Data Intelligence

McDonald’s France: How Big Data Changed the Firm

Actian Corporation

March 18, 2019

Actian had the opportunity to attend many conferences, such as BCG, Zalando, the Ministry of Armed Forces, etc. Among these conferences, we were also able to participate in the one about the fast-food giant McDonald’s France. Presented by Romain Girard, Business Insight Director at McDonald’s France, and Thibault Labarre, Senior Manager at Ekimetrics, the speakers were able to enlighten us on how McDonald’s France uses big data in order to better know their consumers.

McDonald’s Objectives and Challenges They Face

In France, McDonald’s has over 1450 restaurants and about 2 million customers a day. Treating data is a very complex task for a multi-million-dollar company. Romain Girard explains:

“With that many clients a day, it is important for us to be able to distinguish the different customer profiles. To do this, we use Big Data.”

The food industry is a very competitive environment with new players appearing every day. In France, the appearance of overseas fast-food chains such as Burger King, O’Tacos, or even the establishment of eating areas in supermarkets like Franprix or Carrefour Market, gives a lot of power to consumers, offering a wide range of restaurants to choose from.

McDonald’s objective is to be number one in the fast-food industry. However, with new eating habits (vegetarianism, veganism), new ways of food delivery (platforms such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo, etc.), as well as digitalization (websites such as La Fourchette), it is more and more difficult to face the competition. McDonald’s France’s answer is found in Big Data with customer segmentation in order to offer more innovative and personalized offers.

How Does McDonald’s France Distinguish Their Different Consumer Profiles?

In order to distinguish their different consumer profiles, McDonald’s France uses their receipts! The receipts have a lot of precious information in order to better know and understand their customers: the time of day of the order, the number of items that were bought, if the order was consumed on site or to go etc.

Thibault Labarre explains:

“In order for us to distinguish these different profiles, we exploit the data to create a data ecosystem to then be able to cross them : how many of our clients order take out? How many clients come alone? And at what time of day? Etc.”

Romain Girard completes this statement by stating that it is “important to create an acculturation between the data teams and the business teams in order to establish a common pedagogy.”

To establish this common pedagogy, McDonald’s France uses a simple and easy-to-use dashboard so that any user can understand the company’s data.

“It’s by working in an agile manner that our teams can communicate around our data efficiently. Therefore, our data strategy was put into place in only three months! It’s strange to say, but we set up a “start-up” way of working in order to quickly test and learn about our data.” explains Thibault Labarre.

What’s Next for McDonald’s?

McDonald’s is not even close to ending things with Big Data; the fast-food giant confirms that in just a few months, their communication strategy will be very different.

“Of course we cannot reveal too much information, but just know that our communication will be more centered around the client than the actual product itself.” states Romain Girard, “Come as you are” (McDonald’s France’s slogan – “Venez comme vous êtes”) speaks directly to the customer and that is exactly what we want to do.”

About Actian Corporation

Actian empowers enterprises to confidently manage and govern data at scale, streamlining complex data environments and accelerating the delivery of AI-ready data. The Actian data intelligence approach combines data discovery, metadata management, and federated governance to enable smarter data usage and enhance compliance. With intuitive self-service capabilities, business and technical users can find, understand, and trust data assets across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. Actian delivers flexible data management solutions to 42 million users at Fortune 100 companies and other enterprises worldwide, while maintaining a 95% customer satisfaction score.

Data Integration

How a Hybrid Integration Platform Can Accelerate Data Migration

Actian Corporation

March 13, 2019

3d rendering robot learning or machine learning

Companies around the world are migrating their IT and business applications from on-premises data centers to cloud environments. The benefits of hosting apps in the cloud are clear and well understood; however, the process of data migration is much more challenging than one would think. Migrating data between different applications that are either located on-premises or in the cloud or in hybrid environments is often where IT teams encounter problems. Leveraging a hybrid data-integration platform, such as Actian DataConnect, can help companies both accelerate the cloud data migration process and lower the risk of migration issues.

What is Data Migration?

Data migration is the process of moving data from one system to another. While this might seem straightforward, it involves a change in storage and database or application. In the context of the extract/transform/load (ETL) process, any data migration will involve at least the transform and load steps. This means that extracted data must be subject to a series of functions in preparation, after which it can be loaded into a target location.

Why Companies Are Migrating Data to the Cloud

Increasingly, organizations are migrating some or all of their data to the cloud to increase their speed to market, improve scalability and reduce the need for technical resources. Organizations initiate data migrations for several reasons. They might need to overhaul an entire system, upgrade databases, establish a new data warehouse, or merge new data from an acquisition or other source. Data migration is also necessary when deploying another system that resides next to existing applications.

Below are just a few of how moving to the cloud can be a winning decision for your organization.

Cost-Effective – IT Infrastructure Costs from Capital Outlays to Operating Expenses – As the infrastructure in on-premises data centers ages and reaches end-of-life, many companies are taking the opportunity to migrate applications to cloud environments instead of replacing physical hardware. IaaS and PaaS environments are available in both public and private cloud configurations and enable companies to add capacity without the capital outlay and provisioning time required to acquire physical servers.
Scalable – Leverage the Scalability and Manageability of Cloud Environments – Many companies are moving applications to the cloud to enable greater control over capacity utilization. Cloud services can be scaled up and down quickly to respond to the seasonality of business demands. Underutilized IT capacity is costly to maintain and with cloud services, unneeded resources can easily be reclaimed and provisioned elsewhere.
Improve Efficiency and Performance With Modern Environments – Technology evolves quickly and infrastructure is no exception. Investment in on-premises hardware locks a company into whatever features and performance were available at the time the infrastructure was acquired. Leveraging cloud services, companies can shift workloads to modern, more efficient environments as soon as they become available – leading to better performing applications and lower processing costs.
Enable Business Resiliency and High Availability – Cloud services are architected for resiliency and provide continuity of service in the event of a failure or outage. Major incident management and disaster recovery for cloud-based applications is much easier, because remote operators can quickly and easily re-deploy applications to a new location from an administrative console.
Gain Peace of Mind With Secure Platform – If you are concerned after seeing other companies experience damaging data breaches, and you want to increase security for your on-premises data warehouse. Today, all cloud-service providers, such as AWS, or cloud-integration providers/iPaaS providers, must adhere to the highest security standards in the industry, set by health, financial and government institutions. All cloud-platform providers must obtain certifications, such as SOC2, ISO27001, HIPAA, GDPR and PCI. Further, authentication, authorization, logging, and auditing are also built into all cloud platforms.

How to Select a Data Migration Software

Building data migration tools from scratch and coding them by hand is challenging and incredibly time-consuming. Data tools that simplify migration are more efficient and cost-effective. When you start your search for a software solution, look for these factors in a vendor:

Connectivity

Does the solution support the systems and software you currently use?

Scalability

What are the data limits for the software, and will data needs exceed them in the foreseeable future?

Security

Take time to investigate a software platform’s security measures. Your data is one of your most valuable resources, and it must remain protected.

Speed

How quickly can processing occur on the platform?

Actian DataConnect is a hybrid data-integration platform that can make the process of data migration much easier and lower the risk of business-disrupting connectivity issues. With DataConnect, instead of managing numerous point-to-point interactions between applications, connections to source systems are managed through the data-connect platform. Implementing a hybrid integration platform, such as Actian DataConnect, can help you accelerate migration timelines, improve effectiveness and improve the likelihood of a clean and successful data migration project. To learn more, visit DataConnect.

About Actian Corporation

Data Integration

Announcing the Availability of Actian DataConnect on AWS Marketplace

Actian Corporation

March 12, 2019

We are excited to announce that Actian DataConnect suite of products are now available on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace.

