DBTA E-EDITION
March 2019
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Trends and Applications
The flexibility, agility and ultimate cost of machine learning projects can be significantly impacted by data logistics and dependencies, according to Jim Scott, VP, Enterprise Architecture, at MapR. By improving how they pursue machine learning, Scott contends, organizations can attain benefits in both long-term costs and maintenance.
In recent years, an unprecedented numbers of companies have moved to the cloud, which is a trend that shows no sign of slowing. Most companies have moved at least part of their data holdings to the cloud, and many more will follow suit in the next few years, effectively shifting data's center-of-gravity from the data center to the cloud. Many are also leveraging multiple vendors, such as Amazon and Microsoft, as part of a multi-cloud strategy that leverages the best features of multiple offerings. Unfortunately, many of the gains realized by cloud technologies will be lost to downtime during the migration.
Competitive business strategy increasingly relies on data analytics. The core techniques of data analysis are increasingly accessible thanks to commodity Business Intelligence packages, modern open source AI tools, and cloud services. Given this level playing field for software and algorithms, competitive advantage typically lies in the unique data that a business can gather and feed into its analytics pipelines.
At the Cloud Economic Summit in San Francisco, a new consortium called the FinOps Foundation was announced to share best practices for managing the cost of cloud computing. According to the foundation, cloud spending is now a material amount of total IT spend. Similar to the way DevOps ushered in a new way of thinking about development and operations, the foundation says, the FinOps operating model is a combination of systems, best practices, and culture that aims to bring financial accountability to the variable spend model of cloud.
Columns - Database Elaborations
Clarity of vision is absolutely the most important part of database design. The data architect must understand the shape and patterns of the data being modeled. This lucidity arises when the designer understands the subject area, the goals of the target database, the nature of the data sources involved, and the internal lifecycle of the database objects in scope.
Columns - DBA Corner
Scalability and elasticity are related, though they are different aspects of database availability. Both scalability and elasticity help to improve availability and performance when demand is changing, especially when changes are unpredictable.
Columns - MongoDB Matters
MongoDB's recent and well-publicized new license—the Server Side Public License (SSPL)—was explicitly designed to prevent cloud vendors such as Amazon from deploying a MongoDB cloud service without paying MongoDB license fees. In early January, Amazon announced DocumentDB, a MongoDB-compatible cloud database service.
MV Community
IT World Canada recently used Entrinsik Informer to manage all their campaigns and deliver all contracted registrations on time. They use Informer for report generation, decision support, and business process management. Informer's Dataset enables them to consolidate the different campaign Datasources while Dashboards provide up to the minute reporting and act as a hub to link all the different software tools used to the individual campaigns for easy access.
Rocket Software recently helped Rooms to Go (RTG) with managing inventory as well as improving and enhancing customer interaction in order to accelerate sales growth. Partnering with Rocket has helped RTG grow from three showrooms in Florida in 1991 to more than 200 locations and 7 advanced distribution centers across the United States.