free registration required.) </i> <P>2011-04-19T08:00:00ZIf you haven't considered data architecture to help protect your data, now is as good a time as any. Your business and even your job may depend on it.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229401826?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareIf you haven't been affected by the Epsilon data breach, you're likely in the minority and can count yourself lucky &#8230; this time, at least. As for me, I've heard from four companies. I opened each email with bated breath, only to sigh with relief when they told me that nothing but my name and/or email address was stolen; no other personal data was breached. Given that one of these four was a leading retail investment firm, it&#8217;s no small relief to learn this. <P> My attempt to get behind the scenes at Epsilon was met with a terse and unhelpful response: "Unfortunately, as we focus on the ongoing investigation, we're unable to comment. Please refer to the statements on our website for the time being." <P> On its website, Epsilon has the following message for its hapless victims: "Alliance Data Systems Corp. (NYSE: ADS), parent company of Epsilon, today reaffirmed Epsilon's previous statement that the unauthorized entry into an Epsilon email system was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only. No personally identifiable information (PII) was compromised, such as Social Security numbers, credit card numbers or account information." <P> We got lucky this time, but a quick look at websites such as <a href="http://www,PrivacyRights.org">www.PrivacyRights.org</a> and <a href="http://www.DataBreaches.net">www.DataBreaches.net</a> reveals how frighteningly pervasive--and seemingly unstoppable--the problem is. <P> Much of the discussion around protecting against data breaches has traditionally centered on two important aspects: perimeter security (e.g. firewalls) and data encryption (in situ, and in transit). But there&#8217;s another, often overlooked, aspect to protecting your data that&#8217;s much less sexy, but no less effective: data architecture. <P> Data architecture is many things to many people, but typically includes data security (e.g. encryption, addressed above), metadata management, data obfuscation, data modeling, data distribution, and--depending on your perspective--data governance. <P> How can data architecture help protect your data? Here's a sample series of measures you can take using different components of data architecture. <P> First, work with your data governance and information security teams to define attribute sensitivity, such as private health information or PII. Update the attributes in your data models to reflect this sensitivity. Then, export this information from your models into your metadata management system, which helps standardize the sensitivity information. Next, propagate it into your other metadata environments, such as your business intelligence tools. Ensure that your analytics and reporting teams are aware of attribute sensitivity when presenting information to users. <P> Now you'll want to use this information to architect your databases appropriately. Let creative thinking and wisdom guide your data architects and modelers into creating data models that separate sensitive attributes from others. Use query federation techniques in your SQL or application layer to pull this dispersed data together without significant sacrifice in performance. That brings us back to your BI and reporting tools, which is one such place for query federation. <P> Use data governance policies, driven by common sense, to restrict the proliferation of data across multiple environments. Work with your developer community to define standard operating procedures and techniques, such as data obfuscation that allow for testing application code with "real" data without compromising sensitivity. <P> Nearly all this falls under the umbrella of "data architecture." And if this sounds like a lot of work in a lot of areas by a lot of people, you're correct. However, you might find solace in the "mathematics of emphasis" philosophy of the late W. Edwards Deming, the guru of quality. It goes as follows: Quality = Results of work efforts/Total costs. So when people and organizations focus primarily on quality, quality tends to increase and costs fall over time. However, when people and organizations focus primarily on costs, costs tend to rise and quality declines over time. Or you could find satisfaction on the immortal words of management and quality consultant, the late Philip Crosby: "Quality is free"--as catchy a phrase as any in the vast world of management theory. <P> If you haven't given serious consideration to data architecture, now is as good a time as any, because scammers are filling your information aisles with their shopping carts. They'll be paying for your valuable wares with your own credit card. And not just your business, but your job, may well depend on keeping them at bay. <P> <i><strong>Rajan Chandras</strong> has more than 20 years of experience, with a focus on technology strategy, solution architecture and information management. You can reach him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.</i> <P> <P>2011-03-28T11:29:00ZData governance and business process management efforts are too often siloed. It's up to IT (and the business) to integrate the two.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229400425?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareData governance and business process management initiatives are usually kicked off independent of each other, with different objectives, project owners, project teams, and project calendars. The result can be (and often is) a deep, inexplicable, disconnect between your business process and business data. <P> Reasons for this disconnect are myriad but no mystery. <P> For one, the genesis of these types of initiatives is often very different. BPM is undertaken when organizations find themselves beset with process shortcomings, and with the primary purpose of better understanding, improving and integrating business processes. Data governance initiatives, on the other hand, are usually justified by shortcomings in data quality, consistency and integrity. <P> Then, data governance is often closely intertwined with master data management, and thus organized alongside important "master" business data entities -- customer, product, organization and such. (Is this the right approach for data governance? That's a topic for another day.) <P> A recent report from Forrester Research entitled <a href=" http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/avoid_process_data_headaches_align_business_process/q/id/57958/t/2">"Avoid Process Data Headaches"</a> points out that companies are often oblivious to the connection between data quality and process improvement. As a result, most MDM and BPM efforts remain siloed, with limited (if any) collaboration or coordination across the two teams. Also, data strategies sometimes focus much further downstream, around data warehousing and business intelligence, oblivious to the origin of the data -- operational processes like order management, customer service, and procurement that capture all the raw data in the first place. <P> Most of all, there is often confusion around a key central tenet for data quality: Whose problem is it, anyway? Business, suggests Forrester's report, often believes data quality is an IT issue. This, unfortunately, is true to a good extent: poor data models, application design and development practices (compounded by inadequate testing) are indeed a prime culprit in poor data quality. <P> That said, Rob Karel, Forrester analyst and lead author of the report, suggests that IT must learn how to better educate and evangelize data issues in a language and a context that matters to the business -- a responsibility that Karel puts squarely on IT, "because IT often has a more cross-enterprise view than siloed business units and functions." <P> If I ever write a column on "Why IT?" I'd probably put that little nugget right up at the top of the list: <i>"1. Because IT stands at a vantage point with an unparalleled view across the entire enterprise."</i> <P> However, though IT is certainly better positioned to articulate the data quality issue, some of that onus, I believe, lies on business. Sponsors and beneficiaries of any software application -- which is where data mostly comes into being -- must demand a "quality in, quality out" approach&#8230; and then support it. <P> A trite but very frequent, and no less important, example is, say, the use of free-form fields to enter important qualifying attributes, leading to gaping holes in downstream reporting and analytics -- and subsequently to additional expense and (re)work toward data quality remediation and reference data management. Business users must learn to forgo the short-term convenience (and lower cost) of entering free-form text in favor of, say, selecting from a list or waiting for a value to be validated in real-time -- a responsibility that, to Karel's point, lies on IT to emphasize. Looking at information quality as a service, IT must take on the role of not just service provider but also educator. <P> Data quality, in fact, lies smack at the intersection of BPM and data governance-- the cross-hairs, if you will, of what Forrester calls "process data governance." The challenge, then, is for us to identify and investigate all such points of intersection. Here's another example: Business subject-area-centric (or entity-centric) process/data flows -- such as customer data flows -- across horizontal and vertical business segments, and through myriad systems dotted across these segments and processes. <P> For data governance and process governance efforts to be successful, they both must frame their priorities and business value in the context of which business processes they are aiming to improve, transform and optimize, says Karel. Co-author of the report Clay Richardson challenges business process professionals to take more upfront responsibility for understanding and modeling process data relationships -- a "sea change in the BPM world" that requires the BPM team to shift their mindset towards process modeling. Unfortunately, says Richardson, most BPM methodologies out there do not overtly call out data modeling and analyzing the relationship between data and process. <P> The question to ask is: are your BPM or DG programs looking closely enough at data provisioning and consumption for effective business processes? Just as business process optimization fundamentally depends on sound data (in the right form, time and place), data governance is a non-starter without identifying and analyzing such business processes.2011-03-14T08:39:00ZThe well-known <i>New York Times</i> columnist warns that IT advances are destroying the knowledge economy. But he's missing a crucial point.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229300891?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareIf you believe Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, rules-driven software may be your worst enemy. <P> Krugman, who writes for the <i>New York Times</i>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07krugman.html">wrote a column</a> last week dwelling on the correlation (or lack thereof) between education and earnings. He begins by loosely equating educated workers with knowledge workers, meaning those who work with their minds rather than their hands. <P> Bucking conventional wisdom -- "what everyone knows is wrong" -- Krugman hypothesizes that since technology tends to make it easier to automate routine information-driven jobs, it follows that far from giving an educated person an edge in finding jobs, technology in fact threatens the livelihood of the knowledge worker. <P> Krugman bases his discussion on research conducted (a while ago) by his colleagues at Princeton, who found that computers excel at cognitive and manual tasks that can be accomplished by following explicit rules. And if that describes your job, you are at risk of losing it. <P> The supporting example he quotes is another <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html">recent NYT article</a> that dwells on how increasingly sophisticated, inferential analysis software is being used to replace lawyers during the discovery phase of a lawsuit, leading (not surprisingly) to dramatic savings in legal expenses. <P> If you don't find yourself clucking in sympathy for those proverbially high-charging lawyers, there are other examples. Computer chip designers have stagnated because much of that work can be automated. Mortgage and loan officers and tax agents are finding that automation is reducing their paperwork, which doesn't always bode well for them. <P> Automation (and the Internet, of course) is a key factor in sending work offshore, from high-end software development to more mundane business process outsourcing (such as helpdesk or collections), with jobs, naturally, following the work. <P> In other words, the US economy is being "hollowed out"; new jobs are being created at the top and bottom of the economic chain, but jobs in the middle tier are being lost, to a large extent on account of automation accelerated by research and developments in computer science and linguistics. <P> Even if you aren't in imminent danger of losing your job, there seems to be cause for worry. "E-discovery" software, such as that from <a href="http://cataphora.com/">Cataphora</a>, is no longer constrained to reading and understanding the written word; it is acquiring the capability to follow a single conversation carried across multiple media: e-mail messages, instant messages and phone calls. Although the designated purpose may be perfectly legitimate -- for example, fraud detection -- it is easy to imagine how software of this kind can be intrusive in our daily lives. <P> Krugman's hypothesis is quite simple. Manual labor is safe, because by definition, it is hard to automate. Skilled workers, on the other hand, are at much greater risk on account of automation and globalization. <P> For me to point out a fallacy in Paul Krugman's logic is a little akin to pointing a flashlight at, say, the blazing arc-lights of the New Orleans Superdome. Yet there's one point that I think Krugman has missed altogether: <i>As technology (and hence automation) advances, the concept of skilled labor, too, advances</i>. <P> Not too long ago, typing at 40 words per minute was considered to be an impressive skill. More recently still, writing programs in Basic language was a skill held by an elite few. What was considered a skill sometime in the past becomes a routine (or redundant) human capability later. As technology has advanced, so has human capability to leverage technology for equally advanced purposes -- and to equally impressive effects. In fact, managing advanced technology, in every field of study (and life) -- has evolved into a large and growing avenue of employment in itself. <P> That's why we must continue to invest in the research and development of technology, and in ways to harness that technology. We must continue to be the beacon of advancement across the world, and the harbinger of new ways to use this technology to not just keep ourselves gainfully occupied, but also to enrich our lives. <P> <i>Author's Note: My headline is a very humble dedication to the irrepressible Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner and scientist extraordinaire. His book, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" is arguably one of the best known on science. You don't have to be a physicist to enjoy this book -- or many of his other books, including the equally famous Feynman Lecture Series on fundamental principles of Physics. <P> <strong>Rajan Chandras</strong> has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading business/technology initiatives, with a focus on strategy and information management. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.2011-03-07T09:25:00ZSeparate "must have" from "nice to have" mobile business intelligence functionality. And watch out for licensing implications.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229300446?