Teradata Magazine Blog

In a flash or a cloudy future

Sandra Worley — 11/16/2009

I was excited to see Gartner’s top 10 strategic technologies for 2010, which the research firm published last month. For anyone interested in IT trends and innovation, it’s a compelling list.

Two of the highlighted technologies caught my eye immediately—cloud computing and flash memory. That’s because both have made news recently among Teradata circles.

On Oct. 19, Teradata announced its new Teradata Enterprise Analytics Cloud, which includes both public and private cloud options. Initial offerings are the Teradata Agile Analytics Cloud, Teradata Express on Amazon EC2 and Teradata Express for VMware Player. For users, public and private clouds provide a flexible, pay-as-you-go service for rapidly building short-term analytic data marts. For a short overview, check out this video.

On the same day, Teradata Labs unveiled the new Teradata Extreme Performance Appliance 4555. It utilizes the flash memory technology of solid state drives for data warehouse workloads. The result is lightning-quick performance that is 150 times faster than conventional hard drives. Because of its tremendous speed, it has been dubbed “BLURR.” According to Scott Gnau, head of development, “… Teradata has combined the flash memory speed with the nearly limitless power of the Teradata Database for the hyper-analytic data warehouse. Businesses will be able to use the instantaneous intelligence to take a commanding lead over their competitors, and then leave them behind in a blur.”

It should come as no surprise that Teradata innovation and strategic technologies are once again intersecting. Look for more on cloud computing and flash memory in upcoming issues of Teradata Magazine.

Mike Westholder
Managing Editor
Teradata Magazine

This just in

Sandra Worley — 11/9/2009

At Teradata Magazine Online we’re constantly seeking to offer readers new and informative content, above and beyond what they find in the print edition. In recent months, we’ve begun adding online exclusives to the Web site, giving people another reason to return to the site after the initial publication of each issue. Last month’s online articles included a feature about marketing performance management (MPM) and an article about the oil and gas industry.

In “Tools of the trade,” Mark Jeffery expounds upon the findings of a study on MPM, conducted by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The director of technology initiatives and senior lecturer at the school’s Center for Research and Innovation, Jeffery explains that many organizations lack a formal, systematic process to manage marketing campaigns and aren’t fully taking advantage of supporting technologies. But for those who have, combining MPM best practices and technology have realized a direct, positive impact on corporate performance. He goes on to explain these best practices and the benefits seen by leading-edge companies.

“In uniform” explores how the oil and gas industry established a standard data infrastructure to optimize the construction, operation and maintenance of vast pipeline systems. The article, written by Dr. Vadim Izhevskiy, Teradata solutions sales director for oil and gas, examines industry challenges that “necessitated an integrated spatial data infrastructure capable of more effectively acquiring, processing, storing and leveraging the spatial data from oil and gas production and transportation facilities. Such integrated data sets or databases enable optimum management of the pipeline companies’ assets, as well as the development and integrity of the pipeline systems.”

We hope these articles will whet your appetites in advance of the next issue of Teradata Magazine, which goes live and arrives in mailboxes later this month.

Mike Westholder
Managing Editor
Teradata Magazine

Thanks for the memories

Sandra Worley — 11/9/2009

It’s been more than a week since PARTNERS concluded, and I’m still coming down from my Teradata buzz. At numerous presentations and informal chats, I learned about the exciting, innovative ways Teradata users are leveraging data. That’s certainly a theme for anyone familiar with Teradata Magazine. But even when I think I’ve heard it all, I learned in one session about a retailer that has developed a formula to predict sales of items down to the hour of the day. As a result, analysts will be able to track items that are selling at an atypical rate or when something is about to become out of stock at one of its stores. They will then be able to alert the store manager before the day’s purchase orders are made. This was just one of many innovations I learned about. As I sift through my copious notes, I find myriad nuggets of these types of ingenious initiatives.

At the same time, I met so many dedicated, brilliant business intelligence (BI) professionals. It was a veritable who’s who of data warehousing’s best and brightest—consultants, thought leaders and industry analysts, as well as Teradata’s customers, partners and associates—too many to name. Many of these luminaries have contributed or plan to contribute to Teradata Magazine, which is exciting. But even more rewarding was the positive feedback I received regarding the magazine. It’s high praise indeed coming from this group.

Alas, however, this moment in time is over, and all we can do is wait until next year for PARTNERS 2010, which is Oct. 24-28 in San Diego. Or do we?

For those of us who want relive PARTNERS—or those who couldn’t make the event—more options than ever are available to tap into this experience. Event photos can be seen at Flickr.