Actian DataConnect is a hybrid integration solution that enables you to quickly and easily design, deploy, and manage integrations on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid environments. DataConnect is engineered to help you cost-effectively integrate diverse data and applications from numerous endpoints with an emphasis on reuse and adaptability.

AWS marketplace customer(s) are now able to subscribe to these offerings by accessing the following links:

Actian DataConnect Studio IDE: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07MD5ZW7Z
Actian DataConnect IntegrationManager: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07L9K5PPY

These are a BYOL (Bring Your Own License) offerings that could be leveraged by Actian customers who already have licenses for respective products.

New customers will be able to register and get a license for these offerings from https://esd.actian.com/.

Design Your Integrations With Actian DataConnect Studio IDE

Actian DataConnect Studio IDE allows you to visually create or modify integration maps, artifacts, rules, and job schedules in minutes, without coding or scripting.

Actian DataConnect Studio IDE focuses on developer productivity and integration architecture simplification. A cloud IDE with features and functionalities for mapping environment, debugging tools, repository, web services connectivity and other design and run-time services emphasize more user-friendly tools and greater deployment flexibility.

Manage and Monitor Your Integrations With Actian DataConnect Integration Manager

Actian DataConnect Integration Manager allows operations and support staff to easily configure, schedule, execute and monitor all deployed integrations from a single pane of glass. You can gain a holistic view of all your templates, configurations, schedules, job logs, and more across large, distributed environments.

About Actian Corporation

Data Management

Connecting to an Actian Ingres Database From PHP via JDBC

Actian Corporation

March 8, 2019

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 Ingres with PHP and NGINX. Sometimes, however, due to limitations, users may need to use JDBC instead of ODBC to connect. This post shows how this can be done, although no native support exists to connect through JDBC using PHP.

In this situation, a PHP-JDBC bridge is necessary. For this example, we are using the bridge available at PHP-JDBC Bridge.

Validate JDBC Connectivity

This assumes that a JDBC connection can be established. If you can run queries from a small test Java program using JDBC, then you can move to the next step.

Setup and Start the Bridge Service

Check the PHP_JDBC documentation (available at PHP-JDBC Bridge) on how to run install the necessary tools and run the service. An example of how this would run is:

java -cp “lib/pjbridge.jar:lib/commons-daemon-1.1.0.jar:$II_SYSTEM/ingres/lib/:$II_SYSTEM/ingres/lib/iijdbc.jar”
Server com.ingres.jdbc.IngresDriver 4444 &

PHP Code Example

The following is an example of the PHP code to connect to the Ingres database:

<?php
   require "PJBridge.php"; 

   $dbHost = "localhost";
   $dbName = "testdb";
   $dbPort = "II7";
   $dbUser = "test_user";
   $dbPass = "test_password"; 

   $connStr = "jdbc:ingres://${dbHost}:${dbPort}/${dbName}"; 

   $db = new PJBridge();
   $result = $db->connect($connStr, $dbUser, $dbPass);
   if(!$result){
      die("Failed to connect");
   } 

   $cursor = $db->exec("SELECT * FROM test_table"); 

   while($row = $db->fetch_array($cursor)){
      print_r($row);
   } 

   $db->free_result($cursor);

For additional information or to arrange a demonstration please contact Professional Services at services@actian.com. You can learn more about Actian Ingres here and visit our Ingres community forums here.

About Actian Corporation

Data Intelligence

GDPR: Main Content of the European Regulation

Actian Corporation

March 6, 2019

This article is an introduction to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the framework of your Big Data projects.

This isn’t going to be about giving legal advice, but rather, a refresher course on the changes that GDPR will make.

The Terms of the GDPR to Define

Personal Data

All information relating to a human being (or a data subject) can be used to identify that person directly or indirectly. With the arrival of the GDPR, this definition was broadened to include online data. i.e., name, photos, email addresses, bank details, social networking publications, websites, medical information, IP addresses, location data, etc.

Sensitive Data

It is personal data that directly or indirectly reveals political opinions, philosophical or religious or trade union memberships of persons, or that which is related to their health or their sexual orientation. They may only be processed with the explicit consent of individuals.

