Database Management Articles
BNP Paribas has implemented Oracle Exadata Database Machine to manage electronic trading floor data. BNP Paribas' data warehouse manages billions of messages in real-time processing a terabyte of raw data daily. A half-rack Oracle Exadata Database Machine has helped BNP Paribas better manage data growth and improve system performance.
Posted January 04, 2012
Sybase has launched the "Mobility Manifesto" site to support and encourage enterprise workers to have access to the devices and applications they want to use. The Mobility Manifesto allows enterprise workers to take a quiz to find out where their company ranks on mobility, share the results with their boss through an auto-fill letter that sets the tone for change in the workplace, and download an ibook including guidance and advice for both end user and IT.
Posted December 21, 2011
SAP AG has announced that since introducing SAP HANA a year ago customer and partner demand for the technology has surged. According to Dr. Vishal Sikka, member of the SAP executive board, Technology & Innovation, leading independent software vendors are adopting the open SAP HANA platform for their existing products and also building completely new applications as well. The company also announced at the recent SAP Influencer Summit 2011 in Boston that SAP HANA is at the core of its platform roadmap, powering both renewed applications without disruption as well as new ones.
Posted December 21, 2011
The first calendar year following SAP's acquisition of Sybase is coming to a close. David Jonker, director, product marketing - Data Management & Analytics, Sybase, discusses key product integrations, IT trends that loom large in Sybase's data management strategies, and the emergence of what Sybase describes as DW 2.0. 2011 has been "a foundational year," with effort focused on making Sybase technologies work with SAP and setting the stage for 2012, says Jonker. "We believe 2012 is going to be a big year for us on the database side."
Posted December 21, 2011
LexisNexis, a pioneer of information technology, has selected big data specialist MarkLogic to power components of the new platform behind Lexis Advance, its legal research solution. LexisNexis, a pioneer of information technology, has selected big data specialist MarkLogic to power components of the new platform behind Lexis Advance, its legal research solution.
Posted December 08, 2011
EMC Corporation has introduced the EMC Greenplum Unified Analytics Platform (UAP), a platform to support big data analytics, that combines the co-processing of structured and unstructured data with a productivity engine that enables collaboration among data scientists. The new EMC Greenplum UAP brings together the EMC Greenplum database for structured data, the enterprise Hadoop offering EMC Greenplum HD for the analysis and processing of unstructured data, and EMC Greenplum Chorus, its new productivity engine for data science teams. Greenplum UAP will be available in the first quarter of calendar 2012.
Posted December 08, 2011
A new blog on the SHARE website places the focus on the mainframe as a big data workhorse and the reigning alternative to internal (or external) cloud provision. Pedro Pereira, authoring the blog in SHARE's "President's Corner," makes several astute observations including identifying security and availability as unknowns in a cloud environment.
Posted December 06, 2011
Join Oracle and Unisphere for a live webcast to learn more about common practices that are most vulnerable to fraud and error, and the best practices and technologies used by leading vs. laggard organizations to drive the hidden costs out of operations and enforce process controls. Speakers will include Thomas J. Wilson, president, Unisphere Research; Joseph McKendrick, analyst, Unisphere Research; and Stephanie Maziol, director GRC Applications, Oracle.
Posted December 06, 2011
Three columns ago, I started a series of articles pointing out that tough times are a-comin' for the DBA profession due to major disruptive changes in the wider IT world (see "2012 Might Really Be the End of the World as We Know It"). In previous columns, I have told you about how our lives will change due to major technological changes caused by things such as Solid State Disks (SSD) and massively multicore CPUs.
Posted December 06, 2011
In a world replete with regulations and threats, organizations today have to go well beyond just securing their data. Protecting this most valuable asset means that companies have to perpetually monitor their systems in order to know who did exactly what, when and how - to their data.
Posted December 01, 2011
The cost for new development can often be easily justified. If a new function is needed, staffing a team to create such functionality and supporting data structures can be quantified and voted up or down by those controlling resources. Money can be found to build those things that move the organization forward; often, the expense may be covered by savings or increased revenue derived from providing the new services.
