November 26, 2021 Hybrid Cloud Data Warehouses: Don’t Get Stuck on One Side or the Other Hybrid clouds seem to be the way the wind is blowing. According to the Enterprise Strategy Group, the number of organizations committed to or interested in a hybrid cloud strategy has increased from 81% in 2017 to 93% in 2020. But what exactly is a hybrid cloud? Turns out, there are a lot of… Read More
July 17, 2021 It’s Time for Data Historians to Become … History Database Historians...History? Why a modern time-series capable database can simplify yet enhance time-series data analysis. Despite the professorial image the term suggests, a data historian is not an instructor or researcher, but a purpose-build software solution. And evolutions in how operational data is used and managed have eclipsed the need for data historian software… Read More
March 25, 2021 What is the Difference Between a Data Analytics Hub and a Lakehouse? In the opening installment of this blog series—Data Lakes, Data Warehouses and Data Hubs: Do we need another choice? I explore why simply migrating these on-prem data integration, management, and analytics platforms to the Cloud does not fully address modern data analytics needs. In comparing these three platforms, it becomes clear that all of… Read More
February 25, 2021 What is a Data Analytics Hub? And why is it better than a Data Lake or an Analytics Hub? In the opening installment of this blog series—Data Lakes, Data Warehouses and Data Hubs: Do we need another choice? I explore why simply migrating these on-prem data integration, management, and analytics platforms to the Cloud does not fully address modern data… 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 17, 2021 Data Lakes, Data Warehouses and Data Hubs – Do we need another choice? Data Lakes, Data Warehouses, and Data Hubs - Do we need another choice? There’s a long-standing debate, dating back to the early days of Hadoop, about what kind of data repository is best for a given data analytics use case. A Data Lake? A Data Hub? A Data Warehouse? Despite Hadoop’s fall from grace,… 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
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 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
July 15, 2020 Operationalizing your Hadoop Data Lake Have you ever tried to join your fact and dimension tables together to generate operational analytics? If you want to perform large scale data analysis on things like customer churn, you’re probably going to need to do this. The problem is, these tables are very large, and when you bring them together, the resulting… 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
June 11, 2020 SQLite’s Serverless Architecture Doesn’t Serve IoT Environments Well Part Two Part Two: Rethinking What Client-Server Means for Edge Data Management Over the past few weeks our SQLite Blog series has considered the performance deficiencies of SQLite when handling local persistent data and looked at the performance complications created by the need for ETL when sharing SQLite data with back-end databases. In our last installment—Mobile… Read More
June 11, 2020 SQLite’s Serverless Architecture Doesn’t Serve IoT Environments Well Part One Part One: Mobile may be IoT—but, when it comes to data, IoT is not Mobile Three weeks ago, we looked at the raw performance—or the lack thereof—of SQLite. After that, we looked at SQLite within the broader context of Modern Edge Data Management and discovered that its performance shortcomings were in fact compounded by… 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 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 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 30, 2020 Real-Time Reporting Platform for Operational Systems Digital transformation has drastically expanded the use of operational systems, IoT, and other technologies within companies' business processes. This is a good thing. It means that end-users, whether they be employees, partners, or customers, are more productive. The introduction of modern operational technologies and integrating them into business processes is only the first step… 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 17, 2020 Real-Time Connected Data Warehouse – Operational Analytics made easy You've been doing the "digital transformation" thing for a couple of years – integrating your business and IT processes and leveraging technology and data in new ways to drive greater operational efficiency and immersive customer experiences. Your users are happy, but management is starting to ask questions about what's next and how they can… Read More
February 13, 2020 Real-Time Connected Data Warehouse use case – Gain Real-Time Visibility into your IT Infrastructure – Connecting Operations Management, ITSM, and Cloud Does your company have a real-time connected data warehouse where you can aggregate data flowing in from all of your IT systems together with streaming data from IoT, mobile, and SaaS services? Can you easily connect your on-premises, cloud, and multi-cloud systems to enable centralized analytics? If so, that's awesome! Now for the big… Read More
February 3, 2020 Consolidation of the Database Market and What it Means for Your Data Warehouse A few months ago, Gartner published an update on the database market, which is highlighted in Adam Ronthal’s blog “There is only One DBMS Market” and made a rather profound declaration – the database markets have collapsed. No, the market isn't crashing, it is having the best year ever, what has happened is the… Read More
January 15, 2020 Operational Optimization – Real-Time Dashboards Show Trouble Spots in Your Operations You've gone through digital transformation - now what? IT and business leaders are learning quickly that digital transformation is only one of many steps on the journey towards operational optimization. Once you have your people and processes in order, it's time to shift focus towards your data. Digital transformation brings with it a whole… Read More