Data Processing

This broad term refers to any operations carried out on personal data, via automated or non-automated means. Some examples of processing include collection, recording, organization, storage, use, and destruction of personal data.

Data Controller

A data controller is a person who determines– alone or jointly with others – the purposes and the means of data processing (the collecting and processing methods).

The Principles Emerging From the GDPR

Whom Does it Concern?

All companies located in the European Union and processing personal data, regardless of its size.
All companies not located in the E.U. concerning the process of personal data relating to persons located in the European Union.

The Obligation to Appoint a DPO

The GDPR created a position of Data Protection Officer (DPO). Their responsibilities include:

Monitor the company’s compliance with regulations
Be the point of contact with the Supervisory Authorities as well as those who have questions on personal data processing
Advise and inform the company, its employees, and any possible processors.

The Responsibility

Companies must ensure that they comply with GDPR’s obligations and be able to demonstrate compliance with its principles.

Valid Consent

The controller must be able to demonstrate that the data subject has given his or her consent.

Notification of Violations

In the case of a violation, the company is obligated to inform its Supervisory Authority within 72 hours after its discovery.

Privacy Protection From the Design Stage

The controller must implement any data protection measures (pseudonymization, minimization, etc.) from the design stage; i.e., identify the means of processing.

The Opposition to Profiling

Any person may object to the automatic processing of their personal data in order to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a physical person (analysis, prediction, etc).

Data Portability

Any person concerned by the processing of their data can obtain from the controller a copy of their processed personal data and, where applicable, the transfer of these data to a third party.

Sanctions

Violation of basic principles including the conditions of consent or the rights of the persons concerned will be subject to a sanction of up to 20 million or 4% of annual worldwide turnover.

About Actian Corporation

Data Integration

Why Choose iPaaS for Your Hybrid Integration Needs?

Actian Corporation

February 28, 2019

Triangular tech background with connections for DataConnect

The data your company manages is both diverse and ever-changing. Connecting source systems across hybrid infrastructure environments may seem challenging initially, but keeping your connections current with the myriad of changes occurring in your IT environment is where you will truly experience a headache.

Implementing an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) solution, such as Actian DataConnect, can make the process much easier. It gives you a scalable set of tools to manage all your data connections, sync data in multiple systems, simplify integrated user environment (IDE) to mask the complexity of your underlying environment and enable your developers to focus on creating the features and data insights to drive your business forward.

Why is Managing Data Connections so Hard?

Cloud services, IoT devices, distributed infrastructure and mobile devices are all increasing the volume, velocity and veracity of data sources within an organization. This is a marked difference from the situation of just a few years ago when a company’s IT environment was comprised of a few core platforms and a limited ecosystem of supporting applications. With only a few data sources, managing point-to-point connections wasn’t terribly difficult and changes didn’t happen very often. Even small companies are now learning the number of systems, applications and components in their IT environments generating data are increasing at an alarming rate.

Most companies are also operating today in a hybrid IT environment, with applications and data sources residing in the cloud, on-premises in a company’s data center or hosted by 3^rdparties. All of these systems must be able to communicate effectively with each other. Point-to-point connections just aren’t sustainable for the modern IT environment.

The key challenge is the rapidly changing applications and data environment. The data ingested from disparate sources (systems of record) must be transformed, harmonized and fed into different target systems. Once the data is there, each data record must be synced in the target systems. For example, changes in a record in SAP may need to be reflected appropriately in the Salesforce system. When the data is continuously changing, it means the data integration must be continuous to keep all systems synchronized.

When you extend this challenge across a complex IT environment, it is clear some sort of centralized management capability is needed.

Manage All Your Connections With a Hybrid Integration Platform

iPaaS is a managed cloud service for application, data, process and device integration.

Instead of trying to manage a complex web of point-to-point data connections, companies can use iPaaS to manage connections to source systems (i.e., systems of record) and aggregate data from their entire organization for use by applications, platforms and analytics services (i.e., systems of differentiation/innovation).

