DBTA E-EDITION
August 2013
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Trends and Applications
A Call to Action and the American Pastime: Data
More "things" are now connected to the internet than people, a phenomenon dubbed The Internet of Things. Fueled by machine-to-machine (M2M) data, the Internet of Things promises to make our lives easier and better, from more efficient energy delivery and consumption to mobile health innovations where doctors can monitor patients from afar. However, the resulting tidal wave of machine-generated data streaming in from smart devices, sensors, monitors, meters, etc., is testing the capabilities of traditional database technologies. They simply can't keep up; or when they're challenged to scale, are cost-prohibitive.
A former colleague is looking for a database server to embed into an important new factory automation application his company is building. The application will manage data from a large number of sensor readings emanating from each new piece of industrial equipment his company manufactures. These values, such as operating temperature, material thickness, cutting depth, etc., fit into the data category commonly called "SCADA" - supervisory control and data acquisition. Storing, managing and analyzing this SCADA data is a critical enhancement to this colleague's new application. His large customers may have multiple locations worldwide and must be able to view and analyze the readings, both current and historical, from each piece of machinery across their enterprise.
Columns - Notes on NoSQL
New Hadoop Frameworks Feed the Need for Speed
Columns - Database Elaborations
Data models attempt to express the business rules of an organization. A good data model reflects the semantics used within an organization to such an extent that business people within that organization can relate to and easily agree with what is being expressed. In this regard the data modeler's goal is to properly mirror back the organization's concepts onto those people within the organization. The goal is not to force an organization into a "standard" data model, nor is the goal to abstract everything in the creation of a master model that will never need to change even if the business rules were drastically shifted.
Columns - DBA Corner
Just about every company with a DBMS has that binder full of corporate and/or IT standards. That one over there in the corner with the cobwebs on it — the one that you only use when you need an excuse to avoid work. Okay, well, maybe it's not quite that bad. Your standards documents could be on the company intranet or some other online mechanism (but chances are there will be virtual cobwebs on your online standards manuals, too).
Columns - SQL Server Drill Down
I was recently chatting with a good friend of mine who's very highly placed in the Microsoft SQL Server team. Our conversation was wide ranging and covered a lot of topics, such as internal features and upcoming announcements. (I'm under at least three different NDA's. So don't expect me to give up anything too juicy or gossipy.) For example, we spent quite a while discussing the ton of great new features and improvements just over the horizon with the recent release of SQL Server 2014 CTP1.
MV Community
A subsidiary of Finning International Inc., the world's largest Caterpillar equipment dealer, The Cat Rental Store is a full service rental organization, featuring a complete line of midsize and smaller Caterpillar machinery as well as a variety of other name brands and equipment. The equipment rental company needed to introduce an integrated BI tool into the organization that would put advanced reporting and dashboarding capabilities into the hands of managers so they could respond quickly to continuously changing business conditions.
Kore Technologies will be a sponsor of the Eclipse Users Group (UFO) Training and Networking Conference, which will be held in Las Vegas, NV, from September 19 to September 20, 2013. Formed in 1994, the Eclipse Users Group is an independent organization of distribution companies that use the Epicor Eclipse software within their organizations. Kore provides integrated data warehousing, e-commerce, and enterprise integration solutions for the Eclipse user community via integrated best-in-class solutions to complement and extend the functionality of Eclipse.
Mike Ruane, president and CEO of Revelation Software, continues his "on the road" tour this summer to demonstrate O4W (OpenInsight for Web) Mobile at user group meetings and conferences across the country and the U.K. Next stop on the road trip is the Pick Regional User Conferences 2013, hosted by TigerLogic, in Newport Beach, Calif., on Aug. 8, and in Hollywood, Fla., on Sept. 18.
Rocket Software has launched a new website. The Rocket team has worked with an external vendor, integrating 16 micro sites with 2,900 pages into a single interconnected website, moving from product families into a consistent single Rocket brand. According to Rocket, visitors to the site can expect to see an integrated view of Rocket's offerings from multiple dimensions: product families, solutions, and themes as well as a common Rocket customer and partner page.