Several complete sessions can be viewed at Ustream. And short video reports and more are available on YouTube. Bringing together all of these social networking threads—along with blog posts from the conference—is a new interactive online hub, PARTNERS Connect.

So while PARTNERS 2009 may be over, opportunities remain to gain insight from the event, and gear up for 2010.

Mike Westholder
Managing Editor
Teradata Magazine

Using data to predict the future

Sandra Worley — 10/22/2009

Data is everywhere. This is not news to me, but after attending this, my first PARTNERS conference, I now better understand its relevance. Data is more than simply a customer’s name or number, address or even buying habits. Organizations that use data analytics to their advantage can move past reporting what happened and toward proactively predicting what will or might happen.

During his session “Rethinking BI to Drive Better Decisions,” Gartner’s Garret Herschel explained that most decisions are driven by events—a product’s life cycle, the budget process, etc. The challenge lies in the unplanned events. Instead of dealing with symptoms, he said, organizations should identify the causes of their challenges so they can prevent them in the future.

After listening to Herschel’s presentation, I really began thinking about Teradata customers. What do they use the company’s solutions to enable them to do? Here are some examples based on sessions I attended:

France’s Bouygues Telecom combined disparate databases into a large Teradata enterprise data warehouse (EDW) that is one of the largest in France. The telco did so to reduce costs, improve service levels, share operational data, improve access, become more agile and benefit from operational BI.

Telefonica Chile is part of Telefonica, the largest Spanish telco, which boasts 260 million customers through Europe and Latin America. Telefonica Chile is using Teradata Relationship Manager to reduce customer churn.

The United States Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency and the U.S. Transportation Command deployed a Teradata EDW to modernize aging legacy systems and help the agencies better plan workflows—again through predictive analytics.

STIF, the government organization responsible for public transportation in Paris, implemented its EDW to help reduce the cost of marketing campaigns and centralize information on transportation use and organization routes. Using Oracle Data Integrator as the data hub, a Teradata EDW and IBM Cognos reporting tools, the organization is working to better analyze traffic and identify trends.

After this conference, I may never look at Facebook, my hotel room key or even my doctor’s office in the same way. All three have my data—different parts of it, but it’s data about me nonetheless. I wonder if the next time I stay at this hotel, the room service will be ready with my oatmeal and fresh fruit, predicting that I will place that breakfast order for delivery at 7 a.m. I’ll let you know.

Let us know if you’re doing something cool with your data that we can highlight in Teradata Magazine. We’re always looking for great stories about the ways customers use Teradata technology to improve their organizations.

Evelyn Hoover
Editor-in-Chief
Teradata Magazine

Stein tells of doom and hope for the future

Sandra Worley — 10/21/2009

Economist, author and actor Ben Stein, likely most famous for his role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (remember “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?”), sees doom and hope simultaneously. Known for his dry delivery, Stein took the stage at PARTNERS today to deliver a keynote address to a packed room.

Stein touched on the decline of education in the United States. A teacher for several years, Stein told the audience he gave up the profession because students didn’t do their homework. As evidence to support his point, he cited a study that says that one-quarter of U.S. high school students are capable of obtaining C’s in college. And then he told of his experience with a reality-type TV show starring models, two of whom he spoke to who didn’t know when World War II was or what language was spoken in London.

This is in contrast with Don Tapscott, who spoke Monday, telling the audience that this generation of students is the smartest despite their use of video games and online learning aids. Putting the two on stage together might be an interesting event.

An economist at heart, Stein says that at the end of the day we have no idea what will help turn things around: “You can watch CNBC all day long, but we don’t know what really works to stimulate the economy.”

Small-business lending is down, another indicator Stein perceives as negative. Couple that with the uncertainty about President Obama’s healthcare plan and the possible nuclear armament of Iran and other “mortal enemies,” and Stein isn’t seeing a bright future.

Where, then, lies hope for this country? Stein sees it in what he calls “real stars.” He’s not talking about the TV and movie stars who make their living in Hollywood. Instead he’s referring to the men and women who daily don body armor and risk their lives for little pay in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

During his frequent trips to Washington, D.C. (the site of this year’s PARTNERS conference), Stein, a resident of Malibu, Calif., frequently stops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he visits with hospitalized soldiers and their families, which he refers to as the “backbone of the United States of America.”

Of the soldiers, along with police officers, firefighters and teachers, Stein says, “It is in their hearts, in their courage and their sacrifice that salvation lies.”