A versatile iPaaS platform must support a wide variety of enterprise-use cases, such as application-to-application integration, cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-on-premises, on-premises-to-on-premises, data and cloud integration, API publishing, mobile, IoT integration and even ecosystems/ B2B integration with other companies. iPaaS solution should also empower all integration personas, from citizen integrator/business analysts to the highly skilled integration specialist personas, and offer low/no-code tools to accelerate integration projects within an organization.

The iPaaS solution enables a company to establish connections once, and then re-use them many times by leveraging reusable template for mapping and design. If the data in source systems change, then the connection must only be updated once and the data in all the subscribing or target systems will immediately see the impact. This saves considerable administrative effort for your IT organization and provides a powerful tool for addressing security risks.

Not only can connections be updated in scalable way, but they can be disconnected if a vulnerability is encountered. Instead of questioning whether all the point-to-point connections have been disabled, you can be confident using iPaaS.

Using iPaaS to Enable Data Migration

Leveraging an iPaaS solution to manage your data connections can make the process of data migration much easier. One of the biggest challenges in modernizing old, legacy systems and integration infrastructure is migrating data and applications from on-premises to cloud, or switching cloud providers is migrating data connections quickly, effectively and safely. An iPaaS solution enables you to reduce the number of connections that must be migrated and orchestrate the cutover more efficiently. Because iPaaS can enable you to connect almost anything, you have greater flexibility in your infrastructure choices with fewer interoperability concerns.

A scalable, future-proof iPaaS solution should also be “portable,” meaning you should be able to migrate your integration services from on-premises to cloud seamlessly with minimal effort or rework. With DataConnect, you can design your integrations once and run anywhere and take your “integrations with you” if your needs change–allowing flexibility and protecting your investments.

As companies’ data integration needs continue to evolve, leveraging an iPaaS solution, such as Actian DataConnect, can help you remove layers of complexity, improve IT productivity, respond better to security issues and enable greater levels of business agility. To learn more, visit DataConnect.

McDonald’s France: How Big Data Changed the Firm

McDonald’s Objectives and Challenges They Face

How Does McDonald’s France Distinguish Their Different Consumer Profiles?

What’s Next for McDonald’s?

About Actian Corporation

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How a Hybrid Integration Platform Can Accelerate Data Migration

What is Data Migration?

Why Companies Are Migrating Data to the Cloud

How to Select a Data Migration Software

Connectivity

Scalability

Security

Speed

About Actian Corporation

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Announcing the Availability of Actian DataConnect on AWS Marketplace

Design Your Integrations With Actian DataConnect Studio IDE

Manage and Monitor Your Integrations With Actian DataConnect Integration Manager

About Actian Corporation

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Ready to Get Started?

Connecting to an Actian Ingres Database From PHP via JDBC

Validate JDBC Connectivity

Setup and Start the Bridge Service

PHP Code Example

About Actian Corporation

Related Tags

Subscribe to the Actian Blog

Subscribe

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Ready to Get Started?

GDPR: Main Content of the European Regulation

The Terms of the GDPR to Define

Personal Data

Sensitive Data

Data Processing

Data Controller

The Principles Emerging From the GDPR

Whom Does it Concern?

The Obligation to Appoint a DPO

The Responsibility

Valid Consent

Notification of Violations

Privacy Protection From the Design Stage

The Opposition to Profiling

Data Portability

Sanctions

About Actian Corporation

Subscribe to the Actian Blog

Subscribe

Thank you for subscribing to the Actian Blog!

Why Choose iPaaS for Your Hybrid Integration Needs?

Why is Managing Data Connections so Hard?

Manage All Your Connections With a Hybrid Integration Platform

Using iPaaS to Enable Data Migration

About Actian Corporation

Related Tags

Subscribe to the Actian Blog

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Thank you for subscribing to the Actian Blog!

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