January 9, 2020 Develop a 360-degree view of your customer with Real-time Connected Data Warehouse Customer churn is a big concern for the sales and marketing teams. It is far easier (and cheaper) to keep your current customers happy than it is to acquire new customers. But how happy are your customers? Do you really know? Leveraging a connected data warehouse to develop a 360-degree view of your customers… Read More
January 6, 2020 Checklist – Things to Consider in an iPaaS Vendor for Embedded Integration Many software as a service (SaaS) companies are looking at embedding integration capabilities into their SaaS offerings as a way of making their solutions both more appealing to customers and more profitable for them as providers. Embedded integration can make SaaS solutions easier to adopt, cheaper to integrate, and more difficult to replace when… Read More
December 9, 2019 Why Avalanche and DataConnect are Better Together … Part 3 How Avalanche and DataConnect work together to deliver an end-to-end data management solution Migrating to a cloud data warehouse makes strategic sense in the modern context of cloud services and digital transformation. Operationally, connecting disparate data sources into your cloud data warehouse, managing ongoing change in your IT environment, and delivering on the promises… Read More
November 25, 2019 It’s Back to the Future for Flat Files … Part Three Why embedded software application developers should dump flat files before they have to run dump on them I wrote an initial blog a few weeks ago on flat files and why embedded software application developers readily adopted them. Then in the next blog, I covered why embedded developers are reluctant to use databases. In… Read More
November 11, 2019 It’s Back to the Future for Flat Files … Part Two Why Embedded Software Application Developers Loath Databases Last week I wrote an initial blog on flat files and why embedded software application developers readily adopted them. Simply put, they’re always there – if you’ve got an Operating System that’s more than a bare-bones executive kernel it’s there and it’s free. Also, flat files are… Read More
October 28, 2019 IPaaS is Key to Accelerating Innovation Your business is evolving quickly with new competitors, changing customer needs, and the continuous refinement of both your business processes and product/service offerings to make the best of market opportunities. Sustainable competitive advantage in this environment is built on three things – information, innovation, and agility. Your leaders understand this, which is why they… Read More
October 24, 2019 Optimizing Cloud Compute and Data Storage for Data Analytics When architecting your data warehouse solution, separating compute and data storage is extremely important for both operational sustainability and economic efficiency. Different things drive the technical needs for each of these, the capacity demands of the organization are different, and the best solution requires optimizing compute and data storage separately. Storage capacity is a… Read More
October 18, 2019 Using DataConnect to Acquire, Prepare and Deliver Data to Avalanche Actian recently announced the availability of Avalanche on the Azure platform, extending the capabilities already available on AWS. This announcement is exciting news for customers because it means greater flexibility and choice in selecting cloud operating environments as well as creating the opportunity for a multi-cloud deployment. Actian DataConnect enhances the capabilities of Avalanche… Read More
September 12, 2019 As AI Algorithms Become More Sophisticated in Edge Devices, Persistent Data Requirements Must Advance at the Same Pace Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems seem to be everywhere and for a good reason. AI represents the next generation of computing capabilities. It is leveraging the speed and scale of cloud computing to deliver not only high-speed automation but also continuous learning and adaptation capabilities that can finally match the pace of change in the… Read More
August 22, 2019 If ETL Is Integration Hell, How Do I Avoid It and Go to Heaven? Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) is the process that has been used to share data between applications, transactional systems, and data warehouses for decades. It essentially works like this; you define an integration, pull the data out of the source system, use some mapping and aggregation rules to transform the data into the format… Read More
July 31, 2019 Should You Have Separate Document, Time-Series, NoSQL and SQL Databases or Can a Single Database Support All of These Data Types and Requirements? Managing and analyzing heterogeneous data is a challenge for most companies, which the oncoming wave of Edge Computing-generated datasets has only exacerbated. This challenge stems from a rather large “data-type mismatch” as well as how and where data has been incorporated into applications and business process. How did we arrive here? At one time,… Read More
July 16, 2019 How to Address Integration Challenges with the Proliferation of IoT Devices During the past few years, IoT devices have evolved from being a consumer novelty to a core part of next-generation IT ecosystems for businesses of all sizes. IoT devices (such as smart watches, fitbits, home sensors, RFID point of sale scanners, heartbeat monitors, etc) have become attractive and useful because of their inexpensive price… Read More
July 11, 2019 Will Data Management in Operational Technology Finally Be Standardized? The proliferation of Operational Technology (OT) within companies is increasing, which has led many to ask whether this will lead to standardization of how operational technology generated data is managed? The answer is “it’s complicated.” There is unlikely to be standardization of the data individual operational technology devices generate, but there will be new… Read More
July 10, 2019 4 Steps to Build a Capability-Based Data Integration Strategy Data integration will be one of the most important strategic challenges any company’s IT organization will face during the next few years. As rapidly evolving market environments and the drive for business agility compel company leaders to demand better integrated data during near-real time, IT executives and their architects will be faced with an… Read More
