Hard Drive Data Recovery Services

Hard drive data recovery services are now widely offered by a number of data recovery companies and businesses around the globe. These hard drive data recovery services are even highly accessible online with lots of websites out there on the web advertising and featuring their wonderful and powerful hard drive data recovery services and procedures. And, as computer becomes a necessity for most of us, more and more companies are offering hard drive data recovery services for the computer users' sake.

The hard drive data recovery services are in the first place offered for one particular purpose - to make people realize that there is still hope left of recovering your lost data even though you have deleted your important records or files from your hard drives accidentally. The truth of the matter is, when the data is erased, it doesn't mean that it's completely deleted. It's not lost forever, and with this idea alone, the hard drive data recovery services were born and are continually developed as a great tool for saving important deleted files.

There are a number of available hard drive data recovery services today. These involve hard disk repair services, data recovery software services, and some more. The amount of time that these available hard drive data recovery services may take to recovery any lost files highly depends on what type of service is done. As you may know, there are the so-called standard, expedited and emergency hard drive data recovery services.

Let's take a look at these three major types of hard drive data recovery services:

Standard Hard Drive Data Recovery Services

Most of the standard hard drive data recovery services are usually completed within 2 to 5 days. It is typical however, that prior to the actual hard drive data recovery, the technicians will consider an evaluation process. This is basically considered to diagnose the problem and to determine if the lost data can be retrieved or not.

Also, in standard hard drive data recovery services, the service providers will determine exactly what data recovery procedures will be taken and how extensive the damage on the drive is. After that sort of identification, the company you have contacted will furnish you with a verbal report and they won't proceed to the actual data recovery unless you have not given your approval to proceed. Once you have given your approval, the affected drive will be placed in the job queue and the data will be recovered in the order it was received.

Expedited Hard Drive Data Recovery Services

If you should need expedited hard drive data recovery services, a dedicated technician will be assigned to repair your drive. The technician will work on the drive until the data recovery is complete, and as commonly noted this process of will normally cut you turnaround time in half.

Emergency Hard Drive Data Recovery Services

The emergency hard drive data recovery services are only offered when your situation is critical. The service provider will then try to make arrangements for the technician to be available. And, since the emergency hard drive data recovery services involves critical conditions, the technician who will be assigned into the job must be an expert and dedicated to his work.

Why is Data Recovery so Expensive?

Data recovery involves recovering data from media that may not be performing properly. There may be a problem with the hard drive or any other component of the storage media. It would be great if we could decipher the nature of the problem ourselves with the help of a naