Introductory Guide to the Use of the Data Warehouse

Hardy comprehensive, as the title suggests, but a good introductory piece on the data warehouse.  A minimum you should know when dealing with corporate data.  Non-technical.

Comprehensive Guide to the Data Warehouse
Data science can’t start until the data cleaning process is complete. Learn about the role of the data warehouse as a repository of analysis-ready datasets.
Nicole Janeway Bills

As a data scientist, it’s valuable to have some idea of fundamental data warehouse concepts. Most of the work we do involves adding enterprise value on top of datasets that need to be clean and readily comprehensible. For a dataset to reach that stage of its lifecycle, it has already passed through many components of data architecture and, hopefully, many data quality filters. This is how we avoid the unfortunate situation wherein the data scientist ends up spending 80% of their time on data wrangling.  ... " 

Future of Data Warehousing

This came up in a recent course I gave.  What are the implications of better and more intelligent data availability?   Better process decisions based on data.   In DSC.  " ... To Thrive in the Age of the Customers – Businesses Must Merge Previously Separate Efforts ... Now that we are seeing real-time and streaming data, it is more important than ever before to create cohesive strategies for business insights. This means merging formerly separate efforts like traditional BI, agile BI, and big data.  ... " 

Analytics Tools in Bluemix

IBM adds analytics (Watson Analytics,etc), data warehousing tools to Bluemix
"With built-in Netezza analytics libraries, and integration with Watson Analytics, R, Cognos and third party BI toolsets including Looker, Aginity Workbench and Tableau, dashDB can integrate with Twitter data and Open Data..."         ...  Crystal North.

About time.  Pondering the value and implications of this.

Useful Data Myths

Martyn Jones posts some thought provoking Big Data facts and myths in DSC.    Worth considering, especially how it relates to more traditional methods.  Considerable value, but not magic.

Data Warehousing v. Big Data

Good points.  By Martyn Jones. I heard a manager recently say they had switched from an emphasis on Data Warehousing to Big Data.  But they are not the same thing.  Warehousing is architecture and organizing for purpose.  It is useful but can be boring.  Big Data is using analytic methods, most of them with a long lineage, more effectively against increasingly complex data.   When it works, it is exciting and directly valuable. The two methods should be combined, but in the rush to do a quick job with Big Data, obeying the hype mantra, there has been a rush to ignore the needed architecture.  If you don't do the architecture now, you will pay for it later.

DashDB Announced as Sandbox Solution

In particular,  presenting the sandbox idea for connecting analytics to data warehouses.  Analytics often requires the ability to test multiple methods and data sets.

Bluemix Announces dashDB is Now Open for Business
IBM dashDB™ continues to grow and improve. A data warehousing and analytics as a service offering, dashDB on the cloud is an easy solution for many different needs. As you build new Bluemix applications, add the dashDB service for fast, easy analytics. If your data warehouse is at capacity, dashDB lets you extend to a hybrid model using proven IBM in-database analytics technology as well as hyper-fast in-memory processing. And if you are a data scientist, dashDB makes an ideal sandbox to solve new analytics problems. ....  " 

Advanced Analytics in Consumer Goods: Podcast

Abstract: In Justin Honaman, managing partner for consumer goods for North American industry consulting at Teradata, is interviewed by Ron Powell, independent analyst and consultant focused big data, business intelligence and data warehousing. Ron and Justin discuss the why advanced analytics has become a priority for today’s consumer goods companies. Justin also talks about how consumer goods companies interact more directly with their consumers and why these companies now want to be data driven. He explains how the most successful CPG companies are the ones prioritizing data and information. Podcast. 

Cojoin Analytics Startup

New colleague Thomas Ciszek points me to Cojoin.com:  In Beta, you can request access.

 " ... We are a team of agency, web and science data veterans who grew frustrated with enterprise sales and wanted to simplify data warehousing and data analytics. Cojoin is the result of that effort. Through Cojoin’s highly-visual, customizable dashboards, sharing data with colleagues has never been easier, making data-driven decision-making more meaningful and efficient.

Even with the power of “big data,” an incomplete analysis often leads to incorrect assumptions about what to do. By automatically joining and synthesizing data from multiple sources, and providing master data sets, Cojoin helps marketers gain the ultimate perspective on their campaigns.

