Yes, it is finally happening, Data Warehouse Appliances are going mainstream. Look at the market from Q1 of this year to today, inspite of the rocky economy, global recession and all other issues, we have seen emergence of the data warehouse appliance platform. From Netezza with its latest functional enhancements to a new platform, to Teradata and Oracle, everybody have embarked on the next big frontier in the IT space. There are a few key factors for this boom, the biggest amongst these is the formidable Web 2.0 and Cloud computing; the next incarnations of the famous "internet", quickly followed by virtualization and a data footprint minimization move by organizations.

Add to this list the ever growing compliance rules, real-time data integration and other data volume drivers; all of these will propel the data warehouse appliance to be a platform for the future.

Data warehouse appliances are here to stay and every CXO will need to learn about this technology, if you want the businesses to move forward in the current state of the state.

As a part of my ongoing analysis and research of this space, I'm offering a series of seminars, the first of which is focused on two big companies NYSE and Con-Way Freight and will take place in Seattle and Chicago on Dec 9th and Dec 11th, respectively. These seminars are sponsored by Netezza - the first appliance platform on which I have conducted research. The links to register are below. Please consider attending if you are interested in learning more about data warehouse appliances and the evolving landscape.

Data Warehouse Appliances Go Mainstream - Seminars

Seattle:
http://www.netezza.com/emailer/2008/seattle_120908.html
Chicago:
http://www.netezza.com/emailer/2008/w_chicago_121108.html
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As we watch the economy slumping around the world and spending becoming lesser, we are left to wonder how can businesses make smarter decisions. Well if you have business intelligence, you know how to be making more insightful decisions, but that does not mean they are smarter decisions. For example, a retail chains BI application and the data warehouse are projecting that same store sales are constantly on the decline, while the trendlines show that lower priced items have more sales volume. Would the store then lower prices or increase campaigns? the smarter decision would be to do both; but how can they make that decision?

I'm in London UK for the IRM UK conference and had dinner with John Schley, Cathy Nolan and Steve Hoberman tonight. John suggested this turkish restaurant called "Kazaan" in Westminster, the food was great. During the dinner conversation, Steve Hoberman mentioned about a "Data Modeling Scorecard" that he has developed. It is a very complex process and entails ~ 500 plus rules in a rules engine that will validate and score your data model. Steve has not decided on how he will take this to the public yet, but for those of us data modelers, this is a cool way to get our models assessed.

The tool may get endorsed by DAMA and other experts in the future, I fully endorse this tool and Steve's approach to evaluating the data model. If you are interested in this subject further please email him at "me@stevehoberman.com" and mention "DM Scorecard Review" in the subject line or visit "www.stevehoberman.com"