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Blog: Dan E. LinstedtFebruary 25, 2008The new evolution of Data ModelingBill Inmon and I sat down the other day to discuss a system that we are building. We didn't have a good "name" for it, but what it amounts to is: Operational Data Warehousing. If you can believe it, what we've done is taken the Operational specifics of systems capturing data - and placed it on top of the Data Warehouse as a single integrated historical and operational data store. We are currently using the Data Vault model for this componentry. Some folks have called this "Active Data Warehousing" in the past, but we feel that this is one step beyond, in that it actually IS the operational store at the same time as being the Data Warehouse. Convergence has arrived... Continue reading "The new evolution of Data Modeling" » December 19, 2006Necessities of GovernanceGovernance is an industry buzzword these days, with all the SOA initiatives going on, one would think that Governance would be on the top of the list as well. If you're not governing your enterprise consolidation, you probably are not taking full advantage of the benefits and cost savings that could be coming your way. Sure governance is an uphill battle in the beginning, sure everyone fights standards and agreed standards, and yes - absolutely - no one can seem to decide on how to define the common data sets (common data model). But if you're involved in, or working with SOA it is imperative to engage governance at the enterprise level. However it's not just governance that makes it work, a formal methodology should be utilized to assist with the governance as the organization organically grows its efforts. These include: ITIL, SEI/CMMI and a few others. Continue reading "Necessities of Governance" » May 15, 2006The Answer? MDM - MMDM - SOA and RegistriesThe question? What does the new business initiative really need to focus on? Today's business initiatives seem to be headed in many different directions, from SOA to MDM to registries, and business processes. The issue is that when different initiatives take on different directions (rather than a consolidated view and set of drivers) they all end up at different destinations. The cost is heart-ache, silo'd solutions, and a maintenance nightmare. The bottom line is that there is convergence afoot. I've written about this over the past 5 years in my convergence articles on TDAN, B-Eye Network, and Teradata Magazine. In this entry we'll explore what business should do, and how they should approach these very different initiatives (all with a common goal). Continue reading "The Answer? MDM - MMDM - SOA and Registries" » April 15, 2006Demystifying SoR (System of Record) and MDMWhen Claudia Imhoff and Shawn Rogers and I got together for lunch the other day, we discussed this notion of SoR - it's a very interesting take. SoR has long been held as a single definition, and has been defined as residing in the source systems. Today, there are multiple definitions (3 to be exact) of SoR. Particularly since MDM evokes new notions of what SoR means to the business, as does a compliant and auditable enterprise warehouse. In this entry I'll walk through the multiple definitions of SoR. In my MDM night course in August at TDWI (2006, San Diego) I'll be discussing many of these things. Continue reading "Demystifying SoR (System of Record) and MDM" » April 14, 2006MDM: Deciphering Vendor HypeI've been blogging about MDM for a while now, and in my last entry I defined what Master Data and Master Metadata should be. By the way, both of those definitions along with the entry has been certified by Bill Inmon, and Clive Finkelstein as the standard definitions for MDM. In my sense of adventure I decided to take a look at 10 different vendors, what they claim MDM to be, how they define it (if they define it), and how they claim to implement it. What I discovered is not that shocking, MDM SOFTWARE: BUYER BE-WARE!! WARNING: THIS ENTRY IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART, IT IS MY BIASED OPINION ON WHAT MDM REALLY IS VERSUS WHAT VENDORS CLAIM IT TO BE. I'm not saying that vendors are all wrong or bad, quite the contrary - I'm saying that while Master data vendors have good software and provide ROI, not all solutions are built to meet your needs, and the marketing hype would have you believe otherwise. Continue reading "MDM: Deciphering Vendor Hype" » April 7, 2006Clarifying MDM - Setting StandardsI've had a lot of great feedback on the MDM blogs that I've been adding lately, and one kind individual sent me an email