There are many things that come to mind when reading the title of this entry, it's a HUGE space with even larger prospects - from the app servers to the databases, from the tips of BI reporting all the way to ethics, security and privacy laws....  And then there's the dreaded: "What if the company supporting my current cloud apps & data fails?"

Hmm, in this entry we will explore the tip of the iceberg as it were, and explore some of the notions to consider when looking at Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing in the cloud...  Why? Because the CLOUD is big, and getting bigger - and because it IS a central and important part of technology evolution in 2010.

Recently I made a key-note presentation at Array Communications conference in the Netherlands.  There were 50 people in the room, and it was a good crowd.  There are quite a few shifts occurring in the EDW/BI market space, and there are some reasons why changes are happening.  Game changing technology is coming to the market in ETL, services, hardware, databases, and applications.

Ok folks, I'm back.  I've spent the last six months reading, writing (and arithmetic - that's a joke... ha-ha...)  seriously, implementing solutions, visiting customer sites, and seeing what's going on in the world; and to that end, the DW/BI world is changing.  You've seen me write about this before, but now it's on-top of your head.

Like it or not...  Your Data Warehouse IS a System Of Record, and if it isn't in 2009, it WILL BE before the end of 2010.  So what does that mean?

There are many trends afoot in the industry, but I think there are two or three that are here to stay, and quite frankly, they will make a huge impact on the way BI/EDW is done. Some of the technologies that are ground-shaking and game-changing include Solid State Disk, Database appliances on the Cloud, and data services on the cloud.  I've been watching the Database market now for several years, and here are a few of my predictions for 2010.

If you've started a Master Data project, or you are working with Metadata at the business levels, then you probably are familiar with the need for ontological classification of terms.  If you aren't familiar with Ontologies (at an entry level), then I would say that you will have a tough time putting together successful MDM or Master Metadata components for your EDW/BI solution.