Evelyn Hoover
Editor-in-Chief
Teradata Magazine

Transparency and accountability in government

Sandra Worley — 10/20/2009

Last fall’s U.S. election cast a spotlight on technology, making it a focal point for politicians as well as the electorate. Data is the enormous story, and its applicability to our everyday lives is examined in Stephen Baker’s book, “The Numerati.” Baker, a senior writer for BusinessWeek, wrote the book after researching a mathematics article for the magazine. He posits that through understanding data, people will better understand themselves.

Some car insurers, for example, are giving drivers the option of installing a “black box” in their cars to monitor driving habits. In exchange for doing so, the drivers receive a discount. Those who want to remain anonymous are going to pay more down the road, according to Baker.

Baker was part of a technology in government panel held at the National Press Club today. Joining him on the panel, which was moderated by Teradata Vice President of Government Affairs Tim Day, were Teradata CTO Stephen Brobst and Stephen Horne, vice president, Master Data Management and Integration Services, Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group.

Myriad areas of government could benefit from increased transparency and accountability, according to the panel members. Brobst used healthcare as his example, saying that using the past to predict the future and then making decisions based on the analysis of that data could be used to make healthcare more proactive.

Horne focused on financial reporting issues. The government is what he described as “data rich and information poor.” Scores of reports are generated each year in accordance with government regulations, but they simply sit on shelves. No attempts are made to take that data and use it to solve problems. HR 1242 has been introduced in an attempt to change this, creating a database that could then be analyzed to provide meaningful, actionable information, Horne says.

While individual pieces of data may not mean anything, larger amounts of data from multiple points, once filtered to get to the truth, can lead to major insights, according to Horne.

Evelyn Hoover
Editor-in-Chief
Teradata Magazine

Orange passion and innovation

Sandra Worley — 10/19/2009

This is my first PARTNERS conference. I have long known about the passion Teradata employees feel about their company and its products. But I am blown away by customers’ love of all things orange.

At a reception last night, I was chatting with a senior application developer for a company that uses Teradata extensively. Her face positively lit up when she explained how she developed a Web-based dashboard for sales and management use.

Speaking of passion and orange, James Vollmer, chair of the PARTNERS Steering Committee, made quite an entrance at the general session when he drove on stage in an orange sports car adorned with the PARTNERS logo. Vollmer, who professes to be a farm boy, explained how his company, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, reused its existing tools in innovative ways to increase the organization’s agility.

Enterprise’s Automated Rental System was developed to improve customer satisfaction by defining inefficiencies through the analysis of, among other data, how long customers’ cars were in the shop for service. This information is important to insurance companies, repair shops and, of course, Enterprise.

Furthering the innovation theme, Computerworld announced the winners of its Enterprise Intelligence Awards program, which honors best practices in the use of information technology solutions built on Teradata platforms. AT&T received top honors in Customer Intelligence and Management. RBC Financial Group topped the Excellence in BI and Analytics category. The Government and Non-Profit award went to the United States Postal Service. ARC was honored for Industry Innovation. And Australian Pharmaceutical Industries took first in the Integrated View of the Business group.

All of these customers are driving innovation at their companies. Teradata President and CEO Mike Koehler echoed the message of innovation, saying that cutting costs is easy to do, but innovating and growing a business is difficult. As a company, Teradata continues to lead. Koehler’s examples: Teradata 13, Teradata Virtual Storage, the new Solid State Drive Appliance—aptly dubbed “BLURR”—and new Amazon cloud solutions.

How has Teradata helped your company innovate? Which of the new products is your company deploying? We’d love to hear from you.

Evelyn Hoover
Editor-in-Chief
Teradata Magazine

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Sandra Worley — 10/18/2009

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Sandra Worley — 10/18/2009

Networking while lending a hand - PARTNERS style

Sandra Worley — 10/18/2009

One of the great things about a conference like PARTNERS is the networking opportunity it provides. Attendees connect throughout the conference in myriad ways—including in and after sessions, during planned networking events and during meals. Other fantastic opportunities, like the Teradata Cares program and the annual golf tournament allow attendees to give back while they make contacts.

Yesterday’s second annual Bike Brigade at PARTNERS 2009 started the conference off on the right note, er, pedal. Approximately 18 Teradata employees, customers and business partners built a total of 35 bikes as part of the Teradata Cares program. The bikes were donated to the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington for the club’s Be Great program.

Teradata Cares is also looking for school supply donations as part of the Math Matters campaign, which last year provided supplies to more than 300 children in the Las Vegas community. This year’s Web based program benefits Kits for Kidz, which provides school supplies for underprivileged children in the Washginton, D.C. area. To donate and help Teradata Cares reach its goal of providing supplies for 500 children.