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareThere's something about the phrase "mobile analytics" that holds out visions of empowered business users, but defining the value requires some sincere soul-searching within your own organization. A candid evaluation of your business requirements begins with the question: What does this phrase really mean to you, and are you ready for mobile analytics? <P> If yours is like the average business, chances are your need for mobile analytics is, frankly, limited. Most companies are toward the wide end of the funnel shown in the graphic below, with many employees using mobile devices for mundane matters like email access (the classic "BlackBerry use case"); perhaps a few of them benefit from high-end functions like alerts, and even fewer from interactive mobile analytics. <P> In the recent Forrester Wave evaluation of BI platforms, analyst Boris Evelson and others find that even as mobile BI applications are growing in popularity, "they still remain in the realm of 'nice to have.'" <P> Dig a little deeper into this analysis and we find a few underlying factors. <P> The first factor is that despite lofty vendor claims, mobile analytics is only beginning to gain momentum and maturity -- in vendor product suites as well as in business deployment. In its latest Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, Gartner examines whether the platform enables users to "fully interact with BI content delivered to mobile devices." <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300081&pgno=3"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/605/Mobile-Computing-Use-Case_tn.jpg" width="175" height="140" alt="Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition 3000" title="Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition 3000" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Mobile Computing Use Case Diagram</div> </div> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> The phrase "fully interact" is the key. The ability to send alerts embedded in email or text messages, or links to static content in email messages hardly represents sophistication in mobile analytics. <P> For users to benefit from mobile BI, they must be able to navigate dashboards and guided analytics comfortably -- or as comfortably as the mobile device will allow, which is where devices with high-resolution screens and touch interfaces (like the iPhone and Android-based phones) have a clear edge over, say, earlier editions of BlackBerry. How many BI vendors offer this kind of navigation? The next time your BI vendors touts its mobile business intelligence capabilities, invite them to present use cases that demonstrate these capabilities as implemented at other customers. The presentation will speak for itself. <P> It is equally important to take a step back to define your purpose and adoption patterns on the funnel. Which business users stand to benefit the most from mobile analytics -- and what, exactly, is their requirement? You don't need mobile analytics to send a few alerts or summary reports to their handhelds -- without interactivity, mobile BI is indistinguishable from merely informative email or text messages. <P> Consider the risks: For example, are users looking to extend existing BI capabilities or new capabilities to the handheld? Your chances of success are best when extending an existing desktop BI solution -- the requirements are clear, and the solution is probably mature. <P> If the request is not based on any existing BI solution, let the (alarm) bells toll; chances are, a mobile-only solution will not be sufficient. <P> Understand, also, the licensing model, which continues to be the bane of BI. Are the mobile analytics embedded in the BI software suite, or is that a separate (license) component? Then, what additional infrastructure will you need to deliver analytics to users' handhelds? <P> Mobile BI is here to stay, and will continue to grow rapidly, as employers increasingly look to keep managers and decision-makers "on the hook" on a 24x7 basis. In other words, certainly there's hope -- but there's also hype. <P> <i>Rajan Chandras has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading business/technology initiatives, with a focus on strategy and information management. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras at gmail dot com</a>.2011-02-09T08:00:00ZData quality, master data management, metadata management, data warehousing architecture and data integration: These are all pieces of the data management puzzle, but rare is the enterprise that has assembled these pieces into a cohesive and coherent picture. Get it right and you can count on clean and consistent data from transaction systems and reliable insight from business intelligence systems. It doesn't end there. Your data management strategy must also consider business processes and business rules. Then, consider the people factor: How do you harness the expertise of your subject-matter experts and data stewards? Lastly, where do you draw the line on competency centers? This image gallery presents ten tenets of enterprise data management -- best practices illustrated by conceptual images -- that will get you headed in the right direction.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229203011?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareA tenet, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; especially one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession. Enterprise data management (EDM) is a concept that refers to the ability of an organization to precisely define, easily integrate, and effectively retrieve data for both internal applications and external communication, according to Wikipedia. EDM emphasizes data precision, granularity, and meaning and is concerned with how content is integrated into business applications as well as how it is passed along from one business process to another. What follows are ten tenets that will help you define and deliver quality data, ensuring consistency, and sufficient granularity to power business processes and empower decision makers. Technology is but one ingredient to success. Here's how to plan your strategy and get the right people and processes in place. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Data quality begins (and often ends) with our transactional (OLTP) systems. "Garbage in, garbage out" remains the driving force behind all our data-quality initiatives. Yet, a small investment in ensuring data quality in your OLTP systems will go a long way toward reducing future expenses and hassles in getting quality data to your users. Don't forget, also, that data quality in turn begins with data model quality. Not all truisms carry equal weight: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" works better than "What cannot be cured must be endured." <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Does master data begin with transactions, or do transactions begin with master data? That debate is irrelevant. The more practical question is: How do you weave MDM into your enterprise architecture? Here's one answer: Application by application. Grand visions of master data governance are empty without ground-level efforts, and these begin with each application that you develop and implement. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Debates about Inmon, Kimball and other data warehouse architectures are all great fun... but try and not fall into the trap of dogma. Data warehouse architectures aren't defined by schools of thought -- they are defined and built, ground up and usually with great effort and pain, by flesh-and-blood people. More often than not, nobody has the time to herd architectural trends. Do the best you can; you might be surprised by how well it works. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Face it, your business intelligence initiatives are going nowhere without significant buy in from the business. It's not so much about who's funding the effort; the big question is, who has the time to work with you in defining and implementing that BI solution -- and who can then get people to use it? If you don't have business by your side on this journey, you're going nowhere very, very slowly. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Here's something that might not seem totally intuitive: data integration isn't about integration tools and technology capabilities at all -- it's about your integration architecture. Examples abound of creative data integration solutions put in place using the most mundane of tools, but with an extra dose of creativity tempered by some very wise (and experienced) thinking. Let your collective intuition foster rather than fester. The tools are just that -- tools; they don't make the solution. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>As the saying goes, "Many are the slips 'twixt the cup and the lip." Between all the talk about metadata management and real action, there yawns a wide chasm. This is due in part to the fact that vendors have been unhurried at best about incorporating metadata management capabilities and interoperability. Take them on, and make it clear that it matters. But even before that, educate your business users on the benefits of metadata management. And create space in that tight project plan for metadata management activities. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>The first rule of business rules management (BRM) is that not all applications need industrial-strength BRM capabilities -- or a separate, powerful tool to deliver that capability. Look closely at the real benefits of BRM in a forthcoming application; then pick a tool -- or not (just let your application team build rules using some basic best practices). Vendor influence, existing BRM investments, or starry-eyed stakeholders are no reason to unquestioningly adopt formalized BRM. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Competency centers have been all the rage for years, but do you really want to end up with one competency center for data warehousing, another for BI, a third for MDM, a fourth for BPM, a fifth for BRM, a sixth for -- you get the drift. Start by defining exactly what you understand a competency center to be, and then closely examine the benefits (and drawbacks) of creating one within your organization. Start with this simple question: Who will lead it? If you can answer this satisfactorily, you're halfway there already. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Business Process Management may be all about processes, but it's not without data considerations. How does an orchestration consume data, where does that data come from, and where <i>should</i> the data come from? What data transformations are occurring inside the BPM solution, and (how) can they be leveraged for wider consumption? Finally, what, exactly, is your definition of BPM, anyway? <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>Pencil pushers might classify them as expenses, but your people really belong on the balance sheet under "Current Assets." That's because they know the data. The challenge is how do you institutionalize this knowledge? Do your subject matter experts and data stewards seem to be powers unto themselves? Are others suffocating from a lack of the right kind of data in the right place at the right time? Your insight into data is incomplete without your insight into the people that manage, consume, and influence data. <P> <strong>SEE ALSO:</strong> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200238">Microsoft: Missing the Mark in Mobile</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100143">Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000876">Social Network Frenzy Signals Another Tech Bubble </a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500150">Can Analytics Help Resolve The Jeter Contract Flap?</a> <P> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/info_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700511">8 Big Data Deployments In Detail</a>2011-02-02T09:40:00ZEven if Microsoft can't be an innovator in mobile, it's essential that disparate mobile technologies integrate as seamlessly as possible with the plethora of Microsoft enterprise technologies.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229200238?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareRecent remarks by a senior Microsoft executive demonstrate a staggering naivety about where technology is headed, and the enterprise landscape of tomorrow. <P> The comment that got my attention was made last week by Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Shrugging off concerns that Microsoft was falling behind in the race for mobile computing, <a href=" http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/28/us-davos-tablets-idUSTRE70R1KZ20110128">Courtois said </a> that such concerns are "simply overdone." <P> "Devices," says he, "are going to go and come." <P> Coming from someone at his position, this remark is at best irresponsible; at worst, a troubling indication that Microsoft is truly at sea when it comes to mobile computing. Of course, one errant reading (or reader) does not make a murky crystal ball. But consider Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comments over the years: <P> <i><strong>On the iPhone:</strong> "That is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good e-mail machine... Right now, we're selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year. Apple is selling zero phones a year." &#91;<a href=" http://www.businessinsider.com/flashback-steve-ballmers-first-take-on-the-iphone-september-22-2007-2010-6">January 2007 </a>&#93; <P> <strong>On the iPad:</strong> "We've got some other competitive actions coming back, and we'll talk about slates and tablets and blah, blah, blah, blah... "&#91;<a href=" http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/30/steve-ballmer-on-the-ipad-the-transcript/">July 2010 </a>&#93;</i> <P> From Ballmer to Courtois, indications are that Microsoft just isn't getting it about mobile computing. Unfortunately, this looks like yet another misstep in Microsoft's wobbly trajectory these days: The Yahoo acquisition fiasco; the continued faltering in mobile computing; the seemingly "jump the gun" strategy on Cloud Computing, appearing to bet the company even as the paradigm struggles through its adolescence phase; the perennially disappointing stock performance -- the stock languishes today where it was five years ago (when Bill Gates retired) and where it was ten years ago (when Ballmer was appointed CEO); and last but not the least, the worrying recent exodus of senior-level leadership from Microsoft. There are signs of increasing unrest across the technology world about Ballmer's ability to lead Microsoft. <P> There is a simple reason why companies need Microsoft to understand where mobile computing is headed (and also cloud computing and social computing). Some analysts expect that non-PC mobile devices will outnumber PC shipments by the middle of next year, and it's not just about consumers -- mobile computing is bringing about a sea change in enterprise technology. <P> As they charge bravely into the future, companies are finding that technologies and devices like the Apple iPhone and iPad, Google's Android operating system, and the Motorola Droid X phone are revolutionizing their strategies and operations. These devices are beginning to impact revenue (the top line) and boost productivity (and hence the bottom line). <P> Multi-channel customers experiences are having a positive impact on company revenue, according to <a href="http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/trends_2011_customer_relationship_management/q/id/58530/t/2">Forrester analyst William Band</a>. Mobile computing is empowering customer-facing workers. These are real benefits, not pie-in-the-sky. I'm even beginning to see technology architects leaving their laptops docked on the desk and bringing their iPads to meetings instead. <P> Microsoft is solidly positioned in the enterprise -- servers and desktops alike. To realize the benefits of mobile computing, companies need Microsoft to be a part of the solution. Even if Microsoft is not seen as an innovator in mobile computing (which, sadly, seems to be the case at this point), it is essential that disparate mobile technologies integrate as seamlessly as possible with the plethora of Microsoft enterprise technologies, from information access (e.g. Active Directory) to information sharing (SharePoint) and beyond. <P> On the positive side, there's still plenty of hope for Microsoft. As one GigaOm analyst puts it, claiming that Apple is dominating the tablet market is a little like saying Alexander Graham Bell dominated the telephone industry in 1876. The iPad created a niche, and left competitors scrambling to catch up, but that doesn't mean competition will lag forever. <P> Even if the iPad has, say, 95% market share in tablets today, that doesn't mean much -- this is bound to come down in the years to come. The question for Microsoft is: Will they own any piece of that (large and growing) pie? <P> So, somebody please wake up Mr. Courtois. And hand him an iPad.2011-01-19T08:38:00ZSome say the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Groupon deserve to be measured by a different yardstick. But that's what they said about the infamous flameouts of ten years ago.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229000876?