August 15, 2021 Semi-Structured Data: What It Is and Why It Matters Semi-structured data is emerging as a critical element of business operations and strategies. Typically, business leaders make decisions based on analysis of data stored in forms, spreadsheets, and relational databases – in other words, structured data. However, in a modern business environment, constraining data with forms and tables is no longer sufficient. What is… Read More
April 27, 2021 Actian Avalanche on Google Cloud: Engineered for the Data-Driven Enterprise Today, Actian is excited to announce the delivery of Actian Avalanche hybrid cloud data platform on Google Cloud Marketplace. Avalanche is initially available in the us-east1 region, which will be expanded to include US West, German, and Irish cloud regions in the coming months. If you are interested in trying out Avalanche on Google Cloud,… Read More
March 31, 2021 Take full advantage of the separation of compute and storage resources with Avalanche on GKE On-Premise, you’re grounded The emergence of the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and the ability to create a data lake of such unprecedented depths – on standard hardware no less! – was such a breakthrough that the administrative pain and the hardware costs involved with building out an HDFS-based analytic solution were acceptable casualties… Read More
February 22, 2021 Are Real-Time Analytics in Supply Chain Management Important? Processing data in real-time Every organization processes data in many ways. For example, batch data process still exists for heavy data-process workloads, such as payroll. Many of these data processing requirements are executed by batch scheduling software; however, there is a growing need for data processing to be more automated and processed in real-time.… Read More
February 10, 2021 Building a Cohesive Data Management Strategy for Supply Chain Visibility Business strategy A business strategy consists of setting goals, objectives, and priorities for the business vision and mission. The strategy owners use their portfolios of assets, services, and products to achieve the business's goals. A business will often have multiple strategies, such as having a digital strategy that supports their service or product strategy.… Read More
January 29, 2021 From Databases to Knowledge Management Systems for Data Power Databases Databases are everywhere. They store data and information organized by fields and tables. There are different types of databases that organize data into relational tables, hierarchical structures, networks, and objects. Databases can be personal, corporate, and shared resources. They can be used for recording business transactions to support decision making. The value of… Read More
January 29, 2021 The Best Cloud Data Strategy for Value Which cloud makes sense? Nothing is perfect, but we want to approach perfection with continuous improvement and the management of risk in our business environments. IT capabilities and resources underpin our business environments. On-premise capabilities and cloud capabilities have to deliver a return on investment (ROI) for our efforts and, at the same time,… Read More
January 22, 2021 Data Analytics is a Core Element Creating Business Value Valued assets Organizational assets are defined as capabilities and resources. To be valued strategic assets, they have to contribute to the success of the organization. There is no business value contributed to an asset that does not have an understood return on investment (ROI) for the organization. Capabilities can be defined as the ability,… Read More
December 21, 2020 Google GKE Containers: Breakthrough Technology for Cloud Data Warehouses Actian Avalanche on Google Kubernetes Engine Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is now running containerized versions of Actian Avalanche cloud data warehouse, a high-performance hybrid cloud data warehouse designed to power an enterprise’s most demanding operational analytics workloads. Why is that important? Because now an enterprise can deploy one of the world’s most advanced data… Read More
December 16, 2020 The Need for Speed in Data Analysis Why Performance Matters My very first sales call to an analytics prospect was with a customer using an OLTP database for reporting. Some of their reports took hours to run and one particularly challenging report typically ran for more than thirteen hours. Our performance benchmarking had shown that for analytics workloads, Actian would be… Read More
October 9, 2020 What is a modern data platform? What is a modern data platform? When we ask this question, we get two different groups of answers. The first group is around the technology needed for data processing in today's business environment. In this group, the answers mention things like cloud services, containers, and on-prem. The second set of answers involves sources of… Read More
September 21, 2020 Five Benefits of the Hybrid Cloud Approach The ISO 17788 Cloud Computing Overview and Vocabulary standard defines a hybrid cloud as “a cloud deployment model using at least two different cloud deployment models.” When we talk about different deployment models, we are talking about private clouds, public clouds with multiple different cloud providers, and even legacy applications. When the different deployment… Read More
August 26, 2020 What to do when your Data Warehouse Chokes on Big Data This may seem like an academic question, but it is increasingly becoming a reality for modern businesses. What do you do when you have millions of records with infinite width and depth, and your data warehouse chokes? Do you trim your data? Do you add more infrastructure capacity? Or do you need to look… Read More
August 21, 2020 Announcing a new Actian ODBC Connector in the Tableau Extension Gallery There's now an easier way to connect to Avalanche from Tableau using the new Actian ODBC connector available in the Tableau Extension Gallery. Actian and Tableau have partnered for the past several years to deliver a seamless connectivity experience to our customers. To take advantage of Tableau's latest analytical features, the two teams engaged… Read More
August 20, 2020 The Impact of Updates on Data Warehouse Performance When companies project data warehouse growth, they often look at a curve that mimic’s the growth of data in source systems. This approach works if all you are concerned with is storage growth. What is commonly overlooked is the compute growth curve for processing updates to your data. As IT systems become more interconnected,… Read More