Another way that PARTNERS attendees are making a difference is on the golf course. The annual Driving for Higher Education Golf Tournament was held at National Golf Club at Tantallon and benefited the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. Golfers took to the links at Tantallon, one of the premier golf resorts in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
If you have participated in any of these great programs, let us know why you did it and what you thought of the experience. We’d love to hear from you.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sean Slack, a Teradata employee, makes few final adjustments to a bike for its new owner from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington. They earned their bikes through the club’s Be Great program. The bikes were donated by Teradata Corporation, a DC-area employer.

When Worlds Collide

Sandra Worley — 10/12/2009

Throughout the year, we each revolve separately in our own little solar systems. But once a year, all the stars in this galaxy called the Teradata PARTNERS User Group align to become one brilliant and powerful display.

Our lives are inexorably entwined through our data warehousing connections and for a few days we’ll draw together at the PARTNERS Conference & Expo to share our collective wisdom and goodwill. We’ll be both pupil and teacher; competitor and friend. This is my destiny. There’s no place I’d rather be.

Teradata Magazine has a lot going on. From casual tweets to formal interviews for articles, we’ll be doing it all. But of course, our primary focus will be on you--to find out what readers want to see most in the publication. We hope to have the opportunity to talk with you there but even if you're not making the trip in person, you can be right in the middle of the action through PARTNERS Connect where you can check out news, tweets, pics and brand new for 2009, you can even catch some of the sessions as live, streaming broadcasts.

I've seen lots of firsts and bests at the Conference over the years. Honestly, I can't say there was a "most memorable" moment. Although there was that time when a customer's story made the interviewer cry... and the sight of my boss's boss face as we pulled into the station after the Hulk ride...

Obviously, the Conference is what YOU make of it. Do you have a favorite memory--one that you think nobody could top?

Sandra Worley
Executive Editor, Teradata Magazine

Connect-the-dots

David Placke — 9/14/2009

Connect to a Better Bottom Line

David Placke — 9/14/2009

In the Q3 2009 issue of Teradata Magazine our cover story, Connect the dots, highlights how innovative organizations are linking their back office analytical data repositories directly to their front lines for operational decision support. Teradata CTO Stephen Brobst addresses, in Brave new world, the evolutionary shift of traditional data warehousing to an Active Enterprise Intelligence™ environment and explains how enterprise application integration and a service-oriented architecture close the loop between transactional and decisioning services in Unlock the full potential.

In Right (on) time, Mike Ferguson, Intelligent Business Strategies Limited and Dan Graham, Teradata, discuss right-time business optimization is highlighted as the key that enables employees at all levels to work together to reach an organization’s objectives. And, as Lisa Loftis from Strategic Viewpoints explains in Dialing in customers, when it comes to reach and relevance, it’s hard to beat the immediate marketing approach of the mobile channel.

Gartner shares its research on the 9 fatal flaws that can thwart a company’s business intelligence (BI) efforts. Empowering the bank’s employees with information is critical to the success as Standard Chartered First Bank Korea articulates in Money in the bank, where Teradata Relationship Manager enables the development of more effective and individualized marketing campaigns for its prime customers.

When Western Digital sought to improve its quality-control efforts, a Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance empowered the company providing a Key to quality. Also on the subject of appliances, a team of experts from Teradata details points to consider when conducting a data warehouse appliance benchmark in You be the judge.

In A proven path to success tried-and-true project planning advice provided by experienced experts ensures a successful data warehouse implementation. On a larger scale, Extreme breakthrough explains how a large volume data warehouse can cost-effectively analyze high-volume data types that were previously disregarded because of their magnitude. Additionally, The power within showcases how organizations are saving both money and time by performing in-database analytics through various SAS and Teradata Advantage Programs.

Perfect match outlines the exceptional value of partnering business process management with BI technologies. Learn how understanding and controlling hierarchies and cross-reference relationships among data in Maintaining relationships are made easier with the framework provided by Teradata Master Data Management. And finally, discover how to travel back to Moments in time with Teradata Viewpoint Rewind.

Visit http://www.teradata.com/tdmo/ to access these articles and more.

Q2 2009 Teradata Magazine

Rick Loconto — 6/24/2009

Organizations must adjust their strategies to fluctuating economic conditions to compete effectively. Short term wins and greater risk-taking might have paid off for companies sprinting through boom times. However, crossing the finish line in the current environment requires greater efficiency and prudent use of resources.

The Q2 2009 issue of Teradata Magazine focuses on the improved productivity and effectiveness that data warehousing and business intelligence (BI) can uncover and enable.