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareEven as they bask in the warm glow of high market valuations, companies like Facebook and Twitter are raising concerns that, barely ten years later, we are letting ourselves in for yet another technology bubble. <P> The companies that are leading a nearly revolutionary change in the way we use the Internet have a few things in common. For one, these companies are young: Facebook was established in 2004, Twitter in 2006, and Groupon as recently as 2008. <P> Then -- and perhaps most importantly -- they are outstanding examples of Web 2.0: stunning new ways to exploit the same old Internet; "under the surface" business models that defy conventional wisdom. A Web site that doesn't do much more than allow people to put up their personal details -- blasphemy -- for everyone to see. A service that merely lets people send -- and sign up for -- short messages. And one that will send consumers a different coupon every day (yawn), but only if sufficient consumers are interested. <P> One last thing: These sites would quite likely be dead in the water without the explosion of mobile computing. They bank -- quite literally -- on ordinary folks like you and me growing increasingly accustomed to living our lives on the go, using our mobile devices to buy things, stay informed and generally share our lives with the world at large. <P> There's no denying that it's their time in the sun, and now they want to capitalize on the opportunity -- again, quite literally. They are all headed to the capital markets where a warm welcome awaits them in the form of unprecedented market valuation, whether realized through an eagerly anticipated public offering (like Groupon, Twitter and LinkedIn) or enthusiastic private placement (like Facebook). <P> But there are murmurs of concern over their high valuation, and questions are being raised about the potential domino effect on other Web 2.0 ventures that might also vie for their slice of the capital pie -- but without the dominant position or established presence that these few companies have. <P> Goldman Sachs, which is helping Facebook raise finance through private equity placement, has valued Facebook at a "vertigo-inducing price,"as a New York Times writer put it, of $50 billion. At revenues of about $1.2 billion last year, this sets Facebook's valuation at about 25 times its revenue. In comparison, reports Reuter, Google is valued at merely nine times its revenue, and Amazon even less. The placement also values Facebook higher than companies like ebay and Time Warner. <P> Using another metric, Facebook still looks overvalued: it generated $4 of revenue per user, which compares poorly compared with Yahoo ($8 per user) and especially Google ($24 per user). <P> Facebook is on a hot streak, which might justify its enthusiastic reception in the capital markets: It recently passed Google as the most visited Web site in the United States. But what about other Internet 2.0 vanguards like Twitter and Groupon, which have estimated valuations at close to $4 billion and $8 billion respectively? Or LinkedIn, which is planning to go public this year? Or internet gaming firm Zynga, which by one measure exceeded established leader Electronic Arts in market valuation? <P> The key question is, do these (and other such) companies have a sustainable business model, or will they turn out to be avatars of WebVan, the online grocer that generated huge attention and capital valuation in the 1990s, and then went down flaming in an exemplary fashion? <P> While some observers are cautioning against market machinations and "irrational exuberance" (that over-used phrase), others have a different take: It would be a mistake to measure a company like Facebook by conventional yardsticks. Social computing pioneers like Facebook and Twitter, says one venture capitalist, should be viewed in terms of their business-transforming potential and their ability to leverage the social network fabric. <P> In other words, these companies stand alone. They are blazing a trail that leaves others in the dust. To measure these companies using conventional metrics -- and against conventional business models -- would be incorrect. <P> Pretty much what they told us about WebVan back then.2010-12-02T12:02:00ZStatistical analysis is now a standard tool in the sports technology portfolio. But how do you measure loyalty, leadership and other qualitative values?http://www.informationweek.com/news/228500150?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareThe ongoing contract negotiations between shortstop Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees once again demonstrate that it's not about the numbers -- it's how you use them. That's where business intelligence and data analytics come in. <P> As the iconic Yankees player concludes his current ten-year contract and seeks a new one to ride out his remaining years in baseball -- in all probability, not more than 3 to 5 years -- the two parties are staring at each other across a wide chasm of expectations. <P> The New York Yankees are offering a shorter contract and (relatively speaking) less money -- a three-year, $45 million offer. The player expects more: four or five years, at upwards of $20 million each year. <P> The differences begin with perspective. Jeter's agent makes the case that Jeter cannot be valued merely in terms of statistics, e.g. his age and most recent season's performance; as the captain and the "face" of the Yankees, Jeter's contributions must be measured in totality. <P> On the other hand, the Yankees' president demurs: "This isn't a licensing deal or a commercial rights deal... He's a baseball player, and this is a player negotiation." Ergo, in determining Jeter's value, his recent and projected future performance is paramount. <P> Which brings us to the much-less-exciting world of business analytics. In analytical terms, what metrics do we use to measure Jeter's value, and how do we interpret these metrics? Do we interpret his subpar performance last season (he hit .270 as against a lifetime average of .317 and had on-base percentage of .340 as against a lifetime average of .388)? Can we simply ignore the outlier -- as we so often do when charting -- and look at the overall trend? <P> Can we weigh Jeter's performance against the average American League shortstop, who hit .258 and had a .312 on-base percentage last year? Could we learn from measurements of other baseball players' late-life performance against their early-life scores and then apply the learning to Jeter? <P> How do we aggregate these metrics to derive a single key performance indicator (KPI) that measures Jeter's "aggregate value?" In other words, how can we put together the numerous quantitative and qualitative measures -- Jeter's lifetime and recent performances, that recent Golden Glove award (despite a declining performance), his age, his iconic value to the Yankees (then again, they did let go of Babe Ruth, too), his ability to draw crowds (and thereby fill up the Yankees coffers), his "loyalty" to the Yankees -- into one comprehensive, representative KPI that can then be unitized to a dollar value? <P> As is nearly always the case with analytics, questions are easier formulated than answered. <P> The good news is that analytics is increasingly a staple in the sports technology portfolio -- as witnessed by the well-reported success of the Boston Red Sox (<a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=179101971">as analyzed</a> by author Tom Davenport) and, more recently, the use of SAP Business Objects software in <a href="http://explorer.sap.com/experience/html/Pages/2010football/index.htm">providing insight</a> into this year&#8217;s FIFA World Cup Football (Soccer). <P> Statistical analysis systems like <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/">Baseball Prospectus</a> and <a href="http://tangotiger.net/marcel/">Marcels</a> provide the kind of baseball metrics Jeter and the Yankees could use to determine a fair contract -- including analysis of the impact of aging on performance. <P> Yet getting to that aggregated KPI for Jeter's total value is a different story. At stake is a big-bucks consequence for Derek Jeter, and even larger repercussions for the Yankees, who do, after all, have a business to run -- swapping players like our children swap baseball cards. <P> If Jeter and the Yankees can find satisfactory (or at least mutually acceptable) answers to the questions above, the famous shortstop, who will turn 37 in June, will continue zooming along his stellar career path, and will likely be the first player to rack up 3,000 hits as a Yankee. And the Yankees organization would have hit a home run.2008-04-21T08:10:00ZSQL Server Data Services is a late-but-promising entrant in an emerging market that promises to be a boon to small and midsized firms looking to reach distributed groups of employees, partners or customers while controlling costs. http://www.informationweek.com/news/207400834?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareIt's a proverbial warning shot across the bow of "cloud computing" database service providers &#8212; most notably Amazon but also others. It's also an attempt to steam ahead of the likes of Oracle and IBM. But most of all, Microsoft's recent beta release of SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) provides an intriguing and potentially exciting opportunity for small and large businesses that are making a foray into the rapidly evolving Cloud Computing and Web 2.0 environment. <P> SSDS falls into the relatively new category of Database-as-a-Service&#8221; (DBaaS). Here is how it works. Let's say you're building a social Web site where visitors can post their high school prom photographs and share them with friends and relatives. On a conventional site you would need to procure and deploy a database to hold all the related data &#8212; names, addresses, photographs, reader comments etc. That could be expensive even without the ongoing maintenance and support costs. With SSDS, the site's database needed could be taken care of by the online SSDS Web data store. You provide the Web application and the data definitions, and Microsoft provides the Web-based database and the maintenance. <P> Analysts expect DBaaS to grow rapidly on pace with the cloud computing trend. The approach is expected to appeal particularly to small and midsized companies looking to serve widely distributed communities, but it also faces the inevitable security, availability and performance questions faced by software-as-a-service providers. <P> <strong>What's In a Name?</strong> <P> Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been providing databases for years, so what&#8217;s new in DBaaS? The difference is that with the ISP model, your application is collocated with the database: in essence, you're simply moving the application deployment platform &#8212; the full stack &#8212; from your premises to the ISP&#8217;s premises. With DBaaS, the stack is dismantled, and your application does not (and typically will not) be collocated with the database. The database is truly a service, with all the benefits and drawbacks of a widely distributed service oriented architecture. <P> There's already plenty of DBaaS competition, with stalwarts as well as startups jostling for spotlight. Force.com, the Salesforce.com platform-as-a-service, includes a database component, as does LongJump, a start-up competitor to Salesforce.com. EnterpriseDB, another start-up, has an offering based on the open source PostgreSQL database and Amazon S3, and offered through Amazon&#8217;s portfolio of cloud computing services. Trackvia and Intuit QuickBase offer their own variants of cloud databases. <P> It's important to dispel any confusion between DBaaS and the closely related concepts of Data as a Service (DaaS), Storage as a service (to avoid confusion, let's not call it "SaaS"), and Information as a Service (IaaS). DaaS is the broadest concept, ranging from simple storage providers (such as GoogleBase and Amazon S3) and low-complexity database services (such as Amazon SimpleDB and Microsoft SSDS) to Web services providers (like StrikeIron, an IBM partner in supporting mashups) and value-added data services (such as Kognitio, which offers on-demand data analytics). <P> DBaaS focuses on one part of data services: The ability to support potentially complex data models by offering, quite literally, (relational) databases on the Web. Storage-as-a-service operates at a lower level and is the equivalent self-storage on the Web: You rent a volume of space and not much else is included by way of value-added features. Information as a Service (IaaS), like DaaS, is a more diffused and general-purpose concept. According to Forrester Research analyst <a href="http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,41913,00.html"target=_blank>Noel Yuhanna</a> IaaS can be defined as &#8220;a comprehensive strategy for the delivery of information obtained from information services, following a consistent approach using SOA infrastructure and/or Internet standards such as RSS,&#8221; and the latest <a href="http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,43199,00.html"target=_blank>Forrester Wave report</a> on the topic identifies BEA, IBM and Oracle as offering the strongest IaaS platforms. <P> Think of IaaS as SOA infrastructure with built-in information/data management capabilities and geared towards offering information services to applications. It's tempting to imagine IaaS as something that happens within the confines of an organization, but this is inaccurate since there is nothing that inherently excludes the use of cloud computing. <P><strong>'Bin' There, Done That</strong> <P> At first sight, Microsoft SSDS seems to be going up against Amazon's S3 (Simple Storage Service) and SimpleDB. The former is nothing more than a flat object store &#8212; an uncomplicated storage bin without structure or rules. SimpleDB adds structure and metadata to S3 so you can define items (organized into domains); each item has a number of properties, and each property has one or more values. SimpleDB works with S3, so this is incremental (or differential) value for application developers. <P> Microsoft SSDS is similar to SimpleDB. You can define containers (think database tables, loosely speaking) containing entities (the rows in the table). Entities possess properties that have sets of name-value pairs. Two similar entities need not have the same set of properties; some books, for example, may have an associated movie name while others (that have not inspired movies) don't have to have this property. Security and billing for the database-as-a-service are organized through concepts such as customers and accounts. <P> Despite this competition and Microsoft's late arrival to the party, SSDS has an edge in its tie to the SQL Server platform &#8212; an edge others may find it hard to compete against, at least until the Oracles and IBMs decide to show up, too. Whereas cloud database providers like Amazon are largely limited to relatively simple data models (basic bin-like storage, simple name-value pairs, spreadsheet-like tables and so on), Microsoft has the might of the SQL Server platform behind its offering. <P> <strong>Old Wine in an Exciting New Bottle</strong> <P> DBaaS is indeed a step forward for Web 2.0, and the possibilities are exciting. SSDS, for example, is only the tip of the iceberg of what Microsoft could offer. Given its development portfolio, Microsoft could go beyond a full-service database solution &#8212; in itself a significant offering &#8212; into areas such as dashboards in the cloud or, throwing BizTalk into the mix, Processes as a Service. The possibilities for mashups and cloud computing solutions are endless, but will necessarily be tempered by the realities around business risk and value. <P> Not surprisingly, DBaaS faces several challenges, beginning with the angst over data privacy and security. Database (and hence data) availability and performance considerations come a close second; in these days of fierce competition and flighty customers, any downtime or perceived slowdown can lead to a lasting or even fatal loss of customer confidence. Finally, there are various operational difficulties working with DBaaS: defining and maintaining the data model, technology and application upgrades, integrating with non-collocated data sources and so on. <P> More surprisingly, DBaaS is already approaching commoditization in terms of capabilities, choice and pricing. Even as vendors are cautiously surveying their competitors pricing schemes, they are finding it difficult to diverge widely in their own &#8212; an indication, perhaps, of their inability to distinguish themselves from the crowd. One presumes that technology-rich companies like Microsoft will have a clear advantage in their ability to provide value-added features and services, but the winners will be the vendors that can demonstrate the sheer solidity of their offering in terms of data privacy/security, availability and performance. <P> <strong>A Bright Future</strong> <P> <em>Things are going great, and they're only getting better <br> I'm doing all right, getting good grades <br> The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades <br> &#8212; Timbuk 3</em> <P> As cloud computing picks up speed, DBaaS is expected to follow along. Analysts see it as a viable platform for small businesses and midsized organizations that may find it too expensive and burdensome to manage database environments. Forrester estimates the current DBaaS market size at $20 million and forecasts a rapid rise to around $400 million by 2012. <P> DBaaS will be most valuable for businesses seeking to deploy what might be called distributed communities &#8212; systems addressing widely distributed groups of employees, partners or customers using the Internet to reach wider audiences while controlling costs. These businesses will have to be willing to risk locating their data outside of their own physical control, although SaaS providers such as SaleForce.com have to some extent already led business down that intrepid path. <P> Businesses considering DBaaS should keep in mind that the concept is evolutionary not revolutionary, and is here to stay (and grow). DBaaS in its simplest forms will be increasingly commoditized and hence will remain affordable, but unanticipated or hidden costs &#8212; for example, related to manageability and a need for higher service levels &#8212; could be another story; security, availability, performance and manageability will be critical success factors. Businesses will be best served by setting a long-term plan for cloud computing, ensuring that the DBaaS vendor has immediate or promised capabilities to support the long-term growth path. <P>2008-01-28T12:52:00ZProcess modeling tool highlights include BPMN support, low cost and integration with ER/Studio data modeling environment. http://www.informationweek.com/news/205920430?