Posted December 01, 2011
expressor software, a provider of data integration software, has launched a product initiative aimed at simplifying the development of expressor and Teradata Express analytical database applications based on a diverse set of operational data sources. One of the biggest challenges people face is figuring out how to get data loaded into their database in order to begin using it for analysis and development without using traditional ETL solutions which can be very costly, Hugo Sheng, director, field engineering, expressor, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted November 22, 2011
Being a successful database administrator requires far more than technical acumen and database knowledge. DBAs should be armed with a proper attitude as well as sufficient fortitude and personality before attempting to practice database administration. Gaining the technical know-how is important, yes, but there are many sources that offer technical guidance for DBAs. The non-technical aspects of DBA are just as challenging, though. So with that in mind, this month's column will offer 10 "rules of thumb" for DBAs to follow as they improve their soft skills.
Posted November 22, 2011
UC4, an IT automation software vendor, announced a partnership with Basis Technologies International (BTI), a provider of add-on solutions that optimize SAP, intended to deliver targeted automation solutions for SAP customers. The joint offering, dubbed "UC4 MDR powered by BTI," will integrate BTI's Mass Data Runtime - an SAP NetWeaver-based solution that delivers data processing improvements - with UC4's ONE Automation platform. The combination of these two products is designed to help accelerate and orchestrate business processes, applications and infrastructure with SAP environments.
Posted November 16, 2011
Sybase, an SAP company, has unveiled a new guide on big data analytics titled "Intelligence for Everyone: Transforming Business Analytics Across the Enterprise." The objective of the guide is to demonstrate through facts and examples that there are tools and methods to make sense of new and massive data sets, service all users at all levels, and analyze many different data types to provide actionable answers.
Posted November 16, 2011
Oracle has introduced PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 Feature Pack 2 which provides a consumer-like self-service user experience to improve the way employees and managers perform their day-to-day activities. Oracle's Feature Packs enable a quicker response to PeopleSoft customer requests, while enabling customers to choose how and when to deploy the new functionality to their users.
Posted November 16, 2011
Oracle has announced the availability of Oracle Solaris 11, which the company says can meet the security, performance and scalability requirements of cloud-based deployments and enable customers to run their most demanding enterprise applications in private, hybrid, or public clouds.
Posted November 16, 2011
SAP AG has announced the availability of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) 7.3 running on the SAP HANA platform. SAP HANA can enhance the query performance and provide faster data loads in SAP NetWeaver BW, and help customers significantly reduce the total cost of ownership for customers by simplifying the administration with reduced data layers, according to SAP. The announcement was made at the SAPPHIRE NOW and SAP TechEd co-located event in Madrid.
Posted November 16, 2011
Sybase has unveiled a new version of the Sybase IQ high performance column-based analytics database, due to be generally available by the end of November. "This really is an extension into big data - and big data is characterized by a lot of things - but we see the trends in the market around MapReduce and Hadoop in database analytics and we have added those capabilities into IQ 15. 4," Dan Lahl, director of product marketing at Sybase, tells 5 Minute Briefing. With the new release of IQ, he notes, Sybase IQ provides customers a "have it your way" approach.
Posted November 16, 2011
Few things in the world are changing as dramatically as data. Data has tapped out a powerful rhythm to keep time with technology's bleeding edge, leaving many technologies struggling to keep up. It should come as no surprise, then, that many of the data strategies that IT departments developed, and still widely rely upon, are no longer sufficient for today's needs. You can put data marts near the top of that list.
Posted November 10, 2011
It is not magic. Building a successful IT solution takes time. And that time is used in various ways: obtaining an understanding of the goal; mapping out what components are necessary and how those components interact; testing components and their interaction; and finally migrating those components into the production environment - otherwise known as analysis, design, development, testing, and deployment. Regardless of the methodology employed, these functions must always be addressed. Different approaches focus on differing needs and aspects. But any complete methodology must fill in all the blanks for accomplishing each of these tasks.
Posted November 10, 2011
InterSystems Corporation has announced that Kettering Health Network has completed an enterprise-wide transition to the InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and development platform. Kettering is an integrated delivery network (IDN) comprised of more than 60 state-of-the-art facilities where patients throughout the Dayton, Ohio, area are served by more than 1,200 physicians.