Senior director of enterprise BI at Cisco Systems, Kevin Bolden, explores ways to leverage data in lean times. Randy Lea, vice president of Global Product and Services Marketing at Teradata, explains the value of data mart consolidation in reducing costs and making more intelligent decisions.

Innovative organizations such as Poste Italiane, SNS Bank and ARC provide prime examples of how to better serve, communicate with and retain customers by tapping into the capabilities of an enterprise data warehouse. At street level, growing numbers of IT professionals are facing a tough job market by honing their skills and broadening their knowledge through certification.

As companies rethink the traditional workplace—often as a means to reduce office expenses—the number of remote workers is rising. This brings new opportunities and challenges for IT and management.

Revitalizing an existing data warehouse is just one way businesses are making the most of what they have. For those just starting a data warehouse implementation, careful planning is required.

In Tech2Tech, Larissa Moss, president of Method Focus Inc., presents her Business Intelligence Roadmap. Learn about the new Teradata Virtual Storage option which enhances system management by enabling optimal system balance in the data warehouse. In addition, we examine how query banding can provide more detail in workload management and workflow analysis.

In the long run, organizations need to rethink their business operations to become leaner and improve agility if they are to succeed. Please visit http://www.teradata.com/tdmo/ to access these articles and more.

Q1 2009 Teradata Magazine

Rick Loconto — 6/24/2009

Lots of companies are looking to reduce energy expenses and fuel costs by finding the added benefit of reducing their environmental impact. The Q1 2009 issue of Teradata Magazine explains how data solutions can enable green innovation and often improve an organization’s bottom line.

For many organizations, identifying and analyzing potential green initiatives requires accessing clear, complete and accurate data. Sustainability leaders leverage their data to monitor business practices to ensure they are meeting targets for energy usage and fuel consumption.

Sustainability is only one area where data can be applied for exceptional results. Teradata customers rely on their data to conduct in-depth analytics to accentuate their agility and response times. For businesses looking to implement an Active Enterprise Intelligence™ environment, data services can provide a necessary bridge to a comprehensive and successful data solution.

One way Teradata is tailoring solutions to its customers’ specific needs is through the Teradata Accelerate program. In our Tech2Tech section, we examine how this approach bundles hardware, software and services to fit a company’s needs. This issue of the magazine also includes tips on how to perform a software upgrade from the Service Focus Team, a committee of the Teradata PARTNERS User Group, which works closely with Teradata on issues related to support services and other areas.

Clearly, top companies consistently find new and exciting ways to leverage their data to improve their operations. Enabling new and exciting green initiatives is only one way we see the power of data. Please visit http://www.teradata.com/tdmo/ to access these articles and more. And make sure you check back at the end of May for the all-new Q2 issue that focuses on what organizations must do to adjust their strategies to compete effectively during fluctuating economic conditions.

1 million segments of one

Rick Loconto — 12/19/2008

Imagine if you could talk to each one of your customers one-on-one. Like they’re your neighbor or babysitter or cousin.

In the next issue of Teradata Magazine, we talk to Kari Opdal who leads CRM at Gjensidige, the largest property and casualty insurance company in Norway. In her story, Kari introduces an idea that stuck with me – the idea of using CRM to create one million segments of one.

Wow. Consider the power in that. That’s more than just a marketing tactic; it’s a shift of the entire business model… moving from product-focused selling to a customer-focused approach.

The foundation is the ability to track and understand individual customer behavior. In the next issue of Teradata Magazine, you can hear how Kari got there – and what impact it’s had on Gjensidige’s business.

Rest Assured: Virtual Storage is Virtually Effortless

Rick Loconto — 12/16/2008

Whenever a new software release comes out, it’s easy to think “Great. More work.” I even cringe whenever I see a new update in iTunes – I get terrified that things will change and I’ll have to re-learn the ropes.

That being said, I’m here to report good news.

In the next issue of Teradata Magazine we answer user questions about Teradata 13 – including how much effort is required to place the data on the right storage (Teradata 13 adds virtual storage capabilities to the Teradata Database).

The answer is none. No extra administrative effort is required. Teradata Virtual Storage fully automates data placement on the physical storage.

You ask, “How?”

First, each allocation unit is monitored for its access frequency. Then, the access pattern is used to place the allocation unit on the part of the storage pool that corresponds with the performance for data with that pattern. Data placement is optimized within zones on a single spindle and among multi¬ple spindles that have different performance characteristics.

Because Teradata Virtual Storage operates at the allocation unit level, parts of a single table can be optimized differently: The hot partitions will be placed on faster storage, and the cool ones will be placed on slower parts of the disk pool.