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_softwareWhy is process modeling important? In a Forrester Research survey last year, nearly 80 percent of respondents indicated that they were either considering or already in some stage of deploying business process management (BPM) software, the primary drivers being reduced costs, increased agility, and standardization of business processes across IT and business units. BPM, in turn, begins with business process analysis (BPA) and process modeling. What cannot be measured cannot be improved, and process modeling is the first step to understanding and measuring current-state business processes with an eye on future-state improvement. <P> EA/Studio Business Modeler is an entry-level but professional-looking business process modeling tool from Embarcadero Technologies, a company better known for its data modeling and database administration products, ER/Studio and DBArtisan, respectively. Now in its second major release &#8212; following an inaugural v1.0 release and v1.1 upgrade last year &#8212; EA/Studio is a mid-tier solution positioned above products like Visio, which are essentially diagramming tools, and below advanced process modeling tools such as IDS Scheer's ARIS Design Platform, Mega's Mega Process, ITP Commerce's Process Modeler for Visio, and MetaStorm&#8217;s ProVision (acquired through Proforma). A free EA/Studio Community Edition released earlier this month gives you a taste of the tool's core business process modeling capabilities, but it lacks some of the helpful reporting and analysis capabilities of the $970 full version. <P> EA/Studio is aimed at organizations midway up the process modeling maturity curve: Organizations that would like to go beyond basic visual depiction of process flows (e.g. Visio diagrams) and towards more organized process design and metadata management as well as integrated process/data modeling, yet are not ready for a full-featured process modeling and execution environment. <P> <strong>Working with EA/Studio</strong> <P> For this review, I downloaded the <a href="http://www.embarcadero.com/products/eastudio/"target=_blank>free 14-day trial version</a> of EA/Studio from the Embarcadero Web site. The demo is a full-featured version restricted only by the license period, so I procured an extended license from Embarcadero. The download, installation and license update were all painless and quick. Since EA/Studio interacts with ER/Studio, I also downloaded and installed the data modeling tool. <P> <DIV style="width:185px; padding-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; float:right;"><a href="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/0801/EA-Studio-Interface.gif" target="_blank"><IMG SRC="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/0801/EA-Studio-Interface_tn.gif" ALT="caption goes here" WIDTH="175" HEIGHT="125" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" BORDER="0"></A><br /> <DIV style="margin-top:7px; text-align:center;"><FONT SIZE="1" CLASS="storyDek">EA/Studio's user interface</FONT><br> <I><FONT SIZE="1">(click image for larger view)</FONT></I> </DIV> </DIV>There are three main parts to the EA/Studio user interface (as shown in the screen shot at right). The Diagram view in the center is where you draw process diagrams and spend most of your time. On the left is a Model view that presents a hierarchical parent-child tree of objects in the diagram. On the right is a pop-up Palette where you select objects to place on the Diagram view. The Palette is context-sensitive, displaying one set of objects if you are creating a business process diagram and another set if you are creating a conceptual diagram. The Palette also displays reference objects and external data objects (more on these later) as well as drawing shapes (including circle, hexagon, text label and so on). <P> EA/Studio supports the popular industry-standard Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN 1.0), which implies that we are presented with a specific, standardized set of modeling objects, and need to conform to certain modeling rules. Accordingly, objects on the EA/Studio Palette are grouped into Events (start, end, intermediate), Activities (tasks and embedded/independent sub-processes), Gateways, Connecting Objects (sequence and message flows, associations), Swimlanes (pools and lanes), and Artifacts (data objects, groups and annotations). Many of these objects can be further refined. EA/Studio lets us choose whether to validate against BPMN &#8211; a welcome flexibility. (For more detail on BPMN, visit the Object Management Group's <a href="http://www.bpmn.org/"target=_blank>BPMN site</a>.) <P> Constructing a process flow is fairly straightforward: For example, you can use a Start Event followed by a few Tasks and an End Event, all tied together using Connecting Objects. For more sophisticated process flows, you can use objects such as Swimlanes, (which depict process flow across multiple departments or roles) and Sub-Processes (which drill down into more detailed process flows). Data Objects are used to describe the flow of data to and from external components such as data stores, reports or data feeds, or even individual tables and entities. <P><strong>Objectively Speaking</strong> <P> EA/Studio objects have properties. There are common properties (name, description and so on) as well as properties that are specific to the type of object. A task object, for example, has status, a data feed or report object has data elements, and a steward can be an individual or organization. Properties let you not only describe the object but also define implementation-level details such as the fields of a report or the columns in a table. All (or at least most) objects also have properties that show usage (a Confirm Order task, for example, <em>reads</em> an Order database) and impact analysis. Thus, you can use properties to quickly find out all the processes and tasks that read from or write to a particular data source. <P> EA/Studio organizes all work in a four-tier hierarchy: Workspace > Project > Model > Diagram. To me, this hierarchy seems excessively deep, adding to modeling complexity without adding much value. I can well imagine a business analyst working on multiple projects, each with multiple process models; what is less conceivable is an analyst working in multiple workspaces, each potentially containing multiple projects, with multiple models within each project and multiple diagrams within each model. I found similar overkill in the hierarchy of objects presented in the Model view which, as mentioned above, shows a parent-child view of objects and their components and relationships. In itself this is a very useful feature, but in the quest to present all related information in one place, EA/Studio delivers repeated displays of all occurrences of each object (for example, if object A is related to objects B, C and D, we see BCD listed under A, ACD listed under B, ABD listed under C and ABC listed under D, and this extended to multiple levels deep). This creates a clutter of information that leads to confusion rather than clarity. <P> All in all, though, the EA/Studio user interface is clean, well-organized and pleasant to the senses &#8212; no garish colors or excessive visual zeal. An Overview tab next to the Model view presents a thumbnail view of the entire diagram &#8212; another nice touch. I also liked the Find/Search feature, which lets you find an object on the diagram or search for an object within the workspace. In my limited usage, the tool appeared stable, without any unexpected glitches. <P> <strong>More Than Stand-Alone Modeling</strong> <P> Aficionados of integrated process/data modeling will be interested in EA/Studio&#8217;s ability to share conceptual data model through export/import with Embarcadero's flagship ER/Studio. For instance, you can create a conceptual data model in EA/Studio that has entities used in process models and then export the model to ER/Studio to add entity attribute details. You can then move the model back to EA/Studio to further enhance the process models. Process and data are inseparable (especially when you get to the lower levels of modeling); process/data integration through shared metadata helps keep everyone on the same page while reducing rework and errors. <P> Besides ER/Studio, you can also export to and import from Microsoft Excel. I was particularly interested EA/Studio's ability to import diagrams from Visio, as users of Microsoft's popular diagramming tool are prime prospects for deeper modeling tools. However, while the sample Visio diagram provided by Embarcadero transferred flawlessly into EA/Studio, I had less success with some other Visio diagrams that I tried. <P> <strong>Summing it Up</strong> <P> Consistent with its market positioning, EA/Studio lacks high-end features such as simulation and execution capabilities, sophisticated business rules handling and Web services support. That said, EA/Studio handily outperforms its nearest competitor, CA ERwin Process Modeler (formerly CA AllFusion Process Modeler), particularly in its support for BPMN (ERwin Process Modeler supports IDEF but not BPMN). <P> EA/Studio is Eclipse-based, and Embarcadero plans to migrate all its tools to the Eclipse platform to produce a more integrated toolset. Assuming Embarcadero does it right, this will be good news for those looking for a more integrated modeling environment. At $970 per user (+ $175 annual maintenance), EA/Studio is affordable enough, but you can sample the core modeling capabilities by downloading the free Community Edition (which lacks the conceptual modeling, impact analysis, usage reporting and artifact modeling features of the full version). Effective and efficient process modeling is as much an art as a science (and it requires tons of practice to boot), but a good tool can be a life-saver. With its pleasant and effective user interface, support for BPMN and interoperability with ER/Studio, EA/Studio is a nice addition to the marketplace and definitely worthy of consideration, especially in IT shops that haven&#8217;t settled on a heavy-duty BPA/BPM solution. <P> <em><a href="http://www.intelligententerprise.com/experts/chandras/"target=_blank>Rajan Chandras</a> is a senior consultant with the New York offices of a leading global IT services firm, and is also a freelancing technology analyst and writer with a focus on information and IT management. He can be reached at <a href="mailto: rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras@gmail.com</a>.</em> <P>2007-10-21T12:36:00ZThe Master Data Management (MDM) market is growing at a double-digit pace on the strength of three promised benefits: a cross-enterprise perspective for better business intelligence; greater consistency across customer records for improved transaction management; a solid foundation for service-oriented architectures (SOA). Has MDM turned the corner from leading-edge to must-have? Ravi Shankar, Director of Product Marketing at Siperian, shares his thoughts on MDM progress and next steps. http://www.informationweek.com/news/202405353?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software<!-- image table --> <TABLE WIDTH="120" ALIGN="right" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="8" BORDER="0" hspace="5" vspace="5"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> <div align="center"> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/0710/Ravi_Shankar.jpg" width="122" height="135" alt="Phil Kemelor"> <span class="storyDek">Ravi Shankar</span> </td> </tr> </table> <!-- /image table --> <span class="storyDek">Has MDM gone mainstream? Do people &#8220;get it?&#8221;</span> <P> There is huge awareness of MDM. Gartner recently hosted a MDM conference for the first time &#91;piggy-backing on its CRM conference&#93;, and they pulled in about 500 attendees. <P> As to whether they &#8220;get it,&#8221; it depends on who you're talking to. Most of the IT people get it. Business users understand the moniker, but they might or might not understand MDM quite as well. I find that business users often require education in terms of what it can do for them and what value it brings. With IT people, it&#8217;s a different conversation; they want to know more about the features and how we differentiate ourselves from the competition. <P> <span class="storyDek">Are you seeing awareness translate into bigger budgets for MDM?</span> <P> It's a matter of awareness and the problem becoming urgent. We are seeing budgets increased and greater success in closing deals, particularly in the pharmaceutical and financial services industries. Forrester predicts MDM will be $6 billion market by 2010, which is a 60-percent growth rate over the $1 billion MDM market last year. Gartner forecasts that 70 percent of Global 2000 companies will have a MDM solution by the year 2010. These are pretty big numbers. <P> <span class="storyDek"> What are the biggest technical and management challenges in adopting MDM?</span> <P> Technical folks often have a challenge in data governance in selling the project and getting the funding. Management is looking for return on investment; they need MDM tied to quantifiable benefits that business leaders understand, like dollar amounts around ROI. <P> <span class="storyDek">What are the typical ROI drivers?</span> <P> On the revenue side it's improvements in the business process. For example, financial services can use MDM to improve Basel II compliance and reduce capital allocation. IT typically sees reductions in duplicated technology costs. <P> <span class="storyDek">Lots of people talk about &#8220;data governance,&#8221; but how do you define it and how can organizations move toward governance without being overwhelmed?</span> <P> Siperian calls it "Master Data Governance," and we define it as "the orchestration of people, policies, procedures and technology to manage enterprise data availability, usability, integrity and security for business process efficiency and compliance.&#8221; <P> Master Data Governance is complex. If you don&#8217;t do it right, the project may fail. You don&#8217;t want to put data governance on all your data; that's too expensive. You want to put governance only on data that leads to business process efficiency and compliance. <P> You have to go through a design phase to come up with a data governance framework that's independent of technology. Once that's done you need a flexible technology platform to enable the governance framework. <P> <span class="storyDek">Is the debate on centralized v/s federated MDM behind us? Who won and which approach does Siperian follow?</span> <P> It's not a question of who won and who lost. Gartner defines four different architectural styles for MDM: Consolidation, Registry, Coexistence and Transaction. They are all valid depending on the client circumstances. The different styles define a maturity model, and it is important that you are able to evolve your MDM solution along the maturity path. Siperian supports all four models. <P> <span class="storyDek">Is there a future for SaaS-based MDM? </span> <P> There are a couple of ways to answer that question. I don't think MDM is a place to do SaaS as in the salesforce.com model, where you are using the MDM hub to provide services coupled with applications. But there are other situations where MDM can be offered as a hosted technology. We have customers doing this, but it's not widely implemented because of the complexity in terms of the number of data sources that you can hook to the system. If you don&#8217;t have many data sources and there's little in-house IT infrastructure, you may consider outsourcing the hosting of the MDM solution. In cases where there are many data sources and strong in-house IT, we see customers preferring to keep the MDM implementation in-house. <P> <span class="storyDek">What&#8217;s next for MDM in terms of capabilities?