asking for a couple of things, including a definition, a practical criteria, a practical taxonomy, and to keep the picture simple enough for organizations to use. In this entry I will do my best to offer my *opinion* on the subject, I am open to comments, corrections, and thoughts from all of you - again, this will be only my opinion. Please note that my opinion is biased towards compliance, accountability of data, traceability, and accountability of business users and arises from my experiences with SEI/CMM, PMP, Six Sigma, TQM, BPR, Lean Initiatives and Cycle Time Reduction. I can't wait to hear back from you. Continue reading "Clarifying MDM - Setting Standards" » January 30, 2006Active and Right-Time Data Warehousing DefinedRecently I've been asked about Active Data Warehousing, and (Real-time) Right Time Data Warehousing, what do these mean to the enterprise? In this short blog entry, I offer my opinion on the definition of each. In future entries I will define the basics of building one, the questions to ask, and potential value to the enterprise. I lead an effort in Active Data Warehousing, and Right Time Data Warehousing for Myers-Holum, Inc. We have best practices surrounding these efforts, and will soon offer tips and tricks for free on our site. Continue reading "Active and Right-Time Data Warehousing Defined" » January 26, 2006System of Registry (SoR) what does it mean?In the interest of SOA, and on my search for governance lately, I've been looking at System Of Registry (SoR) and what it means. If you've got an SOA project, or would like to build one, or maybe you're looking at Master Data Management (MDM) or metadata stewardship, or data stewardship then you might be interested in understanding basic registries and systems of registries. In the SOA/EII world there has been a lot of buzz about SoR and what it can provide, some vendors offer software to answer this call, and state that their SoR software helps you build a complete solution when it's integrated with other efforts. What does this mean? How can an SoR help you? Why would you want one? Continue reading "System of Registry (SoR) what does it mean?" » January 24, 2006System of Registries and your Master DataIt is vital in any EII implementation to MANAGE YOUR METADATA. Well, what the heck does that mean? That's a big definition, but it certainly encompasses the ability to manage your services from a GUI perspective, manage the interaction of the API's under the covers, and the accessibility of the EII queries. At a process level it may mean to handle your web-services with ease. Continue reading "System of Registries and your Master Data" » December 13, 2005Were does EII need to go?In this entry I will explore some futuristic capabilities (a wish list) of features that I would like to see EII work towards. The real questions are beginning to surface about EII and ETL / ETLT and EAI, there are other questions about web-services, security, standardization, and the best practices needed for implementation of SOA around the enterprise. Let's take a look at the feature set that may be needed via an EII tool in the near future. Continue reading "Were does EII need to go?" » November 17, 2005EII - Fight the Hype, Build EII for the Right Reasons!Here we go again, YET ANOTHER EII vendor pushing the fact that they can "replace" the need for a data warehouse. In this blog I will talk about the issues that customers face if they DON'T implement a data warehouse. There are pros and cons to everything, fight the hype that EII is the be-all-end-all solution, it's NOT. EII is one successful piece to the puzzle; we just need to know where it fits. Continue reading "EII - Fight the Hype, Build EII for the Right Reasons!" » November 2, 2005Real-time versus Right-Time, Who's Right?Nothing makes my skin crawl more than to hear "REAL-TIME SYSTEMS" shouted from the pulpits, especially from those in-the-know who should never use this phrase. This is a media phrase used by marketers for marketing to grab market share. It's a FALLACY, a false-hood, a nonsensical term. Not even the fastest systems in the world are REAL-TIME. Warning: This blog is a VENT, read at your own risk of agreement. Also note, parts of these ideas are credited to: Stephen Brobst, as we have had many discussions on this topic. Continue reading "Real-time versus Right-Time, Who's Right?" » What does ETL do that EAI Can't?The reason for these posts under SOA, is that this is where the convergence of these technologies is headed. In other words, SOA "fabric" relies on all of these tool sets and paradigms to work together to achieve