Blog: Krish Krishnan

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March 31, 2008

Operational Reporting

In the last quarter of 2007, I had listed Operational reporting as a leading BI project for 2008 across the industry. Though I have no official surveys to check against, the feeling from the industry is that more companies are seeing the need for operational reporting and there is one project somewhere in the organization which is an operational reporting project.

As companies start doing more operational reporting, there are a few issues that come to mind

1. Data quality
2. Data consistency
3. Data completeness
4. Metadata
5. Master Data (of any kind)

All of the above play a role in the operational reporting process. Data quality covers bullets 2 and 3 in its own space. But if you have metadata and master data related needs, they are critical components to the success of your operational reporting.

Bottom line, we need to draw attention to the fact that you need organizational data alignment and a data governance committee that can really drive the process. As we move forward in the BI space, please bear in mind that your data drives your business. Having a good data strategy is critical to all the BI projects in your organization.

There are a number of books, whitepapers, articles on this subject and I encourage your to read up on this subject, no matter what level of maturity you are at in your BI projects.

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March 17, 2008

Analytic Appliances

An spurt of activity is seen in the analytic appliances area. There are a number of companies working on this technology space in stealth mode. Why is all of this attention in this subject, is a matter worth discussing.

There are several key factors here, notable among them are

1. BI Acquisitions - With SAP and IBM acquiring players like BO and COGNOS, there is more room for new companies to compete with offerings.

2. Predictive Analytics - This area is going through a second coming. With the ability to process large volume of data, analytic appliances may provide a robust platform for predictive analytics.

There are more thoughts here to discuss. Let us see how this market shapes this year with the current established players and the yet to enter competition. Till then, your perspectives are welcome comments in this discussion.

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March 12, 2008

Why Data Management is a problem

Data management and architecture is becoming a nightmare for corporations. While the demand for more volumes of data at a greater detail keeps driving the IT resources, there are several issues that often get put on the shelf since the price point to manage the data and get it through the data warehouse becomes the focus of the implementation.

What can we do about the data management conundrum. Setting up a Data Steward office brings a point owner and a governance body brings the quality, teamwork and the ability to prioritize the data demands. What can you do when you drink from a garden hose which switches to a fire hose?

This is both a business and technology problem. While the business problem needs to be addressed, this blog will overflow if we discuss that aspect alone. A technology solution to the problem is available in the data warehouse appliance platform. User education needs to be a prime goal to help the blackbox become transparent, but once the understanding is there, the solution architecture becomes self evident.

How we can accomplish this and more will be discussed another day.

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