Posted November 10, 2011
Schooner Information Technology, Inc., which develops and markets high-availability (HA) high-performance MySQL software for mission-critical applications, has unveiled SchoonerSQL v5.1, a full build of the MySQL database and its standard InnoDB storage engine, with additional Schooner enhancements.
Posted November 02, 2011
Oracle has entered into an agreement to acquire Endeca Technologies, Inc., a provider of unstructured data management, web commerce and business intelligence solutions. "Together, we will provide best-in-class technology to manage structured and unstructured data together; business intelligence tools to analyze structured and unstructured data together; and a broad suite of packaged applications which extends the value of unstructured data into ERP, Supply Chain, CRM, EPM, Web Commerce, and specialized applications," said Thomas Kurian, executive vice president, Oracle Development, in an announcement issued by Oracle. "This technology will also allow us to integrate more comprehensive unstructured data management into Oracle's engineered systems."
Posted November 02, 2011
MarkLogic Corporation today announced general availability of MarkLogic 5, the latest version of its next generation database for unstructured information. MarkLogic 5 includes a new connector for Hadoop to enable large-scale batch processing for big data analytics on the structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data residing inside MarkLogic. Using MarkLogic for real-time analytics with Hadoop for batch processing supports companies that need real time, secure, enterprise applications that are cost effective with high performance. With simple drop-in installation, organizations can run MapReduce on data inside MarkLogic and take advantage of Hadoop's development and management tools, all while being able to leverage MarkLogic's indexes and distributed architecture for performance, resulting in enhanced search, analytics, and delivery in MarkLogic, and enabling organizations to progressively enhance data without having to remove it from the database.
Posted November 01, 2011
Addressing the needs of human resources (HR) departments that support global workforces in real time, SAP AG announced a series of new HR-based mobile apps to help managers and employees execute HR-based requests on-the-go. The new mobile apps from SAP are intended to increase employee and manager productivity, supporting the always-on workforce with real-time mobile capabilities for performing HR-related activities, including interviewing job candidates, managing employee performance, entering and approving leave requests and accessing corporate KPIs.
Posted October 26, 2011
Capgemini, a provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, is cooperating with Sybase, an SAP company, to manage the deployment of enterprise mobility solutions. Capgemini will host mobile solutions powered by industry-leading Sybase Managed Mobility technologies and offer them on a software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service basis. In addition, Capgemini and SAP AG intend to enter into an agreement to build differentiated mobility solutions, through which Capgemini plans to make mobility solutions from SAP available to customers.
Posted October 26, 2011
CA Technologies announced a new solution intended to help companies manage and integrate their database infrastructure with Microsoft's SQL Azure cloud database environment. The new product, CA ERwin Data Modeler for SQL Azure, is designed to enable data managers to make fact-based decisions about which data to move to the cloud and which to keep on premise. This new release of Erwin Data Modeler will also enable data transfer from other databases beyond SQL Server, Donna Burbank, senior director of product marketing for the Data Management business at CA Technologies, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "This solution will enable data transfer from other databases in addition to SQL Server, such as Oracle, Sybase, Teradata, or DB2."
Posted October 26, 2011
Columnar database technology burst on the data warehouse scene just a couple years ago with promises of faster query speeds on vast amounts of data. They delivered on that promise, but at a cost that is no longer worth paying. Here's why.
Posted October 26, 2011
Teradata, a data analytic data solutions provider, announced the latest update to its flagship data warehouse product, as well as new features in its data warehouse appliance. Teradata Database 14 is designed as the analytical engine for powering all of the vendor's "purpose-built" platform family members - from enterprise data warehouses to appliances. "We're including big data application support," says Scott Gnau, president of Teradata Labs at a briefing at the vendor's recent user group event.
Posted October 26, 2011
At its Information on Demand Conference, IBM unveiled its latest business analytics appliance, the IBM Netezza Network Analytics Accelerator, which helps communications services providers (CSPs) leverage and gain insights from big data in a timeframe that can make a difference in their business. "Developing a deep understanding of the customer, their experience, and their digital lifestyle means CSPs can better allocate network resources and create more targeted services using IBM analytics. This is both a challenge and opportunity for CSPs, and those that embrace analytics now will gain a competitive advantage," says Scott Stainken, general manager, IBM Global Telecommunications Industry.
