OSS Public:Research Shelf/OSBI Daily Archive
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This lists all the past entries that have appeared in the OSBI Daily (http://www.squidoo.com/osbi/#module1316436). Daily tip, definition, quote, concept and other information on DW, BI or Open Source is provided in OSBI Daily through the OSBI Squidoo lens.
July 2007
2007.07.04
Happy Independence Day in the USA, and we hope your enjoying the 4th day of July wherever you are. We hope that you have clear skies, and great fireworks. For the first time that I can remember on the Coast, we have clear skies today. Usually, we just watch the fog turn pink, the fog turn green, and the fog gets bright, and then the smoke from the fireworks mingles with the fog and all goes grey. ;-)
2007.07.01
Pentaho has announced that the Université of Montréal has picked Pentaho after an extensive bake-off among many other offerings including Business Objects (already owned it), Oracle BI (already owned it), and SAS (considered it); Pentaho also that they've replaced Crystal Reports at Boyne Resorts.
June 2007
2007.06.30
The server has been restored.
2007.06.25
The server is down.
May 2007
2007.05.09
SpagoBI 2.2.0 with some spanking new features (http://forge.objectweb.org/project/shownotes.php?release_id=1934) is available for download (http://forge.objectweb.org/project/showfiles.php?group_id=195&release_id=1934). Mule 1.4 has been released with new BPM (http://mule.codehaus.org/display/MULE/Release+Notes) support features. JasperSoft wins the 2007 Duke's Choice Award at JavaOne (http://www.jasperforge.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=312&Itemid=2) Developer Conference with James Gosling name the JasperReports Open Source project among Coolest products in the World for Java Technology.
2007.05.05-08
We're still being a bit lazy and not updating the OSBI Daily as we should.
2007.05.04
The Open Source ThinkTank 2007 (http://thinktank.olliancegroup.com/) was held in March by the Olliance Group and DLA Piper, who have available for immediate download a PDF of their 14-page Executive Summary Report (http://thinktank.olliancegroup.com/ostt2007report.pdf). The Executive Summary is very informative, showing increased acceptance of Open Source Solutions, continued barriers to adoption, and impact upon proprietary software vendors.
2007.04.27-05.03
Just didn't find anything that was all that interesting, and didn't feel like making something up.
April 2007
2007.04.27-05.03
Just didn't find anything that was all that interesting, and didn't feel like making something up.
2007.04.24
Here's the feeds you need to find the goodies from MySQL2007 PlanetMySQL Feed (http://www.planetmysql.org/rss20.xml), MySQL from Technorati (http://feeds.technorati.com/feed/posts/tag/MySQL+Conference), MySQL on IceRocket (http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=blog&q=MySQL&rss=1), and MySQL on Google (http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=MySQL+Conference&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss).
2007.04.23
We've put together what we hope is a comprehensive guide to open source BI and data warehousing at the 2007 MySQL (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/04/23/bi_and_dw_at_mysql_2007) Conference and Exposition.
2007.04.21-22
Rain on Saturday but sunny on Sunday, as it should be ;-)
2007.04.20
JasperSoft will have a booth and be presenting on three topics (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/04/21/jaspersoft_at_mysql2007) at the MySQL Conference & Expo 2007.
2007.04.19
An integrated reporting solution is coming to OpenOffice.org as reported (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20070419_pentaho_adds_reporting_solution_to_openoffice.php) by Pentaho and Sun Microsystems today. The jFreeReport open source report project was brought into Pentaho in late 2005, and has been enhanced with "drag-and-drop report designer, MDX support, and integration with the Pentaho platform for report scheduling, security, and portal integration[;] Pentaho's recently-announced standards-based metadata layer and AJAX-based ad hoc query tool will also support and extend Pentaho Reporting's capabilities" allowing OpenOffice.org users "to create reports with content from the OpenOffice.org Base database as well as a wide range of proprietary and open source relational databases, OLAP and XML sources".
2007.04.18
Mondrian 2.3 is available (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=35302&package_id=27786&release_id=496204) for download.
2007.04.17
JasperSoft has announced (http://www.jaspersoft.com/nw_press_jaspersoft_30000_jasperforge.html) that JasperForge.org (http://jasperforge.org/) has passed 30,000 registered members, with over 130 projects that "range from developer tools to integration toolkits to localization powered by an interactive online translation tool, JasperBabylon, where more than 30 different translation projects are underway. Some of the more popular JasperForge.org projects include the Drupal Bridge for JasperReports, iReport with Hibernate, Oracle Stored Procedures, Reporting and OLAP Analysis Tools for Bugzilla, and Jasper4Eclipse, an iReport plug-in project for eclipse".
2007.04.16
The Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/wsbpel/)) version 2.0 has been approved as an OASIS Standard (http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-04-12.php), signifying the highest level of ratification by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org/)).
2007.04.13
I (Joseph) spent the afternoon yesterday at the JasperSoft HQ (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/04/13/an_afternoon_at_jaspersoft).
2007.04.03-12
No OSBI Daily these days. We've been hard at work updating our information and researching the OSBI projects that we've been tracking as well as looking for new ones. We'll be updating the lens over the next few weeks.
2007.04.03
Matt Casters, founder of the open source KETTLE ETL/EAI project will be presenting at the MySQL 2007 Conference; he has more detail and another invitation to the Pentaho BoaF (http://www.ibridge.be/?p=39) on his blog.
2007.04.02
Talend has announced the opening of their U.S.A. Headquarters, as well as several new executive hires (http://www.talend.com/press/opening-us.htm) in Palo Alto, CA. Clarise's Top 10 "BI on a Budget," (http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/46571_1/) wraps up Campus Technology, 4/1/2007 issue.
2007.03.31-04.01
It was foggy on the Coast this weekend, inspiring me to make lasagna. I hope all had great April's Foolery.
March 2007
2007.03.31-04.01
It was foggy on the Coast this weekend, inspiring me to make lasagna. I hope all had great April's Foolery.
2007.03.30
MuleCon2007 was a great success. Mule has a summary page up (http://mule.codehaus.org/display/MULE/MuleCon+2007,+San+Francisco) with links to our blogging (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss?s=MuleCon2007&sentence=AND&submit=Search), the MuleSource blog recaps (http://blogs.mulesource.com/), and PDFs of all the presentations and training available for download. Whether you were there or not, this is a great resource for learning about Mule (http://mule.codehaus.org/display/MULE/MuleCon+2007,+San+Francisco) and possibilities opened up with ESB.
2007.03.29
Nicholas Goodman will be conducting Operational BI Training with Pentaho in the San Francisco Bay Area, April 23 -26; module 1, "Introduction to Design Studio" & module 2, "Pentaho Report Development and Deployment."; register via his blog, and state so in the comments (http://www.nicholasgoodman.com/bt/blog/2007/03/26/meet-me-in-san-francisco-pentaho-training/), and get some extra Pentaho schwag.