</span> <P> In our view, the next evolution for MDM will be along the lines of Master Data Solutions specific for verticals &#8212; for example, to manage risk in financial services, to support new product introductions in retail, and to manage physician spend in the pharmaceutical industry. <P> In terms of specific capabilities, supporting custom application development and enterprise SOA will be the next big drivers for MDM. Composite applications cannot be cost-effectively developed without first integrating disparate data across different applications and legacy systems. <P> There will be other developments as well. In the area of metadata management, you'll see integration with enterprise metadata managers. In reporting and metrics, you'll see pre-defined and user-defined data capture and metrics generation, integration with major reporting/BI tools as well as prepackaged dashboards and reports to monitor data quality and data steward productivity. Finally in the area of business process management, you'll see native management of data state within any workflow tool of choice. You'll also see integrated management of reusable business rules for needs including cleansing, matching, survivorship and workflows. <P>2006-12-01T00:00:00ZData integration is integral to emerging service-oriented architectures, so it's doubtful that the technology's evolution is complete.http://www.informationweek.com/news/195900026?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software <P> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/061201/dec06dashc.gif" align="right"> <P> Brad Manning has data integration in mind. Recently appointed CIO of Quaker Chemicals, Manning oversees data centers on four continents. Multiple data warehouses support some 800 different subject-area views. Manning knows that getting the right data into the right hands at the right time isn't trivial, so he and other CIOs have been closely watching the many recent developments in data integration. </P> <P> Extract, transform and load (ETL) used to be the beginning and end of the tools market. Ascential Software and Informatica were the two biggest dogs. Now, Ascential's ETL tools are part of IBM's growing portfolio of information integration solutions that span metadata management (Unicorn), product data integration (Trigo) and customer data integration (DWL). Informatica, meanwhile, has built out its capabilities through acquisitions and partnerships. Agreements with the likes of Composite Software (for enterprise information integration) and webMethods (business integration) have made Informatica relevant for far more than traditional ETL.</P> <P> "The whole scope of data warehousing is changing," says Michael Corcoran, chief communications officer at Information Builders (IBI). IBI's subsidiary, iWay Software, has updated its DataMigrator and Service Manager products so that customers can move beyond conventional ETL and static data to establish unified data architecture workable for a variety of integration scenarios. "Timeliness is the big issue," Corcoran notes. Instead of batch ETL going away, Corcoran sees some iWay customers addressing latency by doing batch jobs multiple times a day. </P> <P> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/061201/dec06dashf.gif" align="right"> <P> Data integration is integral to emerging service-oriented architectures, so it's doubtful that the technology's evolution is complete. Manning says Quaker Chemical is content to stay with SAS as its primary data solutions vendor. However, as demands for data presentation and timeliness accelerate in 2007, organizations will seek new solutions for strategic information integration. <em>--Rajan Chandras</em></P> <P> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/061201/dec06dashe.gif" align="left"> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/061201/dec06dashd.gif" align="center"> <P>2006-11-01T00:00:00ZRelease 7 of the AllFusion ERwin Data Modeler offers a major upgrade, adding undo/redo features and a rich set of data-comparison capabilities.http://www.informationweek.com/news/193200379?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software <P> <P> <!----- PRO CON TABLE ---> <table class="body" align="right" bgcolor="#dce5f6" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="250"><tr> <td><b>PROS</b> </td> </tr> <P> <P> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Visual data modeling approach is fast and easy to master.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Offers useful new undo/redo and reverse action features.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Complete Compare feature eases data source comparison.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>CONS</b> </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Confusing menu selections remain. </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull; Advisory pane presents cryptic messages and flawed tracking capabilities.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull; Will require a few bug fixes in the next point release.</td> </tr></table> <!----- PRO CON TABLE ---> <P> <P> The AllFusion Modeling Suite from CA (formerly Computer Associates) is a set of modeling tools consisting mainly of a process modeler, data modeler and data-model validator, supported by an assortment of optional features. Among these tools, the best known is the AllFusion ERwin Data Modeler, which has been a sound product and big market success almost from its release in the late 1980s by Dr. Benjamin Cohen and his team at Logic Works in Princeton, N.J. </P> <P> Innovative and trendsetting, ERwin offered a clean and clutter-free user interface, a "just right" set of features reflecting a sound understanding of the discipline of data modeling, and a simple-but-effective, client-centric architecture (in contrast to, say, the unwieldy, database-dependent architecture of Oracle Designer). Logic Works was sold to Platinum Technologies in 1998, which was in turn acquired by CA in 1999. Since the acquisition, ERwin seems to have languished, exploited but largely ignored, like an unfailing golden goose starved for nourishment. Over the years the product progressed from version 3.5 to 4.0 and then to 4.1 (guided, according to CA, by an active and responsive user community), but improvements seemed minimal at best. </P> <P> Now in one big leap from version 4.1 to release 7, ERwin has emerged with new features and hope that CA recognizes ERwin for what it is: an endearing and enduring tool that is worthy of continued investment. Indeed, with these latest upgrades, ERwin can once again stake a claim to leadership in data modeling. </P> <P> <P> <h3>Keep What Works</h3> </P> <P> There are many and significant changes in ERwin 7, but fortunately, CA has not tinkered with ERwin's greatest strength, the visual paradigm for data modeling. Pulling together entities (tables), defining relationships between entities, specifying attributes and arranging the model into an apposite yet aesthetic artifact remain simple tasks that can be done in a matter of minutes or even seconds. ERwin continues to support the popular Information Engineering ("crow's feet") notation as well as the less popular IDEF1X (Integration Definition for Information Modeling) notation (my personal favorite). ERwin also supports a Dimensional Modeling notation in the physical model.</P> <P> Enhancements to the ERwin workplace include a revised Model Explorer window (see screenshot below), an Action Log pane and an Advisory pane. The Model Explorer window lets you browse objects in a model view or a subject-area view, and it provides an easier way to manage subject areas and switch from one subject area to another. The Advisory pane displays messages related to user actions, but I found two shortcomings with this feature. One, the messages overwrite one another, so the ability to save messages (which is a plus) is valueless--you don't get to see the message history. Two, the messages seemed less than useful. When I set the data type for an attribute, for example, the message displayed was "Attributes/Columns Editor," and details of the message read as follows: "&lt;Level=0&gt;&lt;Successful Transaction&gt; Attributes/Columns Editor"--not exactly descriptive of the change. Lastly, simply opening and closing the attributes list for an entity leads to a confusing "Failed Transaction" message (one of a few bugs I encountered that are typical for a major new release).</P> <P> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/061101/nov06testa.gif" border="0" align="center"> <P> <P> <P> <h3>Put Actions In Reverse</h3> </P> <P> The Action Log is one of the highlights of the release. It lets you view the sequence of changes made and roll those changes back, if necessary. This gives ERwin a useful combination of undo/redo and reverse action features. Undo lets you undo an action sequentially, meaning undo the action and all actions after it. Reverse lets you selectively undo any action as well as its dependent actions (deleting an entity, for example, automatically undoes relationships of that entity), but it doesn't otherwise affect intermediate sequential actions. These two features will be lifesavers for many a database designer, and the ability to log actions helps in no small measure. Dare we ask CA to also provide tool tips (or status bar descriptions) for the icons in the Advisory and Action Log panes?</P> <P> Another major area of improvement is in comparing data sources and generating Alter scripts, which will be particularly appreciated by database administrators supporting application development and maintenance efforts. Using the Complete Compare feature, you can compare various data sources (ERwin models, databases and so on) and generate reports that identify differences (see screenshot, below). The Complete Compare feature is loaded with options and settings (and, thus, default values) that may make it difficult to do quick comparisons, but the flexibility gained is valuable nonetheless. A bug in the Alter Script feature prevented me from filtering for a single table (another fix for the next point release).</P> <P> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/061101/nov06testb.gif" border="0" align="center"> <P> <P> Improvements also have been made to ERwin's Transforms feature, which provides useful, predefined shortcuts that let database designers implement design decisions quickly and semi-automatically using wizards. For example, designers can use Transforms to merge entities into a single denormalized entity, partition an entity horizontally or vertically, roll up subtype tables into the parent table or roll down the parent entity into subtype tables. The ability to undo or reverse the effects of a transform should encourage designers to exploit this useful feature. </P> <P> <P> <h3>Make The Transition</h3></P> <P> Data model files have been renamed as ".erwin" in release 7 in place of the erstwhile ".er1"; this seemingly trivial change heralds a new era. ERwin converts from version 4.1 to release 7 very smoothly, documenting the transformation cleanly. There are some changes to the ERwin Menu, but minor annoyances remain: For example, there are three separate sets of Menu options to specify user preferences: Format &gt; Preferences, Model &gt; Model Properties and Tools &gt; Options. Is selecting the modeling notation a format preference or a model property? (Answer: the latter). Which of these three lets us view entity shadows and page grids? (Answer: neither; these options are specified elsewhere). I also noticed minor glitches in the user interface similar to the earlier release; this continues to be an area for further improvement.</P> <P> Lastly, enhancements have been made to XML support, synchronization with AllFusion Process Modeling (though I didn't test this) and reporting (with the long-awaited, no-brainer addition of writing to PDF). </P> <P> <P> <h3>Invest In The Future</h3></P> <P> There are many good data modeling products in the market, including IBM Rational Data Architect, Sybase PowerDesigner and TeleLogic (formerly Popkin) System Architect. Although most of these products went the route of integrated multiple modeling capabilities, with data modeling as only one of the components, ERwin has stayed the course of pure data modeling. With release 7, AllFusion ERwin is once again a force to reckon with--and the product to beat. The enhancements are significant productivity boosters, and investing in the upgrade would be a smart choice for current ERwin customers. Message to CA: Investing in future (and more regular) upgrades would be a wise move for this outstanding tool. </P> <P> <b AllFusion ERwin Data Modeler release 7, $3,995. The AllFusion Modeling Suite Bundle release 7, including ERwin Data Modeler, Process Modeler, Model Manager and Data Model Validator is $6,995, not including maintenance or upgrade protection.</b></P> <P> <P> <em>Rajan Chandras is with the New York offices of CSC Consulting, and can be reached at rchandras@gmail.com. The opinions expressed here are his own.</em></P> <P>2006-06-01T00:00:00ZThis BRM system offers a natural-language alternative that puts business users in charge of rules management.http://www.informationweek.com/news/188101078?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software <P> As businesses move deeper into the realms of mass customization, process optimization and risk management, success depends on managing and making decisions consistently, in real- or near-real-time and with greater automation. Enterprise decision management solutions are aimed at providing this capability, and these, in turn, are driven by the management of business rules. </P> <P> Rules management systems generally fall in two categories: business-oriented and application-oriented. Products in the first category are relatively technology-agnostic and emphasize rules management from a business perspective: End users are responsible for defining and maintaining rules, which are then made available to software applications. Systems in the second category are typically more closely tied to application technologies (such as Java). HaleyAuthority, from Haley Systems, is a leading business rules management (BRM) system that firmly falls in the first category. The system is built around strong capabilities in natural language understanding and chained reasoning--or "Semantic Role Modeling" as Haley calls it--and it offers a business-user-friendly alternative for automated decision management. </P> <P> <!----- PRO CON TABLE ---> <table class="body" align="right" bgcolor="#dce5f6" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="250"><tr> <td><b>PROS</b> </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; User friendly with strong natural-language capabilities.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Supports ontology and rules standards including OWL and JSR-94.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Business rules engine has a small footprint compatible with mobile devices.</td> </tr> <P> <tr> <td><b>CONS</b> </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Lacks support for popular rule modeling paradigms. </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Inadequate provisions for debugging rules. </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull; Poor documentation offers little help to untrained users.</td> </tr></table> <!----- PRO CON TABLE ---> <P> <P> <h3>Building The Knowledge Base</h3></P> <P> Modeling business rules in Haley begins with defining concepts and relations. For example, if we were to construct a rule base for an Employee/ HR system, employee and salary would be concepts, and EmployeeSalary would be a relation. Haley has a number of pre-defined concepts such as amount of money, so you can simply declare salary as a kind of amount of money, and the product automatically understands things it can do with salary, such as use it in computations. Creating a relation between employee and salary is as easy as dragging and dropping salary over employee. </P> <P> A key aspect of creating relations is defining phrases that determine how the relation can be used. As you can see in the "Edit verb phrasing" window in the screen shot at left, it helps to know your grammar: verbs, adverbs, adjectives and possessive prepositions--not everybody's cup of tea, but not quite as daunting as coding. Once all the concepts defined, you can define statements, such as "a salaried employee is an employee that is paid a salary." Haley validates such statements as you type them in and indicates if the statement is understood or not. It does this in sequential fashion starting from the left, so unless you have defined the starting term "salaried employee," for instance, the system wouldn't understand subsequent components of the statement. You also can define conditional statements, such as "an employee is entitled to a vacation if the employee is a salaried employee," but this requires a bit of fancy footwork (routine, once you know how) in creating a relation between employee and vacation that includes the phrase "is entitled to." </P> <P> <!-- image table --> <TABLE WIDTH="120" ALIGN="left" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="8" BORDER="0" hspace="5" vspace="5"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> <div align="center"> <a href="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/060601/jun06test2a.gif" target="new"> <img SRC="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/060601/jun06test2a_tn.gif" border="0"></a> <a href="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/060601/jun06test2a.gif" target="new" class="storyDek"> Click to enlarge in another window </a> </td> </tr> </table> <!