Data is the lifeblood of business: it drives decision making, allows for analysis and prediction, and can help drive revenue. But data can also be its own worst enemy: it can lead to analysis paralysis, lead to inaccurate predictions, and even make processes more bureaucratic. That’s where data profiling and data quality come in.…
Do you have a data-centric Windows application you want to run at the Edge? If so, this article demonstrates an easy and affordable way to accomplish this by using the Zen Enterprise Database through Ado.net on a Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi features a 64-bit ARM processor, can accommodate several operating systems, and cost around…
With the rise of cloud computing, many organizations are opting to use a hybrid approach to their data management. Even though many companies still rely on on-premises storage, the benefits of having cloud storage as a backup or disaster recovery plan can be significant. This post will give you five of the most popular…
Enabling universal access to data can create opportunities to generate new revenue and drive operational efficiencies throughout an organization. Even more importantly, data democratization, as it’s known, is crucial to business transformation. For that reason, vendors have made a lot of promises about enabling data democratization—and not all have panned out. For instance, various…
What’s a Data Fabric? A data fabric is a data architecture, management practices, and policies to deliver a set of data services that span all these domains and endpoints. Data fabrics provide that framework. They essentially serve as both the translator and the plumbing for data in all its forms, wherever it sits and…
Part 1: You Need a Data Fabric Among Gartner’s top 10 data and analytics trends for 2021 is engineered decision intelligence.[1] That raises two compelling questions: What is this? and Why should you care? Engineered business intelligence is, when you think about it, just what it says: a deliberate process to deriving business intelligence…
In a world where everything is changing too quickly, the evolution towards agile, interoperable data services is a welcome change. Data is now able to be delivered as a service, without the need for costly investments in data centers and the resources needed to manage them. As more companies embrace the cloud, data integration…
Digital transformation requires use of the latest technologies. However, as you probably already know, modernizing a mission-critical database and the applications that interact with it can be risky and expensive, often turning into a long disruptive journey. But I have good news! According to a recent Bloor Spotlight report, Actian’s Ingres NeXt strategy for modernizing Ingres and OpenROAD applications either…
Enterprises have struggled to collaborate well around their data, which can impact everything from digital transformation to advanced concepts like AI and ML. DataOps is not without challenges; building, managing, and scaling data pipelines requires careful thought around reusability, portability across infrastructure and applications, and long term maintenance and governance. And these are just…
Data maintenance is an ongoing requirement in every database environment. Archiving historic data, synchronizing data after off-line access, or auditing changed data are all issues that typically require customized programming. Most of these solutions often need database design changes or time-consuming processes to complete these tasks. With the release of Zen v15, there is…
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…
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.…
Everyone in an organization makes decisions every day. They go through the process of identifying that a decision needs to be made, then gather data and relevant information from various sources to identify the choices that they can make. By Analyzing the data and other considerations based on their experience, they can make a…
Leveraging data Data is everywhere. Data comes from social interactions, personal devices, cloud service interactions, the environment, and many other places and things. There is a wide variety of data and a significant volume of data being collected every second. The velocity and quality of data are increasing every minute. Big data can be…
Defining good service All organizations want to provide good service to their customers. There are many definitions of what good service is from a giving and receiving perspective. Good and excellent service can mean the same thing in many cases. Then there is exceptional service; this is the type of service many organizations try…
Make faster calls using the high-speed Btrieve 2 API Developers building real-time, data-intensive Edge applications are increasingly turning to Node.js. It’s not in itself a programming language but an open-source, multi-platform, run-time environment that leverages JavaScript and its ecosystem — and turns out to be quite well suited for today’s data streaming and JSON…
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…
As businesses work to reopen and students return, in-person, to schools nationwide, track and trace is a critical component to mitigate potential resurgences in COVID-19 cases. The more densely populated a city, the harder track and trace will be. However, getting urban and suburban areas moving again is critical to jumpstarting the US economy.…
Understanding SQLite’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Over the past three months this blog series has explored why developers gravitated toward SQLite for embedded data management. Some developers chose SQLite because members of the extended team knew SQL and wanted to leverage that knowledge to support data management or the extraction of data for…