2007.03.28
Julian Hyde, founder of Mondrian OLAP, will be speaking at the 2007 MySQL user conference, and hosting a Mondrian BoaF. He's asking (http://julianhyde.blogspot.com/2007/03/mondrian-and-me-at-mysql.html) for topics of interest.
2007.03.27-28
MuleSource is hosting a free [as in beer] two-day MuleCon (http://mule.mulesource.org/wiki/display/MULE/MuleCon+2007%2C+San+Francisco) in San Francisco on March 27 & 28; day 1 focuses on introductory and mid-level training while day 2 emphasizes Mule 2.0 roadmap updates to the community. We'll be blogging the Mule training (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss?s=MuleCon2007&sentence=AND&submit=Search) from there.
2007.03.26
The Apache wiki has two links to articles regarding the relationship between Service Component Architecture and Java Business Integration (http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/pages/viewblogposts.action?key=SM&postingDate=2007%2F3%2F22&period=5) for your SOA ESB. phpPgAdmin v4.1.1 is available (http://phppgadmin.sourceforge.net/) for download.
2007.03.25
The Campus Technology 2007 schedule (http://campustechnology.com/conference/index.aspx) is online; we have more information on OSS and BI related sessions (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/03/25/campus_technology_2007_schedule) on our blog.
2007.03.24
A debate that's be going on for a few years was raised again, with an OSBI slant, by Matt Asay in his post "Does first winner take all in open source? (http://asay.blogspot.com/2007/03/does-first-winner-take-all-in-open.html)".
2007.03.23
Check out the Open Source Community (http://opensourcecommunity.org/); it's only been established recently as "a place for those of us interested in open source solutions and community issues to come and talk" - so go there and join in. We're attending the OSCMS2007 Summit at Yahoo! yesterday and today, and blogging (http://press.teleinteractive.net/tia_life?s=OSCMS2007&sentence=AND&submit=Search) it.
2007.03.22
The editors of Dr. Dobb's Journal announced (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-22-2007/0004551328&EDATE=) the winners of the 17th annual Jolt Product Excellence and Productivity Awards. Pentaho is one of the Productivity Award winners in the Enterprise Tools category. We're attending the OSCMS2007 Summit at Yahoo! today and tomorrow, and blogging (http://press.teleinteractive.net/tia_life?s=OSCMS2007&sentence=AND&submit=Search) it.
2007.03.21
MuleSource (http://www.mulesource.com) has added three key new hires (http://www.mulesource.com/company/press_releases/Newhires_032107.php) with deep SOA and ESB backgrounds: Mike Lewis (VP of Sales), Daniel Brum (Technical Director) and Damian Raffell (VP of EMEA Sales and Operations). Pentaho (http://www.pentaho.org/)'s recent sales announcements, to iStockphoto (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20070313_istockphoto_deploys_pentaho_for_reporting_and_data_integration.php) and ZipReality (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20070321_ziprealty_deploys_pentaho_for_etl.php), show how OSBI components are being used to supplement and enhance existing data warehousing implementations based on proprietary and home-grown systems.
2007.03.20
TheServerSide Java Symposium (http://javasymposium.techtarget.com/lasvegas/index.html) starts tomorrow in Las Vegas, NV, USA. The next version of the open source license is dividing the community, and it isn't even out yet says Charles Babcock in the March 17, 2007 (From the March 19, 2007 issue) posting for InformationWeek The Controversy over GPLv3 (http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001444). Ian Skerrett has some EclipseCon 2007 Demographics (http://ianskerrett.wordpress.com/2007/03/16/eclipsecon-2007-demographics/).
2007.03.19
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols discusses Microsoft's announced plans to release the source for the FoxPro (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2105307,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616) database & programming language.
2007.03.17-18
Happy St. Patrick's Day weekend for March 17 & 18. Enjoy my Corned Beef & Cabbage (http://press.teleinteractive.net/cynasuralog/2007/03/17/corned_beef_and_cabbage_buono_sanctus_pa) and even leftovers (http://press.teleinteractive.net/cynasuralog/2007/03/18/leftover_corned_beef_and_cabbage_recipes). Éirinn go Brách.
2007.03.16
No Daily for March 15th as the Squidoo editor just blanked out on us. But here's some things that caught our eyes yesterday and today. The Open Source Software in Education Series (http://www.wikieducator.org/Open_Source_Software_in_Education_Series_on_Terra_Incognita) on Terra Incognita wiki lists upcoming articles. Some bloggers who attended the Oliance Opens Source Think Tank were posting their thoughts: Gianugo Rabellino (http://www.rabellino.it/blog/2007/03/15/thoughts-from-the-tank/), Fabrizio Capobianco (http://www.funambol.com/blog/capo/2007/03/what-difference-year-makes.html) and Don Klaiss (http://blog.compiere.com/2007/03/will_compiere_r.html).
2007.03.14
BIRT has made PDFs of their EclipseCon2007 presentations available (http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/presos/) for download. Today is your last chance to save with early bird registration (http://mysqlconf.com/) for the MySQL Conference.
2007.03.13
EnterpriseDB announced the availability of their new RemoteDBA (http://www.enterprisedb.com/news_events/press_releases/13_03_07.do) service for EnterpriseDB and PostrgeSQL; the RemoteDBA service includes (http://www.enterprisedb.com/support/remotedba.do), among other things, application evaluation, migration, deployment and monitoring. SpagoBI will be presenting (http://spagobi.eng.it/ecm/faces/public/guest/home/highlighted?portal:componentId=highlighted-detail&portal:type=action&portal:isSecure=false&uicomponent=RemoteDetail&op=viewDocument&objectId=production:/cms/publications/news-events/events/EngineeringAndSpagoBIatPAAL2007) at PAAL 2007 (http://www.paal2007.it/) (Open and Free Public Administration - Opportunity, Critical Aspects and Experiences in the Application of Free Software and Open Standards in the Italian Public Administration) at Pula (Sardinia, Italy), March 15-16, 2007.
2007.03.12
MySQL GUI Tools Bundle for 5.0 is available for download (http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/gui-tools/5.0.html) under the MySQL AB "dual licensing" model. And speaking of MySQL, there are only a few days left for early-bird discounting on registration (http://www.mysqlconf.com/pub/w/54/register.html) for the 2007 MySQL Conference & Expo. BIRT 2.2 Milestone 5 has been released (http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/project/notable2.2M5.php) to the public. We missed it back in February, but Talend has a partnership (http://spagobi.eng.it/ecm/faces/public/guest/home/press-release?portal:componentId=press-release-detail&portal:type=action&portal:isSecure=false&uicomponent=RemoteDetail&op=viewDocument&objectId=production:/cms/publications/news-events/press-release/TalendOpenStudioandSpagoBIPartnership) with SpagoBI bringing ETL to the SpagoBI suite, as Talend has done with JasperSoft.
2007.03.09
Our Internet connectivity went down early this week, ending today, and with it went our ability to update the OSBI Daily. So, we had a week off, and we hope that you'll rejoin us on Monday, March 12.
2007.03.03-04
Happy weekend. Saturday was incredibly sunny and warm Coastside. Sunday had a few clouds, and not quite as warm, but was a great day nonetheless.
