DBTA E-EDITION
February 2009
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Trends and Applications
Decision-making is no longer restricted to the confines of the office. The need for critical financial metrics for an off-site board meeting, the latest market share reports for a client visit, or timely sales data for a supplier meeting are all examples that highlight the need for anytime, anywhere access to insightful information. If mobile technology is allowing users to check email, download ringtones, play games, manage schedules, and plan tasks, then why should work-related information be left behind? It is not. Mobile business intelligence (MBI), a convergence of business intelligence software, mobile technology, and Internet connectivity, is ensuring that information travels with the mobile workforce.
Virtualization is transforming self-evident physical machines into multiple virtual machines (VMs), which can be cloned instantly at no perceived cost and moved seamlessly from one physical machine to another. While the power of virtualization is enticing, its management implications are daunting. A completely new management protocol is needed to match the dynamic nature of virtual environments and keep pace with their evolution as they move beyond the enterprise and into the cloud.
Alvion Technologies provides a web-enabled platform that allows compilers, resellers and managers of marketing lists to easily deliver their product to end-users in support of targeted marketing efforts. Individual customers submit their data and then Alvion runs customer-specific data transformation and uploads the data to production servers, for access by end-users who are the customers of the data owners. If you need, for example, to find consumers within a 35-mile radius of your business that meet a certain profile, you can go online and find lists within Alvion, put in the criteria you are looking for, and those names will be provided to you, via electronic delivery, be it email or download.
A leading supplier of data integration software for businesses, finding that its developers were spending too much time grappling with data management inside each of its products, adapted its architecture to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and built its own data services platform (DSP). However, problems arose that required a complete rebuilding of the architecture. The underlying cause of those problems? Poorly architected data access.
Columns - Applications Insight
few years ago, it seemed as though the days of the "micro-ISV"-very small Independent software vendors consisting of one or two developers-were over. The role once played by shareware windows applications had been supplanted by free web applications financed by advertising revenue. The start-up costs for such web applications-including funding a scalable and reliable web hosting infrastructure-were beyond the reach of most small software entrepreneurs.
Columns - Database Elaborations
Increased governmental oversight has amplified organizational attention concerning the tracking of content changes made to application database tables. Database log reading tools do not always provide the most useful means of reviewing specific changes for all organizational purposes. Fortunately, other reviewing options do exist.
Columns - DBA Corner
The optimizer is the heart and soul of a relational DBMS. It analyzes SQL statements and determines the most efficient access plan for satisfying each statement. The optimizer accomplishes this by parsing the SQL statement to determine which tables and columns must be accessed. It then queries system information and statistics stored in the system catalog and directory to determine the best method of accomplishing the tasks necessary to satisfy the request.
MV Community
BlueFinity International plans to hold a one-day event which will take place at the Westin Westminster Hotel in Denver, Colorado, on March 27, 2009. ‘Make Microsoft Work for MultiValue' is a technical seminar aimed at MultiValue developers who need to create .NET applications, whether enhancing current applications or building completely new ones. A discounted rate is available for those attending the International Spectrum MultiValue Conference.
Progenixx Inc., developer of software for public housing authorities (PHAs) and Entrinsik Inc., an industry leader in developing reporting solutions for the IBM U2 family of database products have formed a partnership to provide Progenixx customers with Informer Web Reporting, a web-based reporting solution enabling agencies to access information anytime and anywhere. Informer pulls data from UniVerse or UniData databases natively, maintaining the integrity of the MultiValue schema.
Following more than a year of development that has touched almost every entity within the product, Revelation Software has announced the availability of OpenInsight Development Suite (OI) 9.0. It is a free upgrade to current members of Revelation's Works Program.