-- /image table --> </p> <P> <P> The Haley knowledge base is multi-tiered. In the lowest tier is a dictionary, which is where you define the basic elements of the language: adjectives, adverbs, nouns, prepositions and verbs. Next, you define concepts and relate them, clarifying the relations with phrases that use the language elements. There are five types of concepts: entities (such as employee), quantities (such as salary, as a quantity of money), time, unit and value (e.g. EmployeeTitle, as a value of string). Haley comes with numerous pre-defined concepts in all categories except entities, which tend to be specific to the organization. Lastly, you define statements, qualified by conditions. You group these statements--which are, in essence, the business rules--into modules for convenience and effective management. </P> <P> Rules can be defined for analysis, leading to the creation of a fact ("if an employee has title of CEO then the employee is eligible for super-fat bonus"), or for action, leading to an executable result ("if an employee is eligible for super-fat bonus then award the employee one million stock options"). To aid processing, lookup tables can be defined for values such as the number of stock options to be awarded by title and years of service. Forward and backward chaining directs the flow of decision logic, prioritization enforces rule dependency and versioning enables rules to evolve over time. </P> <P> The Haley knowledge base can be stored in a file or (more typically) a relational database. It can be developed, managed and shared using a client tool (as shown in the main window in the screen shot on page TK), and it's deployed using the Haley business rules engine. The engine is small enough to run on PDAs and provides application programming interfaces (APIs) for Java and .Net, as well as support for Web services (these features were not tested).</P> <P> Focusing on natural language, Haley has chosen not to support some of the more popular (and visual) rule modeling paradigms, such as decision tables, decision trees and state-chart diagrams--though some of these can be modeled, with some effort, in natural language terms. Haley's lookup tables are fairly robust, but I cannot see them as a substitute for the kind of complex, multiple condition/action logic that can be modeled in decision tables. Provisions for debugging rules also need to improved, and the documentation is poor, making it difficult for untrained users to make use of the software. </P> <P> <P> <h3>Putting The Owl In A 'BOX'</h3></P> <P> To deploy Haley (or any natural-language-based decision management solution), businesses must first take up the potentially painful and time-consuming activity of defining ontologies in domains of interest. An ontology is a vocabulary, consisting primarily of related concepts, relations between concepts and a grammar for building upon the concepts and relations. Fortunately, Haley's Express Paks (formerly "Knowledge-Paks") offer pre-defined sets of terms and concepts by industry, and its Business Ontology Exchanges (BOX) add an online forum for sharing industry-specific ontologies. Both of these offerings promise to shorten deployment cycles (though the only BOX available at this writing is for the insurance industry, so I hope more are on the way). </P> <P> Haley's strength is its ontology-based approach and its commitment to standards, exemplified by its plan to support the OWL and JSR-94 standards. OWL, the Web Ontology Language from W3C, is intended as a common language for specifying ontologies that are interoperable and can be shared across the Web as a step to realizing the ambitious Semantic Web. JSR-94 is the emerging standard Java runtime API for business rules engines. The Haley Rule Markup Language (HRML), recently introduced, is a proposed XML-based standard for defining rules, which Haley will use to make all related product documentation, XML schemas, APIs and examples available to the public. Haley's strategy is to achieve leadership through the standards initiative. </P> <P> <P> <h3>Ensuring A Fast Response</h3></P> <P> HaleyAuthority is a well-designed solution that is rated highly by both Forrester Research and Gartner. The company is serious about its commitment to the natural language-based approach, business ontologies and the standards movement. This is good news for customers, as it offers a compelling alternative in the marketplace for enterprise decision management. The use of natural language helps companies quickly respond to changing demands and conditions because business analysts can change rules without the delays inherent in IT development.</P> <P> * <b>HaleyAuthority 5.1 enterprise deployments start at $50,000, including Haley's rules engine.</b></P> <P> <P> <em>Rajan Chandras is with the New York offices of CSC Consulting, and can be reached at <a href="mailto:rchandras@gmail.com">rchandras@gmail.com</a>. The opinions expressed here are his own. </em></P> <P><h3>Insuring Success With Business Rules</h3></P> <P> As enterprises continue to move away from silo applications and towards a service-oriented paradigm, they will find it valuable to collect and manage rules centrally. Haley Systems customer Farm Bureau Financial Services reports that automated rules management helped reduce insurance transaction times by 75 percent--from days to a matter of hours--with 60 percent of 450,000 transactions in 2005 processed without manual review, up from 10 to 12 percent before the system was deployed in November 2004. Brett Clausen, vice president of underwriting and operations, says rules management has:<blockquote> </P> <P> &bull; Eliminated process paperwork and reduced workloads and expenses</P> <P> &bull; Cut policy issuance times</P> <P> &bull; Improved consistency in underwriting risks</P> <P> &bull; Increased adaptability and responsiveness to market and regulatory changes</P> <P> &bull; Freed underwriters to focus on exposure/ liability challenges</P> <P> &bull; Improved monitoring and management of results</P></blockquote> <P> The company's main deployment challenge was defining the insurance business ontology, but Haley's natural-language approach paid off: The task could be assigned to a business analyst rather than an application programmer. Haley's documentation was found lacking, but Clausen says training and patience were the keys to success.</P> <P> The insurance industry is a natural for business rules management (BRM), but many businesses stand to benefit from the technology. Business rules can be integrated into custom applications and are an integrated part of business process management/automation (BPM/ BPA) solutions. The caveat, however, is that BRM is far easier to use in new systems--built from the ground up to work with rules engines--than it is to integrate with existing systems.</P> <P>2006-02-01T05:00:00ZVeridata makes it easy to compare source and target data in relational tables, but limited database support and functionality hamper this 1.0 release.http://www.informationweek.com/news/177100940?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software<table class="body" align="right" bgcolor="#dce5f6" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="250"><tbody><tr> <td><b>PROS</b> </td> </tr> <P> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull; Easy to use, with Web and command-line interfaces that let you configure and execute comparisons and view results.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Result records go beyond obvious mismatch errors to include processing and performance metrics such as rows processed per second, row size before and after compression, and time spent fetching rows.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull; Supports optimization with multirow fetches, buffer management and other techniques.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>CONS</b> </td> <P> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull; Currently supports only Oracle and HP (NonStop) databases.</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull; Can't match more than two data views and lacks more complex comparisons.</td> </tr> <tr> <P> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull; Documentation is sparse, with little troubleshooting information.</td> </tr> </tbody></table></p> <P> <P> Business continuity and recovery plans are highly dependent on data availability. Best practices for assuring availability include creating and maintaining standby data, but how do you ensure its quality and consistency? Even if you've created a disaster-tolerant architecture and simulated and planned for emergencies, poor-quality standby data can render those efforts meaningless. </P> <P> Veridata 1.0 from GoldenGate Software is designed to ensure that your standby database is consistent with your production database. If you've been puzzled by unpredictable discrepancies between source and migrated or replicated data &mdash; in production or standby settings &mdash; Veridata offers a start on ensuring point-in-time consistency, but the product needs some improvements before it's a complete and versatile data-quality tool. </P> <P> GoldenGate is a transactional data management (TDM) vendor best known for its namesake product for transactional data integration &mdash; the capture, transformation and delivery of in-flight data. Introduced in August, Veridata has a single objective: It compares source and target data in relational tables to ensure they're identical. </P> <P> Veridata has three components: Veridata server, client agent(s) and the Web/command interface. The server processes comparisons of data served by client agents, which reside on the database servers and connect to the production and standby data sources. The server runs on Apache Tomcat, which provides open-source, multiplatform portability but requires the Java SDK (GoldenGate does not offer a Microsoft.Net alternative). </P> <P> Users configure, execute and report on comparisons using a CLI (command-line interface) or the simple Web interface (see screen below). Architecturally and operationally, Veridata reveals its Unix/Linux-based roots (such as the use of Tomcat and the CLI), and it looks like it was developed as an in-house utility and subsequently released for general use.</P> <P> The installation procedure for Veridata is simple. Unfortunately, the documentation isn't very helpful if, like me, you encounter errors or deviations during that process. Despite repeated attempts, I couldn't install Veridata on my machine and had to test the software on another Windows XP laptop supplied by GoldenGate (thus putting to rest my concerns over running Veridata on Windows).</P> <P> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/060201/test2.gif" vspace="5" hspace="5" alt="Veridata" align="right">Veridata is simple to use, too: You configure comparisons, then execute them to view the results. To configure a comparison you must set up source and target database connections, then specify tables and columns for comparison. The metadata and configuration information is stored in XML files that can be created and updated directly (using any text or XML editor) or through the Veridata Web interface. You can partition the tables horizontally (a subset of rows) or vertically (a subset of columns). By default, Veridata compares keys on a column-to-column basis and compares nonkey columns by computing a hash function that compresses data, thus saving network bandwidth and improving performance. You also can compare all columns on a one-to-one basis rather than using a hash function. Customize the comparisons by changing timing statistics, exit thresholds (setting a maximum number of error rows) and other parameters. </P> <P> You can execute comparisons from the command line or the Web interface. Veridata offers a number of runtime arguments that can be applied to the comparisons, including a thread count that simultaneously executes comparisons, a "where" clause that slices source data and a delay factor between comparisons to diffuse network traffic. </P> <P> Veridata records detailed comparison results that go well beyond reporting obvious mismatch errors. Outputs include processing and performance metrics, such as rows processed per second, row size before and after compression (hashing), time spent in fetching rows and in getting requests from the Veridata server (both of which help identify network bandwidth problems), and the time it takes for the row hash query to retrieve the first row. The tool also supports optimizing mechanisms, such as multirow fetches and buffer management. The results of the comparison are logged in a text file that can be viewed from the user interface. Alternatively, you specify XML output in the configuration file and choose a stylesheet for viewing.</P> <P> Veridata is effective in its stated purpose, but it has some serious shortcomings. First, Veridata supports only Oracle and Tandem (HP NonStop) databases. It's difficult to imagine a general-purpose data-quality product, even a version 1.0 product, released with such limited options. Second, Veridata can compare only two data views for a match &mdash; and nothing else. Any product taking on data-quality problems must do more than simplistic, two-table-equality comparisons. If future releases offer broader database support as well as multisource and more complex comparison capabilities, it will be a versatile and powerful tool for data quality and disaster tolerance.</P> <P> These reservations aside, Veridata takes simple relational data comparisons to something of an art form. The CLI will warm the hearts of Unix aficionados, while the Web interface is easy enough for anyone to use. </P> <P> &bull;<strong> GoldenGate Veridata Server and Agent</strong> run on Microsoft Windows, Linux and most popular flavors of Unix. Veridata Agent also runs on HP NonStop. Pricing starts at $90,000 per source/ target pair. Contact GoldenGate Software at <a href="http://www.goldengate.com" target="_blank">www.goldengate.com</a></P> <P> <em>Rajan Chandras is principal consultant with the New York offices of <a href="http://www.csc.com" target="_blank">CSC Consulting</a>. Write to him at <a href="mailto:rchandra@csc.com">rchandra@csc.com</a>. </em></P>2005-07-01T05:00:00ZQlikView 7.0 supports quick, easy and low-cost BI application development. http://www.informationweek.com/news/164301168?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software<SPAN class="featureText"> <P> <P> <TABLE width="250" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" align="right" class="body"> <TR> <TD><B>PROS</B> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;Fast installation and setup </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;Data import easily taps into operational data stores </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;List-driven approach speeds application development </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;Client-centric architecture eases deployment and application sharing </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><B>CONS</B> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;Using operational data could lead to data quality problems </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;Doesn't fully support Web services or metadata repositories </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;Can't exploit multitier architectures </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD bgcolor="#ffffff"> &bull;Limited analytic and visualization capabilities </TD> </TR> </TABLE> <P> <P> QlikView 7.0 is a business intelligence (BI) product with a unique, client-centric architecture and an innovative, list-based development approach. It lets users create lists that represent dimensions and measures, making it simple in concept, easy to deploy and use yet sufficiently powerful. It isn't quite ready for Web services environments or advanced metadata repositories, but its approach and architecture challenge the established methods of developing and deploying BI solutions. </P> <P> <P> QlikView is remarkably easy to install. In no time, I had imported data from a SQL Server database, an Excel file and inline data entries. A range of data sources and files can be added through script files, using a combination script file editor and wizard. Data can be formatted and transformed during import. QlikView's data transformation capabilities are basic, but as I see it, BI and extract-transform-load (ETL) are two very different competencies; BI tools would be hard-pressed to provide both these competencies. Data sources can be viewed in the form of SQL-like scripts or via a Table Viewer that offers an entity-relationship-style display of the data structures.