2007.03.02
Firebird 2.0.1 Release Candidate 2 kits (http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=fb201_rc2) for Windows and Linux are available for testing. MuleSource is hosting a free [as in beer] two-day MuleCon (http://mule.mulesource.org/wiki/display/MULE/MuleCon+2007%2C+San+Francisco) in San Francisco on March 27 & 28; day 1 focuses on training while day 2 emphasizes Mule 2.0 community updates.
2007.03.01
Mark Madsen tells us (http://clickstream.blogspot.com/2007/02/full-day-conference-session-on-open.html) that The Data Warehousing Institute is planning a full day conference session for May. Open Source and commercial SaaS are one step closer to integration today with MuleSource announcing a connector (http://www.mulesource.com/company/press_releases/Salesforce_022807.php) for the Mule ESB into the online CRM/SFA salesforce.com. And while not related to open source, Oracle has announced that it has agreed to buy Hyperion Solutions (http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2007_mar/hyperion.html) Corporation (NASDAQ: HYSL) through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion.
February 2007
2007.02.28
In collaboration with rPath, Ingres has announced the general availability of Icebreaker (http://www.ingres.com/press/2007-02-27_Icebreaker.php), a virtualized software appliance RDBMS making the operating system transparent. This validates our opinion of the true value of vitualization (http://press.teleinteractive.net/cynasuralog/2006/12/15/three_months_with_a_mac#virtualization), beyond running Windows on MacOSX or Linux, or Linux on Windows or MacOSX. In other DW Appliance news, see "Data warehousing: the appliance of science (http://www.cbronline.com/article_cbr.asp?guid=9104551D-56C1-4EE7-BDF9-BD219E8685BF)" 27th February 2007 by Madan Sheina. It's an interesting read, though we don't necessarily agree with everything in it, such as the view that the start-up's open source based DW Appliances are only suited for data marts, given that some scale to petabyte levels of storage.
2007.02.27
If you're a fan of the PALO (http://www.palo.net/) open source MOLAP for spreadsheets solution, you'll be happy to know that the final release of version 1.5 is available (http://www.palo.net/index.php?show=66bec900afd48a1ea44b4c2ebfda490e), as well as a revised roadmap (http://www.palo.net/index.php?show=2ba716b69dabc5f1e38eda6c22ba6a04) for version 2. In other news, JasperSoft and MySQL have announced the availability of Jasper for MySQL: OEM Edition (http://www.jaspersoft.com/nw_press_jaspersoft_jasper_for_mysql.html), a suite of operational reporting products that includes a high-performance interactive report server, a graphical report creation tool, and a pixel-perfect reporting system with dashboards, tables, crosstabs and charts. And speaking of MySQL, Dave Dargo has the most cogent view on MySQL as a "real" RDBMS (http://davedargo.blogspot.com/2007/02/mysql-real-database-or-not.html) that we've yet seen.
2007.02.26
BI To Build or Buy or Open Source (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/02/26/bi_to_build_or_buy_or_open_source) is a post we wrote today in our Open Source Solutions blog that will help us prepare, through your comments, for our upcoming presentation at Campus Technology 2007, and hopefully help our readers with an outline of the strategic options available today in creating a BI solution.
2007.02.24-25
We hope that you had a great weekend. Here on the San Mateo County Coastside we had some light rain, and a wee bit of sun on Saturday, with heavy rain, and even hail, on Sunday.
2007.02.23
DATAllegro (http://www.datallegro.com/) made a series of announcements on 2007 February 20th, including the release of v3 (http://www.datallegro.com/pr/2_20_07_datallegro_v3.asp) of their data warehouse appliance, strengthening of the relationship with Ingres (http://www.datallegro.com/pr/2_20_07_datallegro_ingres.asp), use of EMC's CLARiiON (http://www.datallegro.com/pr/2_20_07_datallegro_emc.asp), and use of Cisco's InfiniBand Switches (http://www.datallegro.com/pr/2_20_07_datallegro_cisco.asp).
2007.02.22
We've been away for a few days, so here's a list of links to make up for our lackadaisical ways.
- Mulesource (http://www.mulesource.com/) announces GetMule (http://www.getmule.com/), a minisite with convenient links to downloading the Mule ESB (http://www.mulesource.com/download/), getting the RedMonk white paper (http://www.getmule.com/reportform.php) on ESB, complete a survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=625633298361) - get a T-shirt, and watch Ross on Flash (http://www.getmule.com/mule_overview_flash1.php)
- Pentaho on Web2.0-roids (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20070222_pentaho_announces_general_availability_of_pentaho_ajax.php)
- Pentaho at MySQL (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20070220_pentaho_headlines_data_warehousing_and_bi_topics_at_mysql_2007_user_conference.php)
- Get a PDF (http://www.sun.com/emrkt/srsc/postgresql/c_06-1081_SunOmniTl_SB-Fhr.pdf) from Sun Microsystems on a PostgreSQL DW success story
- Julian writes (http://julianhyde.blogspot.com/2007/02/mondrian-at-fisl-8th-international-free.html) about Mauro Pichiliani's upcoming Mondrian talk at the 8th International Free Software Forum (FISL)
Enjoy the news, and thanks to the 72 folk who find us to be del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/post?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.squidoo.com%2Fosbi%2F&title=Open%20Source%20Business%20Intelligence%20on%20Squidoo&jump=no&partner=delbg).
2007.02.20-21
No news is good news. :-D
2007.02.19
Happy President's Day in the USA.
2007.02.17-18
Have a good weekend.
2007.02.16
ServiceMix 3.1 (http://incubator.apache.org/servicemix/servicemix-31.html) was made available on 2007 February 12. This release includes a bunch of new JBI components, and a lot of new features, improvements and bug fixes.
2007.02.15
Bennett Voyles, "Data Mining & Business Intelligence >> Open for Business (http://www.campustechnology.com/article.asp?id=20093)," from Campus Technology, 2007.02.01, is up on the web. Ben interviewed me (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2006/11/29/osbi_for_campus_technology_magazine) for this article. Look for quotes and comments from "di Paolantonio" on pages 3,4 & 5 of the web article (http://www.campustechnology.com/article.asp?id=20093).
2007.02.14
The Open Solutions Alliance (http://www.opensolutionsalliance.org/) was formally announced on 2007 February 13 at the Linuxworld Open Solutions Summit being held in New York City, NY, USA. In their own words, "The Open Solutions Alliance will seek to expand the market for business open source software solutions through cooperative action that increases awareness of member solutions, reduces barriers to customer adoption, facilitates interoperability, and explains the benefits of open source solutions.". Among the founding members are OSBI solution vendors JasperSoft [BI Suite], Talend [ETL], and EnterpriseDB [RDBMS]. One goal of the organization is to improve interoperability among the members' products. In an example given by Michael Harvey, chief marketing officer of CentricCRM, the work could make it easier for customers using their customer-relations software to use JasperSoft's data-mining software to plumb customer records for particular information.