June 17, 2019 Too Much Data, Too Few Actionable Insights…Too Late! Data is the lifeblood of a modern company. It provides operations staff with visibility of company operations, marketing and product development teams with insights about what’s occurring in the marketplace and company leaders with the input they need to make informed business decisions. Unfortunately, most companies are struggling to translate their data into true… Read More
June 10, 2019 2019 Data Management Trends and How They Will Affect Integration 2019 is becoming an exciting year for the data management community. Many of the trends of the past few years have successfully made the transition from emerging concepts to mainstream solution approaches. While trends are important building blocks about how companies approach their data management today, they are also providing insights into future capabilities… Read More
June 4, 2019 A Cost/Benefit Guide to the Data Warehouse Implementing a data warehouse is a big investment for most companies and the decisions you make now will impact both your IT costs and the business value you are able to create for many years. This concise data warehouse cost/benefit guide will help you understand what to expect, so you can make informed decisions… Read More
May 28, 2019 What is Data Warehouse-as-a-Service? Data Warehouse-as-a-Service (DWaaS) is a modern solution to address the data management challenges of today’s companies. Data is critical to how modern companies operate, from providing actionable analytics and insights to fueling digitally transformed business processes. Companies generate tremendous amounts of data each day, but to translate this resource into value, a company needs… Read More
May 21, 2019 Connecting to Actian Avalanche from Pentaho via JDBC Actian Avalanche delivers an operational data warehouse as a managed service in the cloud. Its developer-friendly high-performance analytics engine has been proven to outperform other popular analytics platforms without specialized hardware or complicated software development. Actian Avalanche requires minimal setup, provides automatic tuning to reduce database administration effort and enables highly-responsive end-user BI reporting. This is how to connect… Read More
May 21, 2019 Is Your Data Making a Difference? For many years, companies have been accumulating large amounts of data with an intuitive feeling that it has value and would be put to good use to make more informed business decisions. As we transition into a new era where machine learning and artificial intelligence are enabling more robust analysis of a company’s data… Read More
September 13, 2018 Analyze and Act on Transactional Data in the Moment with an Operational Data Warehouse We all hear about how forward-thinking companies, small and large, need to be more customer focused, even customer obsessed, to be successful in this hypercompetitive world. Data drives knowledge about your customers’ needs and behaviors, so you can actively tailor your messaging and offers to rise above the competition and win their business. This… 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
January 28, 2020 Embedded Integration: Put the Analytics Compute Where the Data Lies. Selecting the best location for your analytics compute poses an interesting dilemma leading to thoughtful debate in some companies while others don't even consider the topic. If you're dealing with distributed systems, embedded sensors in machinery, mobile apps, or IoT devices, this topic is for you! Where you locate compute resources for analytics has… Read More
October 29, 2019 Is now the right time to modernize your data warehouse? Technology is continually changing and determining the right time to upgrade and modernize can be tricky. If you adopt new technology too soon, this may result in churn within your organization and the implementation of immature solutions that may not meet your needs. If you wait too long, you miss out on market opportunities… Read More
October 7, 2019 What Is a Data Hub and Why Should You Care? If you are still using point-to-point integrations to move data through your IT environment, then you are spending too much money and missing the opportunities a modern data can provide. A data hub is a centralized service that connects all of your IT systems, whether they be Web applications, IoT devices, SaaS solutions, or… Read More
August 19, 2019 Does It Make Sense to Push All Your IoT Data to the Cloud? IoT devices create plenty of data – much more that you might think. When you multiply this amount of data by the number of devices installed in your company’s IT ecosystem, it is apparent IoT is a truly big data challenge. Two common questions IT staff and data management professionals have been asking during… Read More
July 17, 2019 Managing Data Across Distributed Data Warehouses Data integration, like the digital-transformation initiatives it supports, is a journey and not a destination. Every company is somewhere on a path from the past to a desired state of future integration they’d like to achieve. If your company has existed for a number of years, then you likely have multiple databases, data marts… Read More
July 8, 2019 Are You Collecting the Right Data Sources? Quantity as well as quality are so important to your data, but there is a third dimension to your data puzzle that is even more important – content. As your company evaluates new data sources and improvements to your existing data, ask yourself, “Are we collecting the right data?” Here are three tips to… Read More
June 24, 2019 Top 5 Issues in Data Warehousing for IT Leaders With more and more companies embarking on digital transformation journeys, the focus on enterprise data is greater than ever. Data warehousing is not a new concept, but recent developments in the industry are generating a new wave of executive interest and the need to modernize both the approach and solutions for how enterprise data… Read More
