Corporate Information Factory

The "father of data warehousing" incorporates the latesttechnologies into his blueprint for integrated decision supportsystems Today's corporate IT and data warehouse managers are required tomake a small army of technologies work together to ensure fast andaccurate information for business managers. Bill Inmon created theCorporate Information Factory to solve the needs ofthese managers. Since the First Edition, the design of the factoryhas grown and changed dramatically. This Second Edition, revisedand expanded by 40% with five new chapters, incorporates thesechanges. This step-by-step guide will enable readers to connecttheir legacy systems with the data warehouse and deal with a hostof new and changing technologies, including Web access mechanisms,e-commerce systems, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. Thebook also looks closely at exploration and data mining servers foranalyzing customer behavior and departmental data marts forfinance, sales, and marketing.

Strategies for leveraging information technologies to improve customer relationships With E-business comes the opportunity for companies to really get to know their customers--who they are and their buying patterns. Business managers need an integrated strategy that supports customers from the moment they enter the front door--or Web site--right through to fulfillment, support, and promotion of new products and services. Along the way, IT managers need an integrated set of technologies--from Web sites to databases and data mining tools--to make all of this work. This book shows both IT and business managers how to match business strategies to the technologies needed to make them work. Claudia Imhoff helped pioneer this set of technologies, called the Corporate Information Factory (CIF). She and her coauthors take readers step-by-step through the process of using the CIF for creating a customer-focused enterprise in which the end results are increased market share and improved customer satisfaction and retention. They show how the CIF can be used to ensure accuracy, identify customer needs, tailor promotions, and more.

The data warehousing bible updated for the new millennium Updated and expanded to reflect the many technological advances occurring since the previous edition, this latest edition of the data warehousing "bible" provides a comprehensive introduction to building data marts, operational data stores, the Corporate Information Factory, exploration warehouses, and Web-enabled warehouses. Written by the father of the data warehouse concept, the book also reviews the unique requirements for supporting e-business and explores various ways in which the traditional data warehouse can be integrated with new technologies to provide enhanced customer service, sales, and support-both online and offline-including near-line data storage techniques.

In Decision Modelling And Information Systems: The Information Value Chain the authors explain the interrelationships between the decision support, decision modelling, and information systems. The first two parts of the book focus on the interdisciplinary decision support framework, in which mathematical programming (optimization) is taken as the inference engine. The role of business analytics and its relationship with recent developments in organisational theory, decision modelling, information systems and information technology are considered in depth. Part three of the book includes a carefully chosen selection of invited contributions from internationally-known researchers. These contributions are thought-provoking and cover key decision modelling and information systems issues. The final part of the book covers contemporary developments in the related area of business intelligence considered within an organizational context. The topics cover computing delivered across the web, management decision-making, and socio-economic challenges that lie ahead. It is now well accepted that globalisation and the impact of digital economy are profound; and the role of e-business and the delivery of decision models (business analytics) across the net lead to a challenging business environment. In this dynamic setting, decision support is one of the few interdisciplinary frameworks that can be rapidly adopted and deployed to so that businesses can survive and prosper by meeting these new challenges.

A cutting-edge response to Ralph Kimball's challenge to thedata warehouse community that answers some tough questions aboutthe effectiveness of the relational approach to datawarehousing Written by one of the best-known exponents of the Bill Inmonapproach to data warehousing Addresses head-on the tough issues raised by Kimball andexplains how to choose the best modeling technique for solvingcommon data warehouse design problems Weighs the pros and cons of relational vs. dimensional modelingtechniques Focuses on tough modeling problems, including creating andmaintaining keys and modeling calendars, hierarchies, transactions,and data quality

DW 2.0: The Architecture for the Next Generation of Data Warehousing is the first book on the new generation of data warehouse architecture, DW 2.0, by the father of the data warehouse. The book describes the future of data warehousing that is technologically possible today, at both an architectural level and technology level. The perspective of the book is from the top down: looking at the overall architecture and then delving into the issues underlying the components. This allows people who are building or using a data warehouse to see what lies ahead and determine what new technology to buy, how to plan extensions to the data warehouse, what can be salvaged from the current system, and how to justify the expense at the most practical level. This book gives experienced data warehouse professionals everything they need in order to implement the new generation DW 2.0. It is designed for professionals in the IT organization, including data architects, DBAs, systems design and development professionals, as well as data warehouse and knowledge management professionals. * First book on the new generation of data warehouse architecture, DW 2.0. * Written by the "father of the data warehouse", Bill Inmon, a columnist and newsletter editor of The Bill Inmon Channel on the Business Intelligence Network. * Long overdue comprehensive coverage of the implementation of technology and tools that enable the new generation of the DW: metadata, temporal data, ETL, unstructured data, and data quality control.

"This book is insightful and thought-provoking for even the most seasoned SAP BW individual." —Richard M. Dunning, Chair, American SAP Users Group Written by the leading experts in the field, this comprehensive guide shows you how to implement the SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) and create useful applications for business analysis of company-wide data. You'll quickly learn how to design, build, analyze, and administer the data and information in the SAP BW component. The authors present the material in a way that reflects the process an organization goes through during a software implementation. They begin with an introduction to the fundamentals of data warehousing and business intelligence, helping you determine if SAP BW is right for your organization. The book then focuses on the business content and options available when trying to deliver value from the data stored in the SAP BW. And it includes a methodology for implementing the BW, such as data modeling and techniques for capturing and transforming data. With this book, you'll discover the options available in SAP BW 3.0 and explore a new way to drive business performance. It will show you how to: Tackle such challenges as eliminating poor data quality Develop an information model in order to properly deploy SAP BW Utilize ETL, data storage, information access, analysis, and presentation services Schedule, monitor, archive, and troubleshoot data loads Effectively plan and manage the performance of a data warehouse The companion Web site provides useful guides and templates for configuring your system, industry case studies, and additional updates.

The Definitive Guide to Unstructured Data Management and Analysis--From the World’s Leading Information Management Expert A wealth of invaluable information exists in unstructured textual form, but organizations have found it difficult or impossible to access and utilize it. This is changing rapidly: new approaches finally make it possible to glean useful knowledge from virtually any collection of unstructured data. William H. Inmon--the father of data warehousing--and Anthony Nesavich introduce the next data revolution: unstructured data management. Inmon and Nesavich cover all you need to know to make unstructured data work for your organization. You’ll learn how to bring it into your existing structured data environment, leverage existing analytical infrastructure, and implement textual analytic processing technologies to solve new problems and uncover new opportunities. Inmon and Nesavich introduce breakthrough techniques covered in no other book--including the powerful role of textual integration, new ways to integrate textual data into data warehouses, and new SQL techniques for reading and analyzing text. They also present five chapter-length, real-world case studies--demonstrating unstructured data at work in medical research, insurance, chemical manufacturing, contracting, and beyond. This book will be indispensable to every business and technical professional trying to make sense of a large body of unstructured text: managers, database designers, data modelers, DBAs, researchers, and end users alike. Coverage includes What unstructured data is, and how it differs from structured data First generation technology for handling unstructured data, from search engines to ECM--and its limitations Integrating text so it can be analyzed with a common, colloquial vocabulary: integration engines, ontologies, glossaries, and taxonomies Processing semistructured data: uncovering patterns, words, identifiers, and conflicts Novel processing opportunities that arise when text is freed from context Architecture and unstructured data: Data Warehousing 2.0 Building unstructured relational databases and linking them to structured data Visualizations and Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs), including Compudigm and Raptor solutions Capturing knowledge from spreadsheet data and email Implementing and managing metadata: data models, data quality, and more