best of breed integration. I've been asked on another post about this specific subject, so here are my thoughts. My thoughts tend to be on the edge, and hopefully spur some comments from knowledgeable individuals in the field. With that, let's take a look. Continue reading "What does ETL do that EAI Can't?" » October 26, 2005Got Dirty SOX? EII & ADW & IQRecently my discussions in the field have centered on Information Quality (or the lack thereof) and the EII tool set as well as the Active Data Warehouse (right-time data warehouse). We will explore this exceedingly dry (hopefully interesting) aspect in this blog entry, particularly in relation to Compliance and Integration - but I felt that it fits under SOA as well - so here goes. Continue reading "Got Dirty SOX? EII & ADW & IQ" » October 20, 2005Push-Pull Pros and ConsI've been asked about the pros and cons of ETL push-pull, I thought I'd generalize the issue a little more into the pros and cons of Push Pull technology in general. I'm including EII, and EAI in this posting. It's not that push or pull is necessarily bad by itself, its' more about using the right notion for the right data access at the right time. Continue reading "Push-Pull Pros and Cons" » October 5, 2005EII and Unstructured Data - Blowout Party of the year!Ok, so maybe a piece of software can't really party - but we can! :) Claudia just posted a blog on the need for garnering semi-structured and unstructured data within the enterprise warehouse. Bill Inmon has got an unstructured/semi structured data retrieval and visualization tool, we see more information being pushed under the compliance umbrella. That leaves us asking many questions, like: Do I need to monitor all e-mails? How do I decide what's important and what's not in my "sea of word-docs?" How and what impact does it have on my EDW? Continue reading "EII and Unstructured Data - Blowout Party of the year!" » September 20, 2005EII, EAI, and ETL in Laymans TermsPardon my ignorance, I'm still learning EII too - where it fits, how it's growing up, and what customers really can do with it in the long run. Lately I've been asked to describe EII vs EAI vs ETL in layman’s terms. I'll attempt to do this in this (short) entry. Again, if I misunderstand, please correct me for the benefit of the community, and I'll go seek additional definitions for better content next time. By the way, I do enjoy the comments I've been getting from Tim Mathews (and others). He has a blog on Ipedo's web site: http://blogs.ipedo.com/integration_insider/ Continue reading "EII, EAI, and ETL in Laymans Terms" » April 25, 2005SOA and Business Rule ChangesWelcome to part two of this entry. Here we will discuss the impact of business rule changes as they pertain to an SOA, compared to the impact of changes on a Data Warehouse. We will also begin a discussion (that will continue for a while) on the impact of these changes to the metadata underneath, and the other systems that SOA might use, such as EII, and EAI. Again, this blog is open to comments and corrections - I'm always willing to learn new things, and SOA is a new adventure for me too. I'd be honored of an SOA heavyweight would weigh in and help clarify things. Continue reading "SOA and Business Rule Changes" » SOA and DW beyond the big pictureI am delighted to see a comment requesting further clarification on SOA, DW and reporting beyond the big picture. I will do my best to dig into additional explanation as to why they fit together, and what business purposes they serve. As always, I'm learning about the SOA world as well, so any feedback or comments (or even corrections) are more than welcome. This blog is basically an opinionated view point on where this technology is heading. I think there are two blogs to answering this question, so I'll split it into two parts. The first part goes through basic explanations of SOA and operational analysis. The second part will dive into the impact of changes to an SOA, and business metadata. Continue reading "SOA and DW beyond the big picture" » April 8, 2005Is this the ULTIMATE SOA Payback application?Ok, I just finished blogging a rant - sorry guys, but it had to be said. In that blog (posted here) I suggest that maybe I should build my own data warehouse on myself, well that would require 1) rights to access my own information, 2) free rights to access it any time I wanted, from anywhere I wanted. Sounds like an SOA to me. So let's open the soap-box a little further shall we? Continue reading "Is this the ULTIMATE SOA Payback application?" » |
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