Founded in 2012, Cojoin is a privately-held company based in Santa Monica, California.  ... " 

Tibco and Teradata and Real Time Event streams

TIBCO and Teradata Enable CIOs to Extract Actionable Insights From Real-Time Event Streams to Deliver the Two-Second Advantage

Event Processing within the Teradata(R) Unified Data Architecture(TM) enables analytics for any user - to discover insights and put into real-time action.
  ...  announced TIBCO Spotfire® event analytics as a key component of the Teradata Unified Data Architecture™ (UDA). This inclusion of TIBCO real-time event processing and analytics will enable some of the world's largest enterprises to capture the full value of big data by simultaneously analyzing historical data (data at rest) and real-time events (data in motion). The Unified Data Architecture combines powerful technologies to provide closed-loop processing of big data by facilitating the collection, analysis, and modeling of real-time event streams. The insights extracted from the architecture enables business leaders to anticipate future events and take immediate automated action, providing them with the two-second advantage®. ... 

The value of the Teradata UDA to customers is the ability to leverage the tight integration of Teradata data warehousing, Teradata Aster discovery platforms, and Apache™ Hadoop. This workload-specific architecture enables business users to gain competitive advantage through deeper insights from any data source. Now, combined with the Spotfire analytics platform, data scientists and business analysts can harness the best-in-class analytic capabilities of the Teradata and Teradata Aster engines and convert their discoveries into a guided operational application for line-of-business decision-makers. ... " 

Lean Logistics in the Supply Chain

Topic: Lean Logistics in the Supply Chain
Date: Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Time: 8:30 AM - 2 PM
Location: LeanCor Supply Chain Group HQ, 7660 Turfway Road, Suite 200 Florence, KY 41042
Event Weblink: http://www.business.uc.edu/supply-chain
Please attend / help advertise this event, as appropriate. Thanks!
Registration fee is 50$, and registration may be completed online via UC Conference & Event

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

(You will have to first set up an account with UC Conference & Event Services to register; FYI, the registration website URL is http://cincinnatiuniv-web.ungerboeck.com/reg/reg_p1_form.aspx?oc=10&ct=WEBREG&eventid=5237.)
For more information, contact Tricia Burger, tricia.burger@uc.edu, (513) 556-7140. Further details are provided below and in the attached pdf file, also available online at
http://business.uc.edu/content/dam/business/departments/oba/docs/2013supplychainevent.pdf.

Event description:
Lean systems thinking and tools have maximized customer value and minimized waste, while focusing on continuous improvement. Supply chains have fostered unprecedented integration and collaboration along with globalization and specialization. Logistics, spanning material flow aspects of transportation and warehousing, has seen sustained popularity. Despite the attention drawn to each of these areas, their effective combination into Lean Supply Chain Logistics still leaves many avenues for improvement.

Join us to learn about the theory behind lean and to see firsthand how lean principles are applied to logistics and supply chain processes. This workshop will highlight the critical elements and "must know" concepts, and discuss the tools necessary to solve problems, eliminate waste, decrease inventory and lead time, improve processes, and ultimately decrease the total cost of fulfillment.

Experts, Mr. Robert Martichenko (CEO, LeanCor Supply Chain Group) and Dr. Thomas Goldsby (Professor, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University), will lead this discussion. Participants will gain experience with Lean Supply Chain practices via tours of LeanCor’s operations & lean fulfillment centers.

The event will be held April 30, 2013, 8:30AM – 2:00PM at LeanCor Supply Chain Group’s Headquarters, 7660 Turfway Road, Suite 200, Florence, KY (transportation will be provided to LeanCor’s Lean Fulfillment Center). Seats are very limited and registration is required. The fee to register for this half-day event is $50. Pre-registrants, as of April 23, 2013, will receive Mr. Martichenko’s book, PEOPLE: A leader's day-to-day guide to building, managing and sustaining lean organizations. ... 

Data Science Courses

And more R courses for data visualization and analytics.  In this case it is more about new methods being made available that will soon be in the toolbox of the data scientist.  See in particular, notes about new data visualization methods and data warehousing ideas.

SAS and Teradata

On SAS and Teradata joining forces.  More appliances:  " ... Over the years SAS has worked with many data warehousing vendors. In particular, in the recent past it has collaborated with a number of database vendors to support in-database analytics. However, as far as I am aware the recent announcement of the "Teradata Appliance for SAS High-Performance Analytics - Model 700" is a first, not just for SAS but for any two companies that are respectively in the warehousing and analytics arenas.....  "