More of your Teradata 13 questions will be answered in the print issue of the Magazine.

Road Rules for Throttles

Rick Loconto — 12/11/2008

In the next issue of Teradata Magazine, Carrie Ballinger answers questions about query concurrency – likening the database to the busy Los Angeles freeways. But, like the drivers on the LA interstates, we just can’t wait. Here’s one of the questions Carrie addresses in the next issue.

Q. Some of my queries have long answer sets. Since I’m using a lot of throttles, I am concerned that these queries are holding onto a query slot while the long answer set is being returned. When is the query considered com¬plete, and at what point is the counter lowered so the next query can begin running?

A. The query is considered finished when the final database step has completed and the last-completed AMP worker task is released. This is before the BYNET driver returns the answer set. Even if the answer set is large, your next query can begin execution without having to wait for the client to receive the entire answer set.

Virtual Storage – What Does that Mean?

Rick Loconto — 12/8/2008

One of the key capabilities of Teradata 13 will be virtual storage. This is not the “virtual storage” that my kids used to use to almost put their clean laundry away. It's much, much cooler than that.

What is virtual storage in Teradata?

Here's how it works:

The AMP's link to the physical disks is eliminated, and all disks connected to a group of nodes, or clique, are treated as one storage pool. Storage is handed out as needed in small allocation units to AMPs and can be returned to the pool if required.

All of the unique properties of the Teradata shared-nothing logical architecture are preserved with an assignment of each allocation unit to a single AMP, despite sharing the physical disks. Teradata Virtual Storage is implemented transparently at the storage level, so no changes are required to applications using the Teradata Database.

Demographics Alone No Longer Enough

Rick Loconto — 12/2/2008

Traditional media outlets have used demographics to target potential consumers for a long time. We've seen these stats for years... male, 40-55 years old, household income of $100-$150K... And for long time, that's all we had to base decisions on.

But media is a-changing. With the emergence of new media outlets - particularly those online -we find that demographics aren't telling the full tale. Today, campaigns are more efficient when they focus on people's actions and behaviors.

Tim Bridges (who guest writes a column on this topic in the next Teradata Magazine) calls these behavioral profiles... How we behave as a parent, a trader, or a cook. And it's only when we combine the demographics with these "behaviors" that we can see the true persona of our customers.

Why is this so important? In his column, Bridges shares a startling stat from ZenithOptimedia’s Global Advertising Analysis:

"Worldwide advertising waste – money spent on messages that reached the wrong audience or none at all – reached more than $200 billion in 2007."
That's a lot of dough.

So, how do we get these behavioral profiles?

Digital media outlets offer us more information about customers. In turn, we gain the ability to increase the sophistication in our marketing - adding channels and finely segmenting and tuning our messaging.

But that also presents a challenge... growing and complex data is only useful if you have the ability to analyze it.

Sounds like a Catch 22. But the payoff is worth it.

Tim Bridges of Capgemini explains more in his guest column in Teradata Magazine - hitting mailboxes soon.

10 habits that dramatically impact data quality

Rick Loconto — 11/25/2008

In the next issue of Teradata Magazine, Thomas C. Redman offers us 10 Habits for Data Quality. Among his list of must-have habits, “The Data Doc” asks us to change the way we think about data users. Instead of thinking of your peers as just data users (or other mild expletives), think of them as your customers. How can you serve them?

It's the idea of putting your feet in the other man's shoes... Stepping onto the other side of the fence... and thinking about what you would need if faced with someone else's challenges.

Shifting your perception may help you break down data quality roadblocks. You will be in a better position to understand how you can work together. And improve data quality.

This shift cannot be done with the flip of a switch, however. And there are nine more habits impacting data quality.

Find them in the next print issue of Teradata Magazine.

It's off to the presses

Rick Loconto — 11/21/2008

Another issue of Teradata Magazine is out my cubicle door and off to the presses. For this issue, we tapped into some excellent minds – experts in data quality and in technology deployment, plus our in-house Teradata Certified Professionals.

For this issue, we talked to:

Tim Bridges, a vice president and the Media and Entertainment Practice leader for Capgemini in North America, about online advertising and what these new sources of data can teach us about consumer behavior.
”The Data Doc,” Thomas C. Redman, who gave us 10 habits for data quality. Thomas is president of Navesink Consulting Group and his fourth book, “Data Driven: Profiting from Your Most Important Business Asset,” was published by Harvard Business Press in September 2008. Thomas also has a white paper on Teradata.com called “Data Warehouses and Quality: Not Just for IT Anymore.”