</P> <P> <P> Once the data sources were added, I was ready to build QlikView applications such as dashboards or scorecards. The two basic constructs for BI applications are sheets and objects. Sheets are containers for objects and are similar to named tabs; they provide the overall user experience and rudimentary application behavior. Sheet layout and formatting options, including backgrounds, borders and color and font controls, ensure a pleasant user experience, while security features restrict operations such as adding or moving objects or modifying properties. </P> <P> <P> <table width="275" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" class="body"> <tr><td><img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/050701/test_img1.gif" border="0" alt="screen capture"></td></tr></table> </p> <P> <P> QlikView objects include action buttons, text objects and data input boxes that provide the basic user interface. Chart, statistics box, list box and table box objects deliver the business intelligence. Statistics boxes are a quick way to view basic metrics such as total, sum, average, min and max in a numeric data list. The list boxes define the software's central premise. </P> <P> <P> QlikView relies on the simplicity of lists and their natural affiliation with relational data to provide users with powerful drill-down capabilities. Consider that all relational and dimensional data is a set of lists &mdash; each column in a table is a list. You could build a bar chart showing sales by year, aggregated across other dimensions such as region, retailer and product, all represented by lists. To drill down on the sales measure, you click on one or more values in the individual dimension lists, which instantly updates the measure for the dimensions selected. Lists are linked internally and integrated with data visualization capabilities. </P> <P> <h3>BI in the Fast Lane</h3> <P> <P> Architecturally, QlikView is a client-based tool that's not too different from packaged software such as TurboTax or Microsoft Money. Using the client, application developers or power users create QlikView documents (.qvw files) that contain the entire BI application. The application can then be shared through the QlikView Server portal and viewed in Windows-, browser- or Java-based clients. </P> <P> <P> QlikTech says that while conventional development cycles can range over several months and involve complex, multitiered, metadata-driven architectures, QlikView deployments are measured in weeks, not months. I didn't test performance or scalability, but QlikView has a real-time analysis engine that uses in-memory, on-demand data cubing and aggregation &mdash; an approach said to support rapid response times for very high data volumes. Because QlikView can easily pull in operational data, you won't need huge, up-front data warehousing efforts in order to build a BI solution.</P> <P> <P> QlikView's innovative approach is impressive, but the product does have challenges to overcome. For example, the ability to pull in operational data also exposes QlikView to the risks of poor-quality data &mdash; which is common in operational environments. All BI solutions would suffer on this account, but not all BI products can easily reach out to operational data. QlikView would fare well with clean dimensional data, but I'd want to exploit the product's ability to create user-defined dimensions and measures on the fly. </P> <P> <P> QlikView also has some technical shortcomings in that it doen't fully support emerging technologies such as Web services and metadata repositories. And the QlikView server really isn't much more than a file-serving mechanism; therefore, it can't leverage the benefits of multitier architecture (such as application and database servers). Finally, QlikView stages data in a file to enable faster response, but as we all know, this approach presents its own problems, such as keeping data fresh.</P> <P> <P> QlikView 7.0 offers clear advantages, particularly for those who are wary of big-budget BI implementations. According to AMR Research, many companies are directly accessing operational data to populate dashboards and scorecards. Given this product's ability to quickly tap into data sources and develop new applications, this is sweet news for QlikTech.</P> <P> <P> <b>&bull; QlikView 7.0</b> is available from QlikTech, <a href="http://www.qliktech.com" target="_blank">www.qliktech.com</a>. List price for QlikView Server is $72,800 for 50 users; $4,850 per client for QlikView Enterprise and $816 per client for QlikView Analyzer.</P> <P> <P> <i>Rajan Chandras is a principal consultant with the New York offices of <a href="http://www.csc.com" target="_blank">CSC Consulting</a>. The opinions expressed here are his own. Write to him at <a href="mailto:rchandra@csc.com">rchandra@csc.com</a>.</P> <P>2005-04-01T05:00:00ZProClarity analytics platform gets faster, easier.http://www.informationweek.com/news/60404490?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software <P> <table width="250" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" align="right" class="body"> <tr><td><b>PROS</b></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Closely integrated with Microsoft technologies</td> </tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Good information organization and visualization capabilities</td> </tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;User-friendly interface and features</td> </tr> <tr><td><b>CONS</b></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Lacks support for non-Microsoft platforms</td> </tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Alert and notification capabilities underutilized</td> </tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Installation and documentation need improvement</td> </tr> </table> <P> From a business perspective, BI is the sum of three fundamental processes: assembling data, analyzing it and presenting it to the user. ProClarity provides for the last two by offering advanced data analytics, visualization and reporting, and a platform for creating custom analytic applications.</P> <P> Now in version 6, ProClarity has long been known for taking some of the administrative and pricing pain out of data analytics and reporting by piggybacking on Microsoft's SQL Server database management system and the OLAP and report servers packaged with it: Analysis Services and Reporting Services. ProClarity builds on Microsoft's OLAP data management strengths, such as its data mining capabilities and the option to manage multidimensional data in relational OLAP (ROLAP), multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) or hybrid storage models. It's ready to integrate with the SQL Server 2005 (Yukon) release expected soon. </P> <P> New in version 6 are some additional visualization capabilities, additional KPI definitions and icons, many new navigation and automation features designed for quicker insight, deeper integration with Excel and Reporting Services, and performance improvements. If you are a Microsoft shop, ProClarity can offer some advantages over competitors in terms of ease of implementation and use. Although some of the enhancements in this version are differentiators, others (such as new KPI definitions) play catch-up with BI heavyweights such as BusinessObjects and Cognos. The best solution for your environment will of course depend on your user base and budget.</P> <P> I evaluated ProClarity 6 by installing the full suite on a Windows XP laptop (with a 498MHz Intel Pentium III CPU and 576MB of RAM), which served as both client and server. The installation process and documentation leave something to be desired. Even the vanilla setup required a series of semiautomated steps that demanded significant manual intervention. Overall, however, ProClarity is well designed and integrates smoothly with Microsoft technologies. </P> <P> At the heart of the ProClarity solution is its family of servers: Analytics Server, Business Logic Server and Dashboard Server. The ProClarity Analytics Server (PAS), the centerpiece of this trio, is a midtier server with a thin client called Web Standard, a repository called the Analytics Server database, which resides within Microsoft SQL Server, and an administrative tool. PAS is the go-between for ProClarity clients and Microsoft Analysis Services. It also provides centralized security, on top of the Windows security model, and shared repository services. In particular, PAS gives users a way to publish key performance indicators (KPIs) and other user-defined knowledge, then share it with other users in the form of &quot;Briefing Books.&quot; </P> <P> Briefing Books and their components can be created, shared, distributed through e-mail and exported to Excel or Outlook. They are easy to work with and an effective mechanism for organizing and sharing knowledge, but they should be designed with care by experienced practitioners. To optimize performance, PAS offers connection pooling and the ability to cache pages of Briefing Books,</P> <P> The Business Logic Server lets users store predefined analytic best practices, including business logic and rules, KPIs and member and set definitions (such as year-to-date growth). Two client-side tools &mdash; KPI Designer and Selector &mdash; let users add content to the Business Logic Server. Dashboard Server lets them share content at a higher level, such as by creating and sharing subject areas that encapsulate best practices. Sharing content in this form looks like a good way to enhance productivity and consistency. </P> <P> ProClarity client components are provided for two user levels. Web Standard is a browser-based thin client designed for novice-to-average BI users. Web Standard lets you open Briefing Books, conduct standard OLAP data analysis and create and save personalized views (although they can't be published and shared). The interface is well laid out, easy to use and should pose no challenge to experienced BI tool users. For more advanced users, ProClarity Professional offers a wide range of features, including the KPI Designer and Selector components. These two tools let users create and publish their own KPIs, as well as create complex data sets of interest. </P> <P> Version 6 offers a range of unique visualization features, such as the Performance Map, where the size and shade of boxes represent performance in two measures, such as sales and profit (see the screen capture below). Performance Maps are excellent visualization tools and provide quick overviews of comparative performance; you can do more detailed analysis on items that stand out by using the performance map drill-down capabilities. </P> <P> <table width="275" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" class="body"> <tr><td><img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/050401/test_fig1.gif" border="0" alt="screen capture"></td></tr> <tr><td><strong>In the Performance Map</strong>, the size and shade of boxes represent two measures, such as sales and profit.</td></tr> </table> <P> <P> ProClarity 6 introduces Live Server and Live Client components that support real-time data integration with Excel spreadsheets. The ProClarity Live Server lets users bring data from diverse sources such as databases and Web services directly into the spreadsheet (see the diagram below). </P> <P> <table width="375" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" class="body"> <tr><td><img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/050401/test_fig2.gif" border="0" alt="screen capture"> </td></tr> <tr><td><strong>Proclarity Live Server</strong> lets users bring data from diverse sources such as databases and Web services into Excel spreadsheets on command.</td></tr> </table> <P> <P> The ProClarity Reporting Server (PRS), also new in this version, enhances reporting capabilities through closer integration with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. With this integration, a user can select data for reporting in the ProClarity user interface, which is then translated by the PRS into appropriate commands executed through Microsoft Reporting Services. New &quot;Smarter Reporting&quot; lets users analyze data in reports with ProClarity graphical analysis tools. </P> <P> ProClarity has good analytic, presentation, collaboration and reporting capabilities, but strangely version 6 still doesn't address the need for real-time alerts and notifications. It's particularly perplexing given that Microsoft provides for these functions with Notification Services. </P> <P> ProClarity for SharePoint Portal Server facilitates data presentation by embedding ProClarity visualization into the portal. A Localization Kit lets ProClarity partners translate components into local languages, while the Software Development Kit supports enhancements and customization, such as implementing a different security model from the default Windows model. </P> <P> <b>&bull; ProClarity 6</b> is available from ProClarity, <a href="http://www.proclarity.com" target="_balnk">www.proclarity.com</a>. The Analytics Server Bundle costs $50,000. The Live Server costs $30,000. &#193; la carte, bundle and concurrent pricing available. User licenses range from $195 to $495. </P> <P> <P> <em>Rajan Chandras is a principal consultant with the New York offices of CSC Consulting (<a href="http://www.csc.com" target="_blank">www.csc.com</a>). The opinions expressed here are his own. Write to him at <a href="mailto:rchandra@csc.com">rchandra@csc.com</a>.</em></P>2005-02-01T05:00:00ZWill enterprise information integration really displace traditional data warehousing, or just complement it?http://www.informationweek.com/news/57702700?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software <P> <img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/050201/feat3.gif" border="0" align="left">If the term "enterprise information integration" isn't immediately clear, there's a reason: EII is a broad notion that raises more questions than it answers. How do you know if EII is right for your organization? What are the challenges of implementing EII? Above all, what does EII offer that isn't already covered by data warehousing and data extract, transform and load (ETL) software procedures? How is it different from customer data integration and other recent approaches to information integration?</P> <P> All the acronyms are enough to make your head spin. In this article, we'll clarify EII and its role, particularly in business intelligence and data warehousing scenarios.</P> <h3>Break with Tradition</h3> <P> <table width="250" border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="5"> <tr><td class="body"><b>TAKE ACTION</b></td></tr> <tr><td class="body"> <strong>&bull; Review your data integration needs. You want to add a stock price and other company information on your portal, and this information is widely distributed. Or, your key supplier has started providing new information in data files not currently handled by your ETL process, and you are loathe to open this Pandora's box. Rather than have three new applications under development incorporating spaghetti code routines, consider a virtual, integrated data store that all applications could use. The single, virtual view benefits multiple reporting and data analysis needs, rather than just one need. <br><br> <strong>&bull; Understand the EII tool's limitations. James Markarian, chief technology officer at Informatica Corp., suggests that scalability of EII solutions may be driven by determining factors such as query performance and caching. Ensure that your scalability requirements are addressed by the EII solution. <br><br> <strong>&bull; Explore the full range of vendors. Avaki, Composite Software, Ipedo and MetaMatrix are prominent EII tool providers. However, major software vendors such as BEA, IBM, Oracle and SAP are filling out their portfolios with some form of EII technology, perhaps as CDI, RDM or MDM. Organizations with predominantly IBM technology, for example, should take a good look at DB2 Information Integrator, while Oracle shops should consider Customer Data Hub. Ascential Software and Informatica, the two heavyweights of traditional ETL integration, don't field EII tools, but this may change in 2005.<br><br> <strong>&bull; Begin with a prototype &mdash; and stick with it. EII has come a long way from the early attempts at query federation, which has been an "emerging technology" in database research and development circles for some time. Still, as new technology, it will require some fortitude to implement. Vendors will need your faithful partnership to realize the potential. Identify the types of information you'd like to integrate and create a prototype that not only demonstrates integration but also allows you to do performance measurement and diagnostics.</td></tr></table>Rob Cardwell, CTO of EII software vendor MetaMatrix, says EII is about making distributed data "accessible and manageable, breaking through traditional barriers of location, structure, semantics and context." Surveying the offerings of MetaMatrix and competing vendors, it's clear that a federated query system is fundamental to making distributed data accessible, as it accesses multiple, heterogeneous data sources and brings back a single data set.</P> <P> EII differs most from conventional ETL-oriented data warehousing in that it accesses, rather than moves, information. Keep in mind that ETL really isn't one standard procedure but multiple processes that vary according to what an organization needs. However, ETL generally involves data movement to a central repository or other files and subsystems, such as data marts, that support BI reporting. EII uses virtualization to present clients with a view of one consolidated information resource, hiding the federated query system that's actually drawing from multiple data resources. EII "plays the data where it lays," as some put it.