Part Three: SQLite, the “Flat File” of Databases Over the past few articles, our SQLite Blog series has been looking at SQLite Serverless Architecture and how it is unsuitable for IoT Environments. Those of you who have been following can jump ahead to the next section, but if you’re new to this discussion, you…
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…
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…
Imagine if reports that currently take many minutes to run in Hadoop could come back with results in seconds. Get answers to detailed questions about sales figures and customer trends in real time. Make revenue predictions based on up-to-date customer metrics across a spectrum of sources. Iterate more quickly simulating different business decisions to…
Two weeks ago, I likened the performance of SQLite to that of a Banana Slug. Now, some may consider that a bit of hyperbole (and some UC Santa Cruz alumni may feel that I impugned the good name of their mascot, which was not my intent) but the numbers don’t lie. The measurable difference…
Earlier this month, I kicked off a series of blogs about SQLite. The first looked at the advantages that SQLite offers over both flat files and the heavier lift of an enterprise-grade SQL databases – and it does offer distinct advantages over both. To a point. And that point was five years ago. Here's…
In December, January, and February, I posted a short series of blogs on Flat file systems. The series of blogs focus on the continued use of flat files and why they are no longer viable for use in the future. The first installment focused on flat files and why embedded software application developers readily adopted…
Robotic process automation (or RPA for short) is the term used to describe the next generation of technology-enabled workflow management capabilities. RPA solutions come in various sizes and shapes from a myriad of different vendors. RPA is the current buzzword and has enormous growth opportunity but integration is complex and requires expensive skills and…
This is the final installment on the series of blogs I wrote on the continued use of flat files and why they are no longer viable for use in the future. The first installment focused on flat files and why embedded software application developers readily adopted them. Then in the second installment, I discussed why embedded…
Social relationships hold a wealth of information about your customers, employees, and suppliers that (if you have the tools to harness them) can provide you valuable insights about the factors that influence behaviors that ultimately impact your bottom line. The challenge with analyzing and visualizing social relationships is that the underlying data doesn't match…
It feels like only yesterday that “Machine Learning” and “Artificial Intelligence” were equated with science fiction by most regular folks outside of tech. As a movie-going culture, we have a long history of associating these concepts with self-aware robots or rogue computer programs that could escape the laboratories where they were created and threaten all humanity. But in 2020, ML and AI have been considerably demystified. And yet, even if it seems less…
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…
Learn about the new way to engage Support Services at Actian We are delighted to introduce the “Live Chat” feature, which was embedded in “Actian Communities” on November 11, 2019. It is a complete chat solution that enables instant chat support with Actian subject matter experts. Each chat request will be directed to the…
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…
Why embedded software application developers adopted flat files Recently, my colleague here in Actian Product Marketing, Pradeep Bhanot, wrote a great blog on Data Historians in which he called for their retirement in favor of more modern databases to support time-series data processing and analytics. But, in some ways, historians are not as historic…
I recently had the privilege of presenting at Insight Technology’s db tech showcase in Tokyo. The night before my presentation my colleagues and I had been invited to a meal with one of our partners. At the end of the meal, one of my colleagues was thanking our hosts for a wonderful meal and…
Last week, we announced the findings of the Actian Datacast 2019: Hybrid Data Trends Snapshot, a survey of 303 IT professionals with influence or decision-making ability at their companies of 250+ employees which found that more than half of enterprises today are unable to efficiently manage nor effectively use data to drive decision-making, among…
Are you new to Actian Zen and want to learn how to get started with it? Check out our newly built YouTube channel! Topics include: Authorize an Actian Zen license for Windows Install the Actian Zen Backup Agent for Windows Configure the Actian Zen Backup Agent for Windows Instal Actian Zen into Linux Install…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
The data consumers within your organization aren’t a homogeneous group, so you must adapt your data management solutions accordingly. At one end of the spectrum is the ideal, “one-size-fits-all” solution. At the other end is a customized set of capabilities for each individual user that seems ideal, but is unworkable. How then do you…
If you’re a data engineer or a data architect, then you’re probably kept awake at night wondering how to design your data integration, management and analytics support platforms, so your DBAs and IT Ops colleagues can easily manage them while a varied set of data users are able to consume them simultaneously. These users…