2007.02.13
Julian Hyde announced planned improvements (http://julianhyde.blogspot.com/2007/02/mondrian-cache-control.html) to Mondrian's cache control to better enable real-time OLAP using Mondrian.
2007.02.12
The third release candidate of version 1.5 of the MOLAP engine Palo was released today (http://www.palo.net/index2.php?show=2aa5aeb28a572f1f1dbb01b1996da740) for evaluation and comment.
2007.02.10 & 11
Enjoy the weekend.
2007.02.09
We are adding Labkey (http://labkey.com/)'s CPAS (https://cpas.fhcrc.org/Project/home/begin.view?), currently at version 1.7, to our list of Data Mining (http://press.teleinteractive.net/index.php/ossLinks?cat=369) open source solutions. CPAS (https://cpas.fhcrc.org/Project/home/about/begin.view) is a secure, scientific bioinformatics & collaboration portal, written in Java, and provided under the Apache License. Thanks to Zack Urlocker (http://www.theopenforce.com/2007/02/labkey_computat.html) for pointing out this software.
2007.02.08
Greenplum announces (http://greenplum.com/news/pressRelease.php?item=20070206b) US$19MM in new financing and a new CEO, former Sun Microsystems' Senior Vice President of US sales, Bill Cook. This caught VentureBeat's notice (http://venturebeat.com/2007/02/05/greenplum-and-the-web-20-server/), bringing attention to the Greenplum/Sun data warehousing appliance (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2006/07/26/commercial_open_source_appliance_by_sun) as the Web2.0 Server. In unrelated news, despite three executives recently leaving (http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=197003440), Ingres has released a new developer bundle for Elipse (http://ingres.com/press/2007-02-07_Eclipse.php).
2007.02.07
Pentaho announced (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20070206_pentaho_announces_2006_pentaho_partner_awards.php) the winners of the 2006 Pentaho Partner Awards. The awards were presented last week at Pentaho’s Worldwide Partner Summit in Orlando, Florida and include BPM Conseil (http://www.bpm-conseil.com/), OpenBI (http://www.openbi.com/), and Two Heads srl (http://www.pentaho.com/services/partners/partnerProgram.php?partner=50).
2007.02.06
PostgreSQL Security Update (http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.741) was released to fix the reported vulnerabilities that have been reported in PostgreSQL which may cause Denial of Services.
2007.02.05
Secunia (http://secunia.com/advisories/24033/) released an advisory regarding some vulnerabilities that have been reported in PostgreSQL which may cause Denial of Services.
2007.02.02-04
No announcements.
2007.02.01
Pentaho announced the availability of Pentaho Data Integration 2.4 (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20070201_pentaho_announces_ga_pentaho_data_integration_2_4.php). This latest version adds massively parallel processing (MPP) support as well as additional ease-of-use features to its GUI designer.
January 2007
2007.01.31
JasperSoft Corporation (http://www.jaspersoft.com/) announced the addition of JasperETL™ (http://www.jaspersoft.com/nw_press_jaspersoft_etl_talend.html), a robust Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) product, to the JasperSoft Business Intelligence Suite (JBIS). JasperETL adds data management capabilities to JBIS, which will be made available in Open Source and Professional editions, and was developed through a technology partnership with Talend (http://www.talend.com/). Talend is an open source software provider for data integration tools.
2007.01.30
Mary Grush has invited the authors of this lens (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/01/29/campus_technology_2007) to speak at the Campus Technology 2007 (http://campustechnology.com/conferences/summer2007/index.asp) conference to be held in Washington, D.C., USA. We'll be speaking on Wednesday, 2007 August 1 at 11:15am-12:15pm. From our initial conversations with Mary, we'll be discussing, per the flexible placeholder title, "The Economics of BI: Cost-Effective Implementation Strategies/Cost Effective BI/DW Strategy". In other words, providing a framework for implementing data warehousing, data mining, dashboards and other forms of data analytics and business intelligence with an eye towards the cost and economics of the strategy. The framework will delineate management and leadership strategies, and introduce the audience to open source solutions for BI Suites and various related tools. We'll develop this in the OSS Blog (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss?s=Campus+Technology+2007&sentence=sentence&submit=Search) as much as we can. We would really appreciate any comments there, to help us refine our talk.
2007.01.29
One strategic question that you must ask yourself when planning the architecture for a new data analytics program, is how you are going to integrate the data from all of your various source systems. If you are primarily setting up an enterprise data warehouse for historical reports, analysis and trend spotting, traditional ETL may be the way to go. If you are looking more towards real-time analysis and dashboards, you may want to consider an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). There are some good entries for open source ESB, some using the Java Business Interface (JBI) from Sun Microsystems, and some not doing so. Both camps are worth a look as you decide the mix of ETL, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and ESB appropriate to your users' needs.
2007.01.26
Earlier this month, Palo, the MOLAP plug-in for Microsoft Excel, announced plans to support OpenOffice.org Calc (http://www.palo.net/index2.php?show=f111794a6ee9a3922b023dd43f35926d). They've found development and financial support, but more is always better. Check out the Palo announcement (http://www.palo.net/index2.php?show=f111794a6ee9a3922b023dd43f35926d) and see if you can help.
2007.01.25
Nat Torkington is asking "what you think are the three most important open source projects going today" in a post on O'Reilly Radar (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/01/survey_three_mo.html). He's conducting a survey with a promise to go into details and "the numbers" next week. Go over there and make your opinion heard.
2007.01.24
Several open source projects related to our OSBI coverage, have been nominated Finalists for the 17th Annual Jolt Product Excellence Awards from CMP Technology's Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-23-2007/0004510941&EDATE=). Among these are Pentaho (http://www.pentaho.com/), Mule (http://mulesource.com/), dbDeploy (http://dbdeploy.com/) and Liferay (http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/home)
2007.01.23
DecisionStudio (http://decisionstudio.com/home) brings together open source software into a desktop business intelligence solution (http://decisionstudio.com/wiki/doku.php?id=platform_technical_details) using MySQL for an underlying data warehouse, MySQL Adminstrator, MySQL Query Browser, DBDesigner Workbench, the R Project and Tinn-R, iReport and Python.
2007.01.22
The GOLAP project no longer shows on Sourceforge.net or even in Google. We've removed it from our linkblog and link modules.
2007.01.19
The Open Source graphical PostgreSQL administration tool for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Solaris, pgAdmin III v1.6.2 (http://www.pgadmin.org/download/) is available for download.
2007.01.18
EnterpriseDB announced (http://www.enterprisedb.com/news_events/press_releases/17_01_07.do) the immediate availability of technical support packages for PostgreSQL as well as changes to the subscription offerings available for its Oracle-compatible EnterpriseDB Advanced Server relational database management system (RDBMS).
2007.01.17
Talend Open Studio (http://www.talend.com/index.htm) reached over 25,000 downloads in early January, 2007. As of 1007.01.12, Talend Open Studio v1.1.1 became available for download (http://www.talend.com/downloads-talend.htm).
