For Business Process & Applications Professionals

In-Database Analytics: The Heart Of The Predictive Enterprise

by James G. Kobielus, November 12, 2009

Visionary organizations are adopting an emerging practice known as "in-database analytics," which supports more pervasive embedding of predictive models in business processes and mission-critical applications. With in-database analytics, enterprises migrate . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Forrester's BI Maturity Assessment Tool  (85 KB XLS)

by Boris Evelson, Connie Moore, Rob Karel, James G. Kobielus, Charles Coit, September 11, 2009

Business intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insight and decision-making. . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Business Intelligence (BI) Polishes Its Crystal Ball

IBM's SPSS Deal Nudges Analytics Industry Toward Deeper Predictive Focus

by James G. Kobielus, Boris Evelson, Leslie Owens, August 18, 2009

Enterprise strategic, tactical, and operational decision-makers want to understand past and present activity but also anticipate the future to avoid being blindsided by seemingly hidden events. How do companies build a competitive "crystal ball"? They . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Refresh Your Information Management Strategy To Deliver Business Results

by Rob Karel, James G. Kobielus, August 11, 2009

Many enterprises lack a framework to ensure business alignment with their information management (IM) strategies. Yet sound strategy is critical for prioritizing IM investments. Business issues driving the urgency for a revitalized strategy include: 1) . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Mighty Mashups: Do-It-Yourself Business Intelligence For The New Economy

by James G. Kobielus, July 23, 2009

Enterprise business intelligence (BI) professionals face severe resource constraints, and the soft economy keeps budgets tight. One consequence is a lengthening queue of user requests to develop and revise reports, dashboards, cubes, and other analytic . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Massive But Agile: Best Practices For Scaling The Next-Generation Enterprise Data Warehouse

by James G. Kobielus, June 3, 2009

Information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals continue to expand the scale, scope, and deployment roles for their enterprise data warehouse (EDW) investments. Today's most demanding EDW environments support petabytes of aggregated data, . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

To BW Or Not To BW?

Migration Paths Are The Burning Question For SAP BI Users

by Boris Evelson, James G. Kobielus, May 13, 2009

The January 2008 merger of SAP and Business Objects created numerous opportunities and challenges for business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) professionals. The good news was that SAP now offers several leading, best-of-breed BI and DW products. . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Warehousing Platforms, Q1 2009

Teradata, Oracle, And IBM Lead, With Microsoft Strengthening

by James G. Kobielus, February 6, 2009

In Forrester's 54-criteria evaluation of enterprise data warehousing (EDW) platform vendors, we found that Teradata, Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft lead the pack because each offers mature, high-performance, flexible, secure, and robust solutions. Teradata . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

OLAP: In Fashion Or Old-Fashioned?

by Boris Evelson, James G. Kobielus, November 7, 2008

Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a core component of a complex business intelligence (BI) architectural stack. Even as vendors begin to explore alternative technologies for "slicing" and "dicing" large data sets, OLAP engines, servers, and models . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Implementing Your Business Intelligence Solutions Center

Mitigate Common Pitfalls To Optimize The Return On Your BI Investment

by Boris Evelson, James G. Kobielus, November 4, 2008

The increasing pervasiveness, complexity, and criticality of today's business intelligence (BI) applications have led enterprises to recognize the need for something more formal than a traditional IT support center to maximize returns on their BI and . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Federation: Sharpen Your Focus On Vast Constellations Of Data

by James G. Kobielus, October 2, 2008

Scattered business information permeates many enterprises. This disunited data often conforms to various schemas and formats, resides in sundry databases and applications, and falls under the purview of myriad owners, administrators, and business domains. . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Really Urgent Analytics: The Sweet Spot For Real-Time Data Warehousing

by James G. Kobielus, August 11, 2008

While information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals occasionally demonstrate returns on their real-time data warehousing investments, most business intelligence (BI) architectures continue to rely on enterprise data warehouses (EDWs) as . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Vendor Snapshot: Illuminate Solutions Breaks Through Traditional BI Barriers

by James G. Kobielus, August 8, 2008

Illuminate Solutions is a young Spain-based analytic database vendor that offers a compelling new approach optimized for complex, dynamic, ad hoc queries. Illuminate's correlation database uses what it calls "value-based storage" to greatly reduce the . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

I&KM Pros Brace For DW Industry Consolidation

Microsoft's DATAllegro Acquisition Is The Tipping Point

by James G. Kobielus, Boris Evelson, August 4, 2008

Many information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals consider the data warehouse (DW) appliance niche as distinct from — and a bit less mature than — the market for enterprise-grade DW solutions. There is still some validity in that viewpoint, . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Appliance Power: Crunching Data Warehousing Workloads Faster And Cheaper Than Ever

by James G. Kobielus, April 4, 2008

Appliances are taking up permanent residence in the heart of the enterprise data center — the data warehouse (DW). DW appliances — in all their bewildering proliferation — are moving into the mainstream. The reason? They are preconfigured, modular devices . . .