We have documented the best way to connect from PHP to an Ingres database via ODBC in an Actian Knowledge Base article called Ingres ODBC with PHP and in a previous post, Connecting to Actian X (Ingres) with PHP and NGINX. Sometimes, however, due to limitations, users may need to use JDBC instead of ODBC…
Last week, I was returning from our Actian 2019 Sales Kickoff. I’d already spent considerable time trying to get a USB-C 65-Watt charger for my Lenovo laptop from Amazon to my hotel, which ultimately failed so I was faced with a very long unproductive day with a dead laptop battery. I was wondering by…
Face the inevitable: Local persistent data at the Edge will happen It’s indisputable that Edge Intelligence will grow, whether that’s mobile applications running on Smartphones, IoT applications running in Smart Cars (or the underlying sensors), in the entertainment center, navigation systems, etc. There will be countless mobile and IoT – taken as a whole,…
This week Lifeboat announced their new contract to distribute our Actian product lines through their vast reseller channels as well as direct to their customers (you can find details here). Speaking as the Actian Product Management and Marketing lead for one of those product lines, the Actian Zen Edge database family, this is a…
I recently took a last-minute trip from San Francisco to India. The best fare in economy I could find was on a sixteen-hour Air India flight, direct to New Delhi. I figured I’d get a lot of work done on the flight and, if not, at least I could catch-up on movie watching. Turns…
Early in my career I studied Systems Engineering at night which is where I first came across the term IPO which is an acronym for Input-Processing-Output. My lecturer taught us every software function has three basic sequential steps, reading input data, processing that data and eventually outputting it. In a more complex system, such…
One of the main challenges for an application developer is the deployment of applications. There are many ways this is handled, from using traditional installers to web-based deployments. The initial web deployment option for OpenROAD, Actian's rapid application development and flexible deployment solution, was the eClient where the application itself was hosted on a web…
Most production Ingres (now called Actian X) installations have a need for some degree of disaster recovery (DR). Options range from shipping nightly database checkpoints to off-site storage locations to near real-time replication to a dedicated off-site DR site. Ingres, Actian's enterprise hybrid database, ships with built in checkpoint and journal shipping features which…
Actian is sponsoring three challenges on Topcoder this month, featuring our Vector and Zen database products and thousands of dollars in prizes. All you need to do is sign on to Topcoder (for free), read and follow the instructions for the competition, and win! It's that easy. Now, the challenges themselves are all different,…
The release of Service Pack 1 for Zen (PSQL) v13, Actian’s zero-dba, embedded nano-footprint database, provides a number of new features, including one we’re looking at today to make Btrieve API code more efficient -- the GetNextExtended LIKE Support. First, let's review the concept of "Extended Operations." The low-level Btrieve API (also known as the…
A key feature of the latest update to our hybrid database Actian X (Ingres 11) is the inclusion of the x100 analytics engine and support for x100 tables. Adding a world class analytics engine to Actian X’s enterprise OLTP (OnLine Transaction Processing) capability enables a new class of applications that can mix OLTP and analytic…
In my previous blog ("Programming the Easy Way: Accessing a PSQL Zen Database with Python and ODBC"), I showed how to easily access an Actian Zen database with Python and ODBC. My next project was to use the new Btrieve 2 feature with Python to directly interface with the data files without using any…
With the release of the new patches at the end of December for version 6.2, Actian OpenROAD (our rapid application development and flexible deployment solution) is providing a new functionality in the form of JSON support and JSON-RPC support for OpenROAD Server. Those familiar with OpenROAD would know that an application server was available from version…
Introduction Today we're going to look at how to get started with Actian Vector, our high-performance in-memory analytics database, and Python, one of the most oft-used languages by data scientists in recent times. Using the techniques below, you'll be able to get started with Python using Vector ODBC and JDBC. (You'll be able to use…
As an old-school programmer from a few decades ago, I decided to see how hard it would be to access a Zen (formerly known as PSQL) database from my newly acquired knowledge of Python. In case you're not familiar with it, Zen is Actian's embedded zero-admin, nano-footprint hybrid NoSQL and SQL database software, and…
Not long ago I spoke at the Actian Hybrid Data Conference in London about connecting Actian X (Ingres), Actian's combination of industry-leading transactional and high-speed analytic databases, to the Web. Here we present how to use a very popular web server (reverse proxy, load balancing, etc...) on Linux, NGINX, to do just that. Here's how…
Last week, Actian introduced the the new Ingres - Actian X Hybrid Database, combining the industry-leading Ingres RBMS with the record breaking analytic database Vector. With column-based storage, vector processing, multi-core parallelism (and more), Actian X puts amazing performance in the hands of Ingres developers. We've also bundled two other really big features: 1)…