2007.01.16
Mondrian 2.2 (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=35302) is available for download. Read the Release Notes (http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=35302&release_id=460253) to see what is included in this release.
2007.01.15
Clover.ETL rel 2.0.3 (http://cloveretl.berlios.de/index.php) was released on 2007 January 10 and is available for download (http://cloveretl.berlios.de/download.php).
2007.01.14
Derby 10.2.2.0 (http://db.apache.org/derby/derby_downloads.html) is available for download.
2007.01.13
EnterpriseDB Advanced Server 8.1 R2 Update 1 (8.1.5.21) (http://www.enterprisedb.com/products/download.do) is available for download.
2007.01.12
Dave Dargo blogs about his 2006 activities for Ingres and announces he is leaving (http://blogs.ingres.com/davedargo/content/2007-01-11.html) his position as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Chief Technology Officer. It seems he'll be doing more consulting as well and has started a new blog (http://davedargo.blogspot.com/), which shows that he'll be playing some golf, as well.
2007.01.09-11
No OSBI Daily today. There were problems editing the lens, and then we were off to MacWorld. From MacWorld we can say that the Apple iPhone looks slick, but isn't the converged device we want (http://press.teleinteractive.net/cynasuralog/2005/06/01/perfect_handheld_not_yet).
2007.01.08
Berkeley DB XML Release 2.3 (http://www.oracle.com/database/berkeley-db/xml/index.html) is now available. This release contains enhancements for Performance Improvements, event API and updated XQuery 1.0 & XPath 2.0.
2007.01.07
PostgreSQL 8.2 is now available for download. (http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/) The release notes (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/release-8-2.html) lists the user requested performance enhancements and functionality included in this release.
2007.01.06
An initial Developer Preview 1 release of BaseTen, Open Source Mac framework for PostgreSQL databases (http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.710) has been announced. This release is intended for evaluation purposes only.
2007.01.05
BIRT is an open source Eclipse-based reporting system. On December 21, 2006, the Features within BIRT 2.2 Milestone 2 (http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/project/notable2.2M2.php)
was published. Listed features included:
- BIRT Web Project Wizard
- Open Data Access (ODA) Project Wizards
- New Chart Riser Types
- Flat File Data Source Changes
- Joint Data Set Improvement
2007.01.04
We were contacted by Stephanie Endlich of Jedox GmbH (http://www.jedox.com/), who suggested a better description for Palo (http://www.palo.net/): "PALO is a memory based Open Source MOLAP which is able to consolidate data hierarchies in real time and which supports write-back of data. It provides a MDDB and a free Microsoft Excel add-in. For flexible integration Palo offers APIs for Java, PHP, C and .NET. From their homepage... 'Palo is an advanced data store for Microsoft Excel that allows you to handle large amounts of Excel data on a small number of worksheets. In addition, it also allows you to share Excel data real-time with your colleagues.'" Let us know what you think in comments to our nearly identical blog post (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/01/04/update_to_our_palo_description), and we'll update our description accordingly.
2007.01.03
You can get the OPML file of our [press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2007/01/03/bloggers_blogging_open_source blogroll of bloggers blogging about open source] from our blog. ;-) Feel free to import and use it in your favorite feed reader.
2007.01.02
Palo 1.5 RC1 is available (http://www.palo.net/index2.php?show=3af981cf59d925572d007f4b0cdca7f9)
As of 2006 December 27, the first release candidate of the new Palo 1.5 is available for download (http://www.palo.net/index2.php?show=3). Palo 1.5RC1 offers major improvements based on speed, user rights and new functions.
2007.01.01
Happy New Year. The OSBI Daily will return on 2007 January 2.
December 2006
2006.12.31
Happy New Year. The OSBI Daily will return on 2007 January 2.
2006.12.30
Firebird team released its Roadmap for 2007. (http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=devel&sub=engine&id=roadmap_2007&nosb=1)
2006.12.29
OpenMFG (http://www.openmfg.com/), LLC announced (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2006/12/29/openrpt_2_0_available_for_download) the availability of OpenRPT 2.0 for download (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=132959) as of 2006 December 20.
2006.12.28
SourceForge.net has version 1.3.0 of both JasperReports (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=36382) and iReport (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64348) available for download, though we haven't seen an official announcement (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2006/12/28/current_version_confusion_for_jasperrepo) yet.
2006.12.27
Pentaho Corp. announced on December 14th (http://www.pentaho.org/news/releases/20061214_google_code_features_pentaho.php) that Google Code (http://code.google.com) is featuring Pentaho's AJAX-based integration with the Google Maps API. Pentaho's example was selected as a compelling and innovative example of the flexibility and power of the Google Maps API.
2006.12.26
SQL Manager for PostgreSQL v. 3.8 released (http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.704) Source: PostgreSQL News Links
2006.12.25
Lawrence Lessig, the Founding chairman of Creative Commons, retired last week (http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/06/12/21/1450219.shtml?tid=138). Creative Commons, a non-profit organization, is known for the Creative Commons copyright licenses.
2006.12.24
SpagoBI 1.9.1 demo environment (http://spagobi.eng.it:8080/sbiportal/faces/public/exo) has been out since 04 December 2006. "SpagoBI, enriched by a demo environment, offers an infrastructure supporting the analytical documents management, in term of activities to handle their approval process, release management, parametric activation and publishing in a portal environment with the visibility based on end-user's roles."
Source: SpagoBI News Page (http://spagobi.objectweb.org/)
2006.12.23
EnterpriseDB Named IT Success Story By New Jersey Technology Council (http://www.enterprisedb.com/news_events/press_releases/19_12_06.do)
2006.12.22
"Venture capital investments in 2007 will be aimed at enterprise-focused start-ups with products that push the innovation of wireless devices and services, security, open source and virtualization, industry experts say."
Source: LinuxWorld.com: The year ahead: VCs will back innovators with an enterprise focus (http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2006/122106-vc-enterprise.html)
2006.12.21
JasperSoft announced that it has passed the 5000 customer milestone (http://www.jaspersoft.com/nw_press_js_5000customers.html) with two million product downloads, 20,000 deployments, and 23 global partners. Pentaho (http://www.pentaho.com/) claims over 1.5 million downloads. SpagoBI (http://spagobi.objectweb.org/), openi (http://openi.sourceforge.net/) and Bee (http://bee.insightstrategy.cz/en/index.html) are other OSS projects providing full BI suites.
2006.12.20
When evaluating ETL tools, one feature to look for is the details of how the ETL tool handles and works with the combination of disparate source system types.
2006.12.18
BI query response time is important. Since most users tend to be impatient and want instantaneous results, overall system performance tuning and monitoring are important.
2006.12.17
The goals of decision support systems differ from the goals of transactional systems. When designing the database for data warehouse and decision support, remember to optimize for query processing speed and loading speed.
2006.12.16
With the complications and complexities of organizational culture and politcs, it is easy to fall into the trap of the "isolationist approach". Remember that the DW/BI effort can only be successful if one works with the other groups and there is a free exchange of information. Afterall, DW/BI brings together different data from different sources.