Posted October 25, 2011
Quest International Users Group (Quest) for Oracle PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Oracle Utilities users is laying out an ambitious roadmap for the year ahead, incorporating new in-person product-focused events directed specifically at the needs of the JD Edwards and PeopleSoft communities, as well as expanding its offering of online learning opportunities. Michael L. Whitmer, president of Quest, joined by Jonathan Vaughn, Quest's executive director, talked with 5 Minute Briefing at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco about strategies for supporting members in 2012. There is a shift going on in IT and being technically competent is simply not enough anymore, says Whitmer. "The IT organizations that are going to be successful going forward are those that really move out of being the order-taker organization to being a true business strategy organization, in partnership with the business, and deliver IT in a way that provides business value."
Posted October 20, 2011
At OpenWorld, Oracle's annual week-long conference in San Francisco for customers and partners, Andy Flower, president of the Independent Oracle Users Group, spoke with 5 Minute Briefing about the emerging challenges facing IOUG members, the group's plans for the year ahead, including additional training and certification around Exadata, and how Oracle's engineered systems approach is being received. "The overall need for analytics, the growth of data, and the managing and processing of more and more data - those areas are the central themes for us," Flower noted.
Posted October 19, 2011
More than 600 data managers and professionals completed the IOUG's 2011 survey on database growth. All respondents to this IOUG ResearchWire survey were entered in a sweepstakes drawing to win an Apple iPad. Have you ever wondered if anyone actually wins these prizes?
Posted October 19, 2011
The Oracle Applications Users Group is continuing its Back to Basics theme, Mark C. Clark, president of the OAUG, told 5 Minute Briefing during Oracle OpenWorld, with education and networking, enabled by smaller regional events and online learning opportunities, in addition to its continued participation in larger events such as OpenWorld and COLLABORATE. Upcoming Connection Point events include the "OAUG Connection Point-EPM/BI/R12.1 Upgrade" which will be held November 15-16, 2011, in Atlanta; and the "OAUG Connection Point-Dubai 2012" will be held March 14-15, 2012, in Dubai, UAE.
Posted October 18, 2011
Savvis, a CenturyLink company, launched Savvis Symphony Database, a cloud-based database platform, at Oracle OpenWorld. Symphony Database provisions everything needed for a complete, secure database solution, with just a few clicks. According to the vendor, client advantages include no software licensing or hardware provisioning, and performance levels can be scaled - both up and down - based on business needs, without any downtime, providing performance guarantees and reduced costs compared to hosted database solutions. Users can select from Oracle Enterprise 11G RAC or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 for the underlying technology.
Posted October 18, 2011
Every professional programmer (and DBA) should have a library of books on SQL fundamentals. There are many SQL titles to choose from, and a lot of them are very good. But this month's column will outline four SQL books that should be on every database professional's bookshelf.
Posted October 18, 2011
IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Q1 Labs, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based provider of security intelligence software. The move aims to accelerate IBM's efforts to help clients secure their enterprises by applying analytics to correlate information from key security domains and creating security dashboards for their organizations. Financial terms were not disclosed. Following the close of the acquisition, Q1 Labs will join the newly-formed IBM Security Systems division. The new division will be led by Brendan Hannigan, CEO of Q1 Labs.
Posted October 17, 2011
Every project is, or should be, driven by user requirements. Requirements are the organization's way to articulate what needs to happen in order to provide value. Yet time and again requirements are looked at as something overly technical, mysterious, and too confusing to easily handle. Repeatedly, organizations use a template to ensure that requirements are defined early in the solution process. Sadly, the intended purposes are habitually defeated as these templates are filled with a lack of understanding for what information belongs in a given section, resulting in people creating documents that the authors themselves do not understand. Across many organizations requirements documents are created, reviewed, and even agreed to, that far too often are incoherent monstrosities saying nothing of actual value.
Posted October 15, 2011