Look for insights from these outstanding guest writers – and more – in the next issue of Teradata Magazine. It should hit your mailbox in early December.

200 Partners Presentations Now Available

Rick Loconto — 10/29/2008

If you attended PARTNERS this year in Las Vegas you can download the session presentations. Use your Registration ID to login and view over 200 sessions that covered topics tailored to business, technical, management, and executive attendees.

Of the many sessions and guru presentations, one consistent, thought-provoking theme of note was analytics. It's becoming increasingly more common - and more important – to keep an eye on predicting and improving business performances in the future. This has shifted analytics from simply an application, to a service explained Oliver Ratzesberger, Senior Director, Architecture and Operations at eBay Inc.

"eBay has the distinction of running the world's largest commercial enterprise data warehouse (EDW) environment at five petabytes, powered by Teradata."

"The metrics you know are cheap, while the metrics you don't know are expensive but also high in potential ROI," Oliver said. Eighty-five percent of eBay’s analytical workload is new and unknown, meaning that exploration is at the core of its analytics model.

As a result, eBay has instituted an architecture that allows them to better manage a growing data warehouse, referring to it as "analytics as a service." To accomodate growth, the design can't be static or dependent on specific queries. The configuration has given eBay an advanced self-service model that allows users to leverage virtual systems for their individual or department needs. Download the presentation for more information about how the approach has helped eBay deploy self-service initiatives and more rapidly bring new ideas to market.

Oliver also presented eBay's 100PB Analytical Systems Architecture and discussed the extreme scalability of processing 100PB of data daily and active/mixed workload concepts and strategies. eBay has the distinction of running the world's largest commercial enterprise data warehouse (EDW) environment at five petabytes.

Here are quick reviews of additional analytics presentations now available online:

Advancing Beyond Analytics: Aligning People, Process and Technology to Get Closer to Customers presented by Mohan Sawheny, Kellogg School of Management

Advanced Analytics play a critical role in successful CRM initiatives. The future of analytics includes new data types, real-time insights, unstructured data and collaborative analytics from individuals across the value network. Key takeaways:

Analytics as a driver of competitive advantage
Barriers to analytics center around people and technology
Developing an analytics culture is a change management process
Analytics should be embedded "end-to-end" in the customer cycle

Predictive Analytics: Building the Right Business Solution An Evolutionary Approach presented by Becky Briggs, Airlines Reporting Corporation

The key to ARC's Profitable Analytics is using different approaches to gain insight into their industry and data to drive change in processes and behavior. ARC's BI has evolved from dashboard and scorecard analysis to the highest level of business value and complexity within predictive analysis … and it has helped translate advanced analytics into economic value.

Teradata Analytical Sandbox: Experimentation and Production Play Together presented by Danny Maddox and James Scoggins, Teradata Corporation

The presentation provides validation of how Teradata Analytical Sandbox will improve efficiencies while improving the environment, and it leverages the speed of Teradata with in-database processing. Business users can utilize data in the EDW supplemented with data in the Analytical Sandbox to:

Build new models and analytics.
Validate and improve current models and risk analytics.
Identify new attribute definitions to be promoted to the EDW.
Investigate the findings and issues in the EDW data.

These are only the tip of the iceberg. Jump over to the PARTNERS website and find more valuable presentations.

PARTNERS Coverage

Rick Loconto — 10/17/2008

Winding down from a full week of PARTNERS Conference sessions and activities... "Full week" is a huge understatement. Since we can't cover every session and every aspect of the conference, I want to direct you to some folks who have done an outstanding job reporting on the event. Check out these blogs and sites for additional coverage.

William McKnight with the B•eye Network
Richard Hackathorn, also with the B•eye Network
Mark Madsen's posts for the Intelligent Enterprise blog
Sundeep Kapur with NCR
DBMS2 for a recap of major announcements
B•eye also did a series of podcasts from PARTNERS

If there others that you like, send us the links.

We'll be writing additional session recaps and conference observations from home. Thanks for joining us in Las Vegas - we hope you had a great time and safe travels.

A Super Super Session

Rick Loconto — 10/17/2008

This was my second year to attend PARTNERS and I sat in on a couple of the Super Sessions, which were both excellent. One presentation I attended by Gartner entitled “Future Trends in Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence" was presented by analyst Donald Feinberg who discussed how the DW has changed and grown to accommodate many new applications and is used today for purposes not imagined five or even three years ago, such as the volume of unstructured data now being stored. Don also covered how many organizations are struggling with issues around the DW, e.g., current topologies, and proliferation of data marts, archaic DW models, and performance issues.