2006.12.15
It is important to do the process of gathering requirements thoroughly in order to create a BI roadmap.
2006.12.14
When considering BI solutions, one should consider how the solution would support long term goals and not just the immediate BI requirements. By creating a comprehensive BI strategy and roadmap, one considers the overall technical architecture, user needs, governance, etc., that are vital for the success of the implementation.
2006.12.13
ETL is one of the most challenging aspects of a BI/DW project implementation. The ETL process brings together, combines and transforms data from multiple source systems thus enabling users to work off an integrated data set.
2006.12.12
When gathering information on OSBI products for evaluation, post on open source mailing lists to gather insights and recommendations of other users on their experience as well as their opinions.
2006.12.11
The open source community of an Open Source product is vital its success. In evaluating OSBI products for your company, look at how active the community is and the type of community support.
2006.12.10
Understanding Open Source Software - by Red Hat's Mark Webbink, Esq. (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031231092027900) is a good article on open source licenses. It also touches on US copyright law as well as how derivative works are defined.
2006.12.09
Understand the implications of the Open Source license of the OSBI tools you are using.
2006.12.08
The licensing agreement, whether open source or proprietary, should be an important part of your BI tools evaluation process. The primary open source licenses are GPL and Berkeley derived, but there are many more, including a new one being considered, that modifies the Mozilla license with a specific attribution clause, that is causing (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=211) some controversy (http://www.nicholasgoodman.com/bt/blog/2006/11/15/open-source-has-a-little-secret-exhibit-b/).
2006.12.07
Not knowing who the stakeholders for a BI project is one common reason for scope creeps.
2006.12.06
A Super-type in data modeling is a means of classifying an entity that has sub-types.
2006.12.05
For an IT professional, it is easy to get caught in the details of the technical (data, architecture, etc) delivery of the BI systems. It is good to always evaluate the technical work to see how well it aligns to the user needs as well as its ease of use.
2006.12.04
In selecting BI tools, it is important to follow a formal evaluation process. Having a list of criteria is vital but should be accompanied by a methodology that would help the organization find the tools that fits their needs.
2006.12.03
Not identifying the proper stakeholders is one overlooked reason for BI scope creeps.
2006.12.02
In planning for your BI project implementation, it is good practice to define the activities that will be done. Once you have created a scope baseline, decompose the work into activity details.
2006.12.01
For BI initiatives to be successful, various parts of the organizations must collaborate, work together and share information. One of the means of doing this is by creating an enterprise governance which includes business sponsorship as well as establishment of guidelines, SLA, etc.2
November 2006
2006.11.26
A Function Dependency Diagram provides a visual means of recording and documenting interdependencies between business functions. It also shows events that cause functions to be triggered.
2006.11.25
A Dataflow Diagram is used to represent the use of data by processes or business functions.
2006.11.24
A matrix diagrammer is a tool that can be used to show the interrelationships of the different entities in your data model and their associated business functions.
2006.11.23
Functional errors are associated with the Functional Requirements that the BI system is designed to provide. Testing for these types of errors can be effectively performed by comparing the specifications document, design document and the completed system.
2006.11.22
As BI processing within organizations gets bigger and more complex, there is a greater need for organizational silos to disappear. There is greater need to share skills, resources and information that most individuals/groups keep to themselves.
2006.11.21
For many cases, BI portal provides a primary contact of interaction for users. Ensure that your users have a positive experience using it. Users do have a lot to say when it comes to the success of a BI implementation.
2006.11.20
A data integration strategy must take into account the different aspects of the organization some of which include, but not limited to, business processes, applications, infrastructure and user interaction.
2006.11.19
A well designed system can prevent performance problems when it is implemented and deployed. System designers and application developers must understand their environment’s processing mechanism in order to utilize these and optimize their design and code.
2006.11.18
System performance tuning is an iterative process. The goals are (1) to achieve the desired and defined performance metrics and (2) qualify and quantify in detail the environment that contributed to achieving the performance goals.
2006.11.17
Enhance your database performance by tuning the database application, the database engine, the operating system and networks.
2006.11.16
There are different factors that determine your system's performance. These include, but not limited to: usage patterns, system configuration (CPU, memory, disk) and software/application configuration. A system that is well-configured, used, managed and tuned properly will perform better than one that is not.
2006.11.15
The performance of many software code is greatly affected by disk I/O. Sometimes, the CPU waits until the I/o completes. Tune your SQL statement and determine if you can tune "I/O bound" statements.
2006.11.14
Regularly monitor the processes which are running on your system to minimize the likelihood of security breaches.
2006.11.13
Swapping is the process by which memory pages of a given process are written out to the swap device. Configure your swap space accordingly to avoid performance problems and degradation.
2006.11.12
Most databases use roles to manage database access permissions. This concept is different from the operating system users and permissions. Understand how your database implements roles and use it to enhance your security requirements.
2006.11.11
It is important to fully understand the requirements. If one jumps in and starts designing and coding the ETL without fully understanding the required BI functions, the design will fail.
2006.11.10
It is important to understand and map your current BI needs. A complete picture of the current state will help you know how to get to the future state.
2006.11.09
When implementing BI solutions, utilize database and operating systems related technologies that help meet scalability, availability, performance and security requirements.
2006.11.08
Partitioning large database tables and indexes provide several query performance benefits. If your database has support for partitioning, use partitioning techniques smartly.
2006.11.07
When selecting Open Source BI products for your organization, it is a good practice to have a formal evaluation process. Creating a list of criteria isn't enough. It is effective to implement a well thought of selection strategy make sure you find the product that best fits your needs.
2006.11.06
A database stored procedure provides a programmatic, procedural interface to the RDBMS. It is a combination of procedural control statements, SQL statements, and declarations that allow for creating program logic.
2006.11.05
For the identified risks in your BI project, create a Contingency Plan as well as a Fallback plan. A contingency plan provides alternative strategies to be used to ensure project success if specified risk events occur. A fallback plan provides alternative project approaches for risks that have a high impact or for an identified strategy that may not be fully effective.
2006.11.04
It is good practice to keep a Design Decision Document or a design log that records all of the issues, decisions and actions taken that crop up during your BI implementation. It helps prevent scenarios like one cannot justify why a certain feature exists because all past arguments and project history have long been forgotten. It is also a good background reading for new team members.
2006.11.03
Database views are virtual tables that one can use to retrieve data from underlying tables. As "virtual tables" one does not need to create physical tables to see a simplified/subset part of the database. Some other uses or advantages of database views include: ability to restrict table access and updates for security purposes and logical data independence which minimizes modification of the application if base tables require and restructuring.
2006.11.02
Database referential integrity prevents database inconsistencies when updates, deletes and updates are performed. Referential integrity states that a row cannot exist in a table with a non-null value for a referencing column if an equal value does not exist in a referenced column.
2006.11.01
It is obvious why backups are necessary. No one wants to suffer any types of computer system/data failure or catastrophe and not be able to recover without any data loss. So, it is important not only to have a backup strategy but tested process and procedures for Backup and Recovery.