</P> <P> The number and complexity of data silos &mdash; disparate, disconnected resources beholden to a single department or user &mdash; continue to grow, outpacing IT's attempts to standardize ETL and data integration tools as well as efforts to update and maintain what still dominates most integration efforts: custom code. Regulatory compliance, real-time BI and new challenges involving convergence of structured and unstructured information are putting even more pressure on conventional approaches.</P> <P> EII could be a solution to some of these woes. Along with less movement, EII involves less extensive data transformation, focusing on combining diverse definitions of data elements and presenting the result as a single information element. Strong global query optimization is critical to EII and will always be a challenge; however, optimization plays to the strengths of established database management vendors as well as newer vendors applying the latest algorithms. Automated intelligence in query optimization, as well as full support for universal data access standards (such as ODBC, JDBC and XML), can take the burden of knowing the intricacies of each data source off the application or user.</P> <P> Performance is removed from the programmer/administrator domain and is given over to the EII tool. Most EII tools employ data caching or staging to improve query performance. While EII is most often used just to read data, the federated approach could work for bidirectional transactions-that is, updating and manipulating across multiple sources. Emerging service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and enterprise service bus (ESB) technology will work with EII to let clients consume data and expose information as part of Web services.</P> <h3>The Metadata Layer</h3> <P> A key aspect of EII &mdash; and one supported by most of the tools in the marketplace &mdash; is robust data modeling and metadata management. While the dream of a single data or information model within an enterprise remains elusive and in most cases impractical, EII helps establish an integration architecture that melds modern universal access standards with data about the sources, and about the information requirements, such as a single view of a product or customer. In other words, the focus is on how data is used rather than on generic relational data modeling for ETL.</P> <P> Metadata is important for another goal: reusability. EII can help business analysts and developers maintain virtual views, including logic and interfaces required to create and maintain such perspectives on customers, products and other objects of interest. EII tools work with the metadata layer to ensure security of the metadata and interact with security at disparate data sources.</P> <P> To sum up, EII is a data integration and virtualization technique aimed at providing a unified view of data &mdash; a single version of the truth. It does so by facilitating access to multiple or disparate data sources on demand in a secure, efficient manner.</P> <h3>What EII is Not</h3> <P> To understand EII, it's important to consider what it is not. I've discussed some of the key ways in which EII is different from ETL, a large-volume, batch-oriented approach to data movement and transformation. EII, on the other hand, is mainly about retrieving data on demand.</P> <P> Does EII compete with data warehousing? Despite the buzz, vendors unanimously answer "no." EII supplements, rather than supplants, data warehousing. EII can help data warehousing by bringing in data from minor or nonstandard sources. It can also federate data from the warehouse itself, join it with data from other sources, and present it to the user or client application on demand. BI, the main consumer of data warehousing, is also an EII consumer.</P> <P> How does EII differ from enterprise application integration? EAI and its emerging new generation, ESB, are "push" technologies. They use messaging and are geared for transactional application integration. EII is a "pull" technology: It supports SQL and other standard data access languages that send queries to the EII virtual data store. The EII engine then uses a federated approach to answer the query.</P> <P> Customer data integration (CDI), exemplified by technology from newer vendors such as Siperian and Journee as well as from Oracle and other established providers, confuses matters a bit. CDI is also an on-demand (pull) solution and uses metadata and a model-driven approach to integration. Virtualization is also essential to CDI. Dig a little deeper ... and they still look awfully similar!</P> <P> CDI and EII are essentially the same technology, packaged differently for their respective purposes. EII providers are pursuing demand for "middleware": that is, generic information integration. CDI focuses on customer-oriented applications, including marketing intelligence, call centers and other services, and other aspects of customer relationship management. There's no reason EII vendors couldn't refine their focus on integrating customer information or CDI vendors couldn't turn their attention to "product," "supplier" or other objects and develop a focused solution.</P> <P> A final related field is reference, or "master," data management (RDM or MDM). IBM, Oracle, SAP and other information management vendors see this technology as a means to store, augment and consolidate structured and unstructured data from heterogeneous locations. RDM and MDM solutions ensure cross-system data consistency in much the same manner as EII &mdash; through a metadata layer, virtual views and federated querying. RDM and MDM are generally focused on product content management and cross-media catalog publishing and access via the Web.</P> <P> RDM and MDM represent a specialized application of the broader EII approach. Some vendors, such as Razza, go further to make the approach easier by presenting meaningful interfaces to users, whereas EII generally operates behind the scenes as middleware.</P> <P> EII is an emerging technology. No matter what shape it takes, the main driver is that coveted goal of a "single version of the truth." Whether the data is reference or transactional, EII's virtualization and metadata technologies let organizations create a single definition of data from disjointed and disparate information across the enterprise. This includes ERP, spreadsheet files, data marts and warehouses and Web services.</P> <P> The single definition may be accessed and delivered through portals, dashboards, mobile devices and various applications. Mark Fulgham, executive director of worldwide strategic outsourcing at Hewlett-Packard Managed Services, says that EII helps his organization gain "nimble, operational, right-time insight into intraday business and service delivery functions." Fulgham is testing EII technology from Composite Software for both internal use and for a service for HP clients.</P> <P> What if you're interested in implementing EII but already have one or more data warehouses, portals and dashboards in place and, understandably, little desire to disrupt this finely orchestrated data flow? "Take Action," offers some relevant advice.</P> <h3>Data Integration, Reloaded</h3> <P> The days of laissez-faire data and information integration are behind us. Spaghetti code buried in multiple applications won't do-nor will expensive, inflexible ETL and data warehousing implementations. The addition of unstructured information &mdash; content in the form of text, e-mail, images and more &mdash; will challenge standard operating procedures. Far from replacing data warehousing, EII's premise &mdash; data on demand, from any source to any destination &mdash; will be a critical addition to ETL and data warehousing efforts. The potential is enormous &mdash; even if end users never know how it was achieved.</P> <P> Business management eyes are on BI and data warehousing. Demands for higher return on investment and reduced total cost of ownership have never been higher. Information integration is an important, strategic step toward greater competitive advantage. By efficiently sharing all forms of data, you can meet objectives such as improving customer and partner intelligence and creating self-service business processes.</P> <P> IT hasn't yet delivered "The Matrix" vision, where all that users see of complex data access and sophisticated applications is the interface-the sophisticated appendage of an infrastructure supporting a cohesive and connected world. As it matures, however, EII might enable organizations to reach such an exalted stage.</P> <P> <em>Rajan Chandras is a principal consultant with the New York offices of CSC Consulting (<a href="http://www.csc.com" target="_blank">www.csc.com</a>). The opinions expressed here are his own. Write him at <a href="mailto:rchandra@csc.com">rchandra@csc.com</a>.</em></P>2005-01-01T13:38:00ZDataFlux dfPower Studio 6.2 data quality software offers profiling, analysis, matching and correction.http://www.informationweek.com/news/56200305?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Enterprise_Applications_software<table width="250" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" align="right" class="body"> <tr><td><b>PROS</b></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Packages a comprehensive suite of tools</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Spots similar data using "smart clustering"</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Offers quick fixes and deeper solutions</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Includes an array of prebuilt content</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Supports Web services</td></tr> <tr><td><b>CONS</b></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Poor documentation</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Confusing organization of components</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff">&bull;Available only as a fat client</td></tr> </table>While companies are still warming up to data quality technologies, solutions providers are delivering increasingly comprehensive and mature products. dfPower Studio 6.2 data quality software is a solid product from a solid company, offering the right mix of tools for the right situation. Developed by DataFlux, a subsidiary of SAS, Power Studio offers an integrated suite of components and capabilities, including profiling, analysis, matching, correction and monitoring. <P> It's a common (if debatable) axiom that what can't be measured can't be improved, and data quality is no exception. Although companies continuously take steps to improve quality, those upgrades and fixes are often ad hoc and reactive: You see a specific instance of "garbage out" floating on the surface of corporate information (in a user interface or report, for example), and you bravely wade into the database to extract the corresponding "garbage in." <P> Any organized attempt to improve data quality must begin with an assessment of what you already have, which can happen at multiple levels. The simplest level is profiling: a way to analyze table- and column-level data using a set of metrics that helps you learn from the data distribution. Power Studio supports profiling by providing row count, null count, maximum and minimum values, statistical metrics and pattern analysis. (See the screenshot below.) <P> <table width="450" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" class="body"> <tr><td><img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/050101/IE0105test_fig1.gif" width="450" height="337" border="0"></td></tr> <tr><td><b>Power Studio</b> supports data profiling against metrics including row event, null count, maximal and minimal values, statistical metrics and pattern analysis.</td></tr> </table> <P> Power Studio has two components for enhanced data assessment: dfPower Studio Base-Analysis and dfPower Match. The Analysis component provides a "smart clustering" process that lets users identify and address consistency in a given data set. With smart clustering, similar data elements and phrases are grouped together to identify the inconsistencies. Smart clustering, for example, would determine that "New Jersey," "Jersey," and "Jersee" are really the same. <P> To clean up these inconsistencies, combine use of smart clustering with dfPower Match, which helps identify duplicate or near-duplicate data using match definition and sensitivity. Match definitions are predefined algorithms that let you specify the type of match you want to find. For example, a name column in a table might match to a full name, a first name or a last name. Sensitivity specifies the required precision. <P> <h3>Better Than a Band-Aid</h3> <P> After assessing the nature and extent of quality problems, the next step is to correct them. After selecting a data source and the appropriate metrics, for example, you can execute a job that implements the process and displays the results. This approach is useful if you're looking to apply a Band-Aid to your data quality problems. <P> For larger, more formal quality initiatives, use the dfPower Architect component to create a job stream tapping multiple Power Studio features. (See the screenshot on the right.) dfPower Architect is similar to an extract, transform, load (ETL) tool, but with limited capabilities for data transformation and manipulation. (ETL Studio, a separate SAS product, offers more comprehensive data transformation capabilities.) <P> The strength of any data quality tool resides in the number of prebuilt features that support rapid application development. Power Studio scores with numerous metrics, data analysis tools and the ability to augment algorithms. It also includes a component called dfPower Verify that provides address and telephone number verification, correction and enhancement, including certified verification for addresses in the United States and Canada. <P> <table width="450" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" align="right" class="body"> <tr><td><img src="http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/050101/IE0105test_fig2.gif" width="450" height="333" border="0"></td></tr> <tr><td><b>dfPower Architect</b> lets you create a job stream using integrated features from other components.</td></tr> </table>Two other features that deserve a look are Power Studio's Quality Knowledge Base (QKB) and data monitoring. QKB is a downloadable set of files that all Power Studio components use for analysis, parsing, standardization and matching. Fresh downloads of the QKB give you access to the most current versions of these files at all times. <P> Data monitoring is new to Power Studio. With monitoring, you can use metrics to set up alerts or view changes in data. Monitoring lets users be proactive about quality: Now, data quality problems come looking for you, rather than the other way around. Clearly, DataFlux is on to a good thing here. Expect this feature to continue getting better in future releases. <P> Power Studio is now available only in a fat client/server version, although a browser version is expected next year. Power Studio's core back-end functionality is also available in a low-level set of library routines (called Blue Fusion) or as a server process on Windows or Unix. Back-end functionality also can be integrated with other products, such as SAS's ETL Studio or enterprise transactional systems from Siebel and SAP. Power Studio supports Web services through XML/SOAP. <P> <h3>The Upshot</h3> <P> Power Studio is easy to install and run. I am, however, disappointed with the confusing way the components are organized. The user manual has a poorly structured table of contents and lacks an index, so information is hard to find. These shortcomings will steepen your learning curve, taking away from a solution that's otherwise effective and easy to use. <P> <b>&bull; dfPower Studio 6.2</b> is available from DataFlux, 877-846-3589, <a href="http://www.dataflux.com" target="_blank">www.dataflux.com</a>. Pricing for a typical installation starts at $50,000. Minimum system requirements: Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 98 or ME; Pentium II 450MHz; 64MB RAM; 200MB disk space. Recommended: Win2000/XP, Pentium 4 1.8GHz or faster, 512MB RAM and 10+GB disk space. <P> <table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#DCE5F6" hspace="5" class="body"> <tr><td><b>QUALITY COUNTS</b></td></tr> <tr><td>The Data Quality Act (DQA), a U.S. law enacted two years ago, is aimed at "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information." The DQA applies only to information disseminated by federal agencies, but this mandate would work just as well for the data held in corporate and other databases. In private-sector settings unaffected by this law, there's little debate over the need for data quality. Unfortunately, despite this acceptance and the abundance of available tools, data quality is often an afterthought in corporate thinking, planning and budgeting. Wouldn't it be nice if corporate boards were required to pass similar data quality acts?</td></tr> </table> <P> <i>RAJAN CHANDRAS is a principal consultant with the New York offices of CSC Consulting (<a href="http://www.csc.com" target="_blank">www.csc.com</a>).</i> <P>