Mr. Feinburg, who has previously been a Mathematics Professor at Boston University and the director of product marketing at Oracle, discussed how technology shapes solutions and the organizations themselves. And how enterprises all the way to the top, are realizing the value of business intelligence, especially important in the current economic situation. This presentation, as well as the presentation of many other sessions, is expected to be online soon for those who attended PARTNERS. However, I wanted to highlight a couple slides that Don discussed that I found relevant to my experience.

Bind the Sponsor to the Justification – Ouch, that sounds painful! In this slide, Feinburg discussed what typically happens with an enterprise project or program on the left side as “Good” and where it needs to move through “Better” to “Best” state to have the greatest chance to get adopted. I spent four years as a VP at JPMorgan in the Technology and Operations business unit which was about 28,000 people and it always intrigued me how and why any particular technology initiative made it through a business case process and received funding and a green light.

At Morgan, most of technology was seen as an investment and non-revenue producing. The success of technology projects was almost all about doing the ground work with key sponsors throughout the business units that could benefit from the technology. This is where my background in marketing came in handy in working with the business units to uncover and find the right way to communicate the most tangible benefits and opportunities. This was most successful as illustrated in Don’s slide, when the benefits were direct costs or new revenue streams vs indirect or soft benefits such as productivity savings.

Maturing Data Management Technology – This slide is one of my favorite presentation formats from Gartner. For those who may not have seen this, Gartner calls this the Hype Cycle, and it is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies.

These phases are beautifully labeled from left to right, Technology Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment and finally the Plateau of Productivity. Hype Cycles also show how and when technologies move beyond hype, and offer practical benefits and become widely accepted. These cycles remind me of some of the ideas in the book that first gave me an understanding of technology marketing and adoption, Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm.

Competitive pressures are driving businesses to capture more data in hopes they can better analyze, understand, acquire, and retain their most valuable customers. DB systems have matured to the point now where it is cheaper to store unstructured data, such as paper, in the DW than it is to keep it on paper. A few things are noted in red on the slide for where they are now, or how fast they are moving along the curve.

Database as a Service
Open source DB systems – another slide Don highlighted how fast and far Linux has passed Unix
DW appliances
XML enabled DBMS

Wednesday at PARTNERS

Rick Loconto — 10/15/2008

Quick video of PARTNERS activities on Wednesday, Oct 15.

What does a box of chocolates have to do with data warehousing?

Rick Loconto — 10/15/2008

First of all, there weren't any chocolates given out in this session.

And yes, I still stayed.

David McMath, director of data warehousing and business intelligence for Netflix, co-presented a session with Dr. Mark Hopkins, a senior consultant for Teradata. The duo talked about the experience of implementing a Teradata Enterprise Data Warehouse and its impacts on CRM. Netflix introduced its EDW just one year ago, and has already seen interesting returns.

What I liked about the presentation was that the speakers broke it down into bite-sized morsels. (And they kept the chocolate theme running throughout.) Here are some of the highlights, or what David and Dr. Hopkins might call "tidbits to chew on."

It's okay to fail. Just fail quickly and recover more quickly - this company culture at Netflix has helped the EDW implementation to be successful. There's a willingness to try things, take risks, and move forward.
Every three months, Netflix churns 95% of its inventory. They're moving a lot of movies... and not just through the mail. They're also delivering films to your PC, TV, and soon to your Xbox 360.
How is data warehousing like a box of chocolates? Variety... There is some "sweet goodness" for everyone in this box: marketing, product, purchasing, etc. can all find something they like. The data has value to the business users.
With their custom solution, Netflix has been able to identify problems in DVD durability by vendor... start an email markting channel from the ground up in less than 7 months... build better relationships with movie studios... and play ball in a fiercely competitive at-home movie war with Blockbuster.

I'd tell you more, but my sweet tooth is suddenly calling out... I'm going to have to tend to that before the Goo Goo Dolls concert this evening.

Wednesday Morning @ Partners with Lance

Rick Loconto — 10/15/2008

Started this morning (after a few cups of coffee, of course) with a keynote presentation by Lance Armstrong. Definitely an inspiring way to start the day.

Lance walked us through his experiences with cancer – learning that he had advanced testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain, his treatment, and his ongoing "obligation of the cured."

It's that "obligation of the cured" that led him to start the Livestrong Foundation – selling over 70 million yellow wristbands ("ballers", Lance said, is what they were known as among basketball players).

Lance says he has to get back to work - a five hour bike ride. Me too - off to a session. If I'd known better, maybe I would have brought my bike. :)