October 2006
2006.10.27
In a document, an index provides for a mechanism for faster retrieval of information. The same is true for an index in the context of relational database management. An index helps improve performance by providing an efficient mechanism for searching rows on a table.
2006.10.26
Implement configuration management in your BI implementation. It will help identify changes, determine if changes have been implemented and help in verifying changes after changes have been completed.
2006.10.25
Ensure that during your BI implementation that an effective change control is in place. Change must be managed, documented and only approved changes must be implemented.
2006.10.24
Relational database modeling is based on mathematical set theory. In simplistic terms, the language of set theory is based on a single fundamental relation, called membership. Tables/Data in the relational model are represented as mathematical relations. In basic terms, it is a mathematical model of the business.
2006.10.23
The design process is iterative. Scope each design iteration. During the proof of concept stage, show something simple and get feedback from the users. Get feedback on what works and what needs to be improved upon. The next design iteration can include X number of requirements and so forth. Throughout the process, remember that successful designs model the business needs.
2006.10.22
The logical database design establishes the entities and their relationships. The logical design ensures that real world objects, their attributes and relationships are represented in the database design.
2006.10.21
When analyzing the requirements of your BI implementation, identify common operational reports. The most common frequently used cross-functional reports are usually the ones aligned with the most important business processes.
2006.10.20
During data discovery, survey the documentation related to the current legacy systems. This is valuable in determining existing operational systems that are likely to be sources for the BI system, reporting or DSS.
2006.10.19
As in any project, BI implementation needs executive project sponsorship. Without a project sponsor, it is likely that the project will fail.
2006.10.18
Manage the architecture of your BI implementation by considering all areas, including but not limited to, data, applications, technical architecture, tools (data access, ETL, etc.), support, etc. Architecture should be managed to ensure complete integration across all areas of the BI implementation.
2006.10.17
Security is an important component of the BI implementation. Ensure that a comprehensive security plan is implemented.
2006.10.16
An index is a mechanism that can be used by an RDBMS optimizer to enhance data access. Indexes avoid the necessity to perform full-table scans to locate a certain number of rows that a query needs to retrieve or update. Evaluate your BI SQL indexing strategies to optimize SQL performance.
2006.10.15
As a critical tool for the business, the BI implementation must evolve with the changing needs of the business. Static BI implementations give little or no value to the business.
2006.10.14
A properly designed and configured BI database provides efficient access to the required data to support queries and data mining requests.
2006.10.13
Ensure that there is a party responsible for process administration in your BI administration. This group will ensure that all the things that are suppose to happen for the data warehouse happens and that processes are followed to ensure that data accuracy and security. The group will also ensure that if there are any problems that are encountered that they are resolved.
2006.10.12
When designing BI applications one must think in terms of basic design requirements: simplicity, consistency and accuracy, query-processing speed and loading speed.
2006.10.11
During the creation of source-target mappings, create tasks that do the basic analysis as well as the transformation analysis.
2006.10.10
Do not drive the BI requirements based on the data but rather on the functions and needs of the enterprise.
2006.10.09
During the first few weeks of starting a BI implementation, ensure that the mission, vision and scope of the effort are quickly determined.
2006.10.08
Data quality is a common problem in BI implementations. To help keep data throughout the enterprise clean and consistent, establish a data governance program which includes a data stewardship.
2006.10.07
BI implementations must be business-driven and not technology driven.
2006.10.06
Most database technologies use internal statistics to optimize query execution. When writing SQL queries use and understand the optimizer of your database.
2006.10.05
Consider partitioning large tables and indexes to improve query performance. Queries run faster when separate processes access separate partitons.
2006.10.04
Create a set of metrics to quantify the quality of data being processed and usefulness of BI reports created for your users.
2006.10.03
As in any project, setting realistic expectation and managing the expectation of users is very important. Hence, for your BI implementation, negotiate a reasonable subject scope and identify incremental deliverables.
2006.10.02
A separate set of documentation should be created and maintained that is geared towards the support services staff of your BI implementation. It should include things like, instructions for performing certain tasks, standard operating procedures, guidelines on what to do when certain errors are encountered, etc.
2006.10.01
Plan, design and implement procedures for managing the user community throughout the life of the BI systems. It is important to remember that as the initial users of the BI system will change and evolve as the system is used more.
September 2006
2006.09.30
Identifying and keeping track of different data versions is an integral component of data taxonomy.
2006.09.29
Creating a data glossary of alphabetical listing of words, terms, acronyms, definition, abbreviation, etc. help provide an understanding of data used in the BI implementation.
2006.09.28
Creating a "data thesaurus" is helpful in providing reference between similar terms and names in the organization.
2006.09.27
Determine the different types of users of your BI implementation. Provide user access that is based on role assignments and associated security permissions.
2006.09.26
It is helpful to understand the different supported features of the database you are using. Understanding certain features could help in optimizing your database operations. E.g.: If you are using PostgreSQL, it may be better to use the COPY command instead of the INSERT command for loading of large numbers of rows. COPY use less overhead for large bulk loads as compared to INSERTS though it is less flexible.
2006.09.25
Creating a Partial Index is usually helpful in a scenario where one queries a specific value more often than others. E.g. If you are using PostgreSQL, one can create a partial index like:
In this scenario, active customers are displayed and/or queried often. The partial index on customer whose value is TRUE could help in the performance of the query.
2006.09.24
Use SQL Tuning tools for your database. Examine how the SQL query of your application performs and see exactly how the database will process the query. E.g. For PostgreSQL, use SQL command EXPLAIN ANALYZE.
2006.09.23
When scoping a BI implementation, it is helpful to survey the existing documentation related to existing operational systems that are likely to be source systems.
2006.09.22
A metadata repository contains and describes the various aspects of the data in the data warehouse.
2006.09.21
A datamart that uses HOLAP or Hybrid OLAP utilizes a combination of multidimensional database structures and relational tables. The multidimensional database structures are used for precalculated summary information while the relational tables are used for detailed data.
2006.09.20
Successful BI/DW designs model business needs. Make the design process iterative. Start with something simple, e.g. proof of concept, and then get feedback on what works and future capabilities.
2006.09.19
Data quality involves many facets including data stewardship, data governance, data cleansing, metrics, processes, etc. Include data quality in your BI planning and implementation.
2006.09.18
As the BI implementation matures, the support needs of the user changes. Indications like system utilization, statistics, requests for additional training, user support calls, frequency of requests for new functions, etc. provide how much the BI implementation is used and how much the users know the system. Knowing these indications is helpful in understanding and fine tuning your BI system and its infrastructure, including your support capabilities.
2006.09.17
Master/detail relationships between tables based on primary and foreign keys are enforced using referential integrity constraints. By requiring the detail record to have a corresponding record in the master, referential integrity constraints prevent invalid INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE.
2006.09.16
Monitor and measure your BI infrastructure performance both in quantifiable and non-quantifiable measures. Changes in any of these measures can impact the performance of the BI implementation.