June 29, 2020 Connected Data in the Cloud Increases AI System Performance Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the core of the next wave of IT systems, and it is time to get ready. The past year has seen tremendous growth in the adoption of artificial intelligence systems to help companies improve operational insights and provide enhanced customer service experiences. If you aren’t leveraging AI to support your… Read More
April 29, 2020 Why do you need Real-Time Decision-Making in Times of Market Uncertainty, and what is it Anyway? I recently started a new blog series on why Real-Time Decision-Making is required during periods of market uncertainty. In this next blog, lets level set on exactly what is Real-Time Decision-Making and why it matters so much more during periods of market uncertainty and business disruption. Naturally, what got me thinking about all of… Read More
April 29, 2020 Developing a 360-Degree View of Your Customer With Connected Data How well do you know your customers? Do you know what they buy? Do you know when and why they make purchases? Do you know who influences their buying behavior? Do you know how price sensitive they are and what types of promotions they respond to? You should know these things. Connected data can… Read More
April 23, 2020 Are you afraid to “Lift the Lid” On Cloud Technology? The Opening of the Box As was the case with Pandora's box, once the lid is opened on cloud technology and you realize that perhaps the shiny new object interior didn't provide what you expected from your investment in the technology, it may be too late to change directions. So is the case with… Read More
April 22, 2020 Real-Time Decision-Making in Times of Market Uncertainty Can’t be Business-As-Usual Saying that the current business climate and market conditions are tough is about as much an understatement as saying a Banana Slug is not terribly fast. Making the right decisions too slowly or wrong decisions too quickly can have equally adverse outcomes. In certain industries such as Retail, Travel, and Hospitality or for smaller… Read More
April 22, 2020 Connected Data Makes Compliance Easier Regulatory compliance can be a headache for any company. If you do business globally, the challenge is even more significant. Governmental regulations vary greatly across countries and even within local regions. If that weren’t difficult enough, add on a continuous stream of regulatory changes, and you have a real problem. Whether you are trying… Read More
April 13, 2020 Reducing Customer Churn in the Telecom Industry with Connected Data Customer loyalty is the key to profitability in the telecom industry. Because telecom providers manage large fixed infrastructures that must be offset by revenue, customer churn (attrition) is particularly problematic in this industry. Low switching costs for customers (supported by government regulations) mean that customer loyalty is the only real tool that telecom companies… Read More
April 8, 2020 Financial Services Companies Need all the Data Analytics They Can Get There are times when financial markets trend up. There are times that markets trend down. And then there are times that the markets go crazy and the only thing predictable is volatility. When markets encounter these volatile periods, financial services companies become highly reliant on data analytics to determine where the real market forces… Read More
April 6, 2020 Healthcare Analytics Improve Operational Efficiency Healthcare is a data-driven industry with data analytics needs that make “big data” seem tiny. For healthcare companies to operate efficiently, they need a high-power data engine to crunch the numbers, analyze the data, and get it into the hands of decision-makers quickly. The healthcare industry is the epitome of business agility, and data… Read More
April 6, 2020 Data Warehouse Appliances are Becoming History The era of data warehouse appliances is coming to an end, rapidly being replaced with a new generation of cloud services. The first data warehouse appliance was introduced onto the market in 2003. For nearly 15 years, this market grew with several large technology players, including IBM, Oracle, and Teradata developing or acquiring database… Read More
March 17, 2020 Why you Should Offload Analytics from your Online Transaction Processing Systems into a Data Warehouse Modern businesses are fueled by data. The insights that your data bring are what power decision making, enables you to optimize business processes and respond to changing market conditions. The organizations that have data and manage it well – excel. Those that lack data or struggle to harvest actionable insights from their data have… Read More
February 24, 2020 Real-Time Streaming – Actionable Insights Drive Business Responsiveness If you want your business to be agile, you need to be leveraging real-time data. The environments that your businesses operate in are changing faster than ever – new competition in the marketplace, regulatory changes; operational issues; and new technology advancements are only the tip of the iceberg. If you want to survive and… Read More
October 4, 2019 Elastic Scaling in Actian Avalanche Moving applications to the cloud, users can benefit from various opportunities the cloud environment offers. One of these opportunities is the availability of a seemingly infinite amount of resources, enabling users to match their requirements by scaling their application according to their load. Nevertheless, load may change over time and does not always follow… Read More
January 18, 2023 Embracing Customer Profiling and Data Management Defining Exceptional Service Organizations always aim to give their customers the best experiences. There are several interpretations of what constitutes good and excellent service, and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. However, many companies fail at achieving exceptional service because they do not understand their customers. Delivering any level of service requires that we… Read More
April 1, 2020 The More you Refine Stored Data, the More Valuable it Becomes Having a lot of data available to you is a good thing, right? That depends. Data is a raw material, like a mineral mined from the ground. It contains a potential for creating value, but that potential is only realized through refinement. Your company produces a lot of data every day (every second really).… Read More
