DBTA E-EDITION
June 2013
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Trends and Applications
Mobile devices—including employee-owned and corporate-provided smartphones and tablets—are rapidly becoming a primary point of access to more than just email and texting. However, the proliferation of mobile application users also presents new challenges to IT departments, as the users demand access to business-critical data and processes, creating security, management, and development challenges
These are heady times for data products vendors and their enterprise customers. When business leaders talk about success these days, they often are alluding to a new-found appreciation for their data environments. It can even be said that the tech vendors that are making the biggest difference in today's business world are no longer software companies at all; rather, they are "data" companies, with all that implies. Enterprises are reaching out to vendors for help in navigating through the fast-moving, and often unforgiving, digital realm. The data vendors that are leading their respective markets are those that know how to provide the tools, techniques, and hand-holding needed to manage and sift through gigabytes', terabytes', and petabytes' worth of data to extract tiny but valuable nuggets of information to guide business leaders as to what they should do next.
There is an emerging field of companies looking to take on the challenges presented by the roiling tide of big data. While their visions vary, each has identified a market need that it believes its technology uniquely addresses. Here, DBTA highlights the approaches of 10 companies we think are worth watching.
Columns - Notes on NoSQL
When NoSQL first hit the IT consciousness in 2009, an explosion of NoSQL databases seemed to appear out of thin air. Some of these contenders had in fact been around for some time, with others thrown together rather quickly to exploit the NoSQL buzz. The NoSQL pack thinned out as leaders in specific categories emerged, but for some time, there was no clear leading key-value NoSQL database.
Columns - Database Elaborations
The grain of a fact table is derived by the dimensions with which the fact is associated. For example, should a fact have associations with a Day dimension, a Location dimension, a Customer dimension, and a Product dimension, then the usual assumption would be for the fact to be described as being at a "by Day," "by Location," "by Customer," "by Product" metrics level. Evidence of this specific level of granularity for the fact table is seen by the primary key of the fact being the composite of the Day dimension key, Location dimension key, Customer dimension key, and Product dimension key. However, this granularity and these relationships are easily disrupted.
Columns - DBA Corner
Although storage management can be an afterthought for the DBA, it really shouldn't be. Storage issues are vitally important and unless managed appropriately, it can be very costly. The cost of managing storage can be as much as 10 times higher than the initial cost of acquiring the storage—and the growth rate for disk storage was 37% between 1996 and 2007. Even so, it is common for storage-related issues to be relegated to the backburner by DBAs, but every database professional should understand modern storage basics.
Columns - Quest IOUG Database & Technology Insights
At the recent Oracle users conference COLLABORATE 13, IOUG hosted an evening hands-on lab for attendees. The turnout was great—even after a full day of conference sessions. What topic drew such a dedicated crowd? Two words: Performance Tuning.
MV Community
Entrinsik has signed a partnership agreement with Pick Cloud, Inc., a provider of hosting, cloud computing, system backups and disaster recovery, professional services, and monitoring for MultiValue applications. The agreement enables Pick Cloud to offer Informer as a reporting and data analysis solution.
Pick Cloud, Inc., a provider of managed hosting solutions for the MultiValue market, has signed a reseller agreement with Synergetic Data Systems, Inc. (SDSI) to integrate CirrusPrint, SDSI's cloud and network printing solution.
Mike Ruane, president and CEO of Revelation Software will demonstrate O4W (OpenInsight for Web) Mobile at user group meetings and conferences across the country and the U.K. this summer and early fall. In the presentations, Ruane's team will show attendees how easy it is to build a mobile application with Revelation's software by actually allowing them to build a mobile pizza-ordering application, Robert Catalano, director of sales at Revelation, tells DBTA.