2006.09.15
I/O and memory inefficiency and bottlenecks are common causes for poor database performance when the data warehouse experiences data load growth. Tune the database as well as examine and optimize SQL statements being executed.
2006.09.14
Performance benefits for Low cardinality and rarely changed attributes can be gained from bitmap indexing, clustering and hash indexes.
2006.09.13
Perform capacity planning for your BI implementation. Design the system so that the ideal response time can still be met under peak resource utilization.
2006.09.12
When designing database processing for your BI implementation, create load and transformation modules that are broken down into smaller and independent modules which can be grouped together. When ever possible, use stored procedures and packages with strong exception handling standards.
2006.09.11
Bitmap indexes are ideal for low cardinality columns such as gender, marital status, etc. Bitmap indexes help increase performance of queries.
2006.09.10
Continuously identify core information that is used in different enterprise applications that would benefit from centralization and your BI implementation.
2006.09.09
To successfully support the capture, integration, and use of consolidated data repository for your BI implementation, institute policies and procedures for data governance as well as implement data stewardship.
2006.09.08
To maximize the benefits and attractiveness of your BI implementation, understand how current IT investments and resources can be leveraged.
2006.09.07
"The most prevalent driver of consolidation is the need for consistent data across the enterprise. Almost all survey respondents (90 percent) rated this factor as “very high” or “high.” This was followed by “reducing costs and overhead” (71 percent) and “standardizing the IT portfolio” (50 percent)."
Source: " TDWI Report Series: In Search of a Single Version of Truth: Strategies for Consolidating Analytic Silos (http://www.tdwi.org/research/display.aspx?ID=7173)
2006.09.06
Implement an incremental, iterative approach to your BI implementation. Build momentum and support along the the way, as well as align the BI efforts to corporate strategy and implementation plan.
2006.09.05
The main objective of a data integration project is to provide a unified view of the data that exists in different parts of the organization.
2006.09.04
when managing the schedule and critical activities of your Open Source BI project, the other aspects of the project - Scope, Cost, Quality, Resource Management, Communication, Risk, and Procurement Management should not be neglected or have less emphasis.
See TIA Press Yackity Blog Blog
Float in Project Time Management (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2006/09/04/float_in_project_time_management)
2006.09.03
Positioning OSBI as providing value with respect to cost, technologies, people and culture will go a long way.
See TIA Press OSS Blog
Open Source Business Intelligence Adoption (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2006/09/03/open_source_business_intelligence_adopti)
2006.09.02
When assessing your existing BI implementation, determine if there are operational reports that don't belong in the BI environment.
2006.09.01
Foreign keys selected in a foreign relation must exist as primary keys in the primary relation. E.g. if the Customer orders table has a foreign key CUST_ORDID that links to the Shipment Fact table, the Shipment Fact Table cannot be deleted or dropped if the corresponding CUST_ORDID exists.
August 2006
2006.08.31
Implement an overall data security architecture in your BI implementation.
2006.08.30
An Operational Data Store (ODS) provides an efficient interim way to store time-sensitive data for use in the data warehouse.
2006.08.29
"Facts are “What” / Dimensions are “How”"
- Nicholas Goodman on Business Intelligence blog entry August 25th, 2006 entitled: Overview of Business Intelligence/DW (http://www.nicholasgoodman.com/bt/blog/)
2006.08.28
"... change OpenReports Portal to MarvelIT DASH Portal. We have changed the name and are not associated with the Open Reports project any longer.
We offer a Dashboard solution that is based on the Apache Jetspeed portal and our unique charting portlets. Using Marvelit DASH - dashboards can be built very easily using the power of SQL and XML. See our demo at <a href="demo.marvelit.com" target="_blank">demo.marvelit.com."</a> - Rick Mortensen, CEO of MarvelIT in an email to InterActive Systems & Consulting, Inc. (http://http://www.iasc.com)
See TIA Press OSS Blog MARVELit Dash Portal Solution (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2006/08/27/marvelit_dash_portal_solution)
2006.08.27
When justifying a BI System Implementation, quantify and provide specifics.
See TIA Press OSS Blog
Justifying a BI System (http://press.teleinteractive.net/oss/2006/08/26/justifying_a_bi_system)
2006.08.26
Always involve the business users in your BI implementation. Uninvolved business constituents lose interest in the project or sometimes become unwilling to share in the responsibility.
2006.08.25
Project Managers of BI implementations can use the ABC Analysis to help analyze the performance of people issues that may affect the project outcome.
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: ABC Analysis (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2005/05/28/abc_analysis)
2006.08.24
A BI/data warehouse steward, working with IT, can effectively settle different data representation and transformation rules by working with the user community.
2006.08.23
Remember that the BI implementation is successful only if it is effectively used. Train users to use the system and how to think analytically. E.g. users can be taught that they can actually create reports like: Top customers in terms of revenue in the Northeast Region for the product line X.
2006.08.22
Justifications for BI implementation that support strategies for enhancing revenue generate stronger and longer term support for higher management.
2006.08.21
Continuously review your BI implementation to ensure that changing business requirements are evaluated, planned for and implemented.
2006.08.20
The concept of multidimensional cube is a good way to help users understand how they may want to query the multidimensional database or create OLAP reports.
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: Multidimensional Cube - Simple Explanation for Users (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2006/08/16/multidimensional_cube_simple_explanation)
2006.08.19
The Third Normal Form states: "No non-UID can depend upon another non-UID attribute".
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: First 3 Rules of Data Normalization for Newbies - Part 3 (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2004/12/21/first_3_rules_of_data_normalization_for_4)
2006.08.18
The Second Normal Form states: "An attribute must depend upon its entity's entire UID".
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: First 3 Rules of Data Normalization for Newbies - Part 2 (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2004/12/20/first_3_rules_of_data_normalization_for_3)
2006.08.17
The First Normal Form States: "All attributes are not repeated or must be single-valued"
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: First 3 Rules of Data Normalization for Newbies - Part 1 (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2004/12/19/first_3_rules_of_data_normalization_for_2)
2006.08.16
Even if dimensional modeling is highly denormalized, it is still important to understand the 3 rules of Data Normalization. Normalization helps eliminate the problems of redundancy in database design.
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: First 3 Rules of Data Normalization for Newbies - Introduction (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2004/12/18/first_3_rules_of_data_normalization_for_1)
2006.08.15
The three basic constructs of Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD)are:
- Entity: A significant thing (place, person, concept, event) which information needs to be known or held
- Attribute: A characteristic that serves to identify, quantify, classify or qualify an entity
- Relationship: The way in which two entities are related
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: ERD - Basic Constructs (http://press.teleinteractive.net/yackity/2005/06/19/erd_basic_constructs)
2006.08.14
CRUD (Create Read Update Delete) Matrix is one technique to map the data model to the process model. The CRUD matrix helps identify:
- Missing Process : A business process exists that is not supported by the model; The data model needs to be adjusted to include the missing process
- Redundant Data Entity : A data entity exists that is not required to support a process
See Yackity Blog Blog Post: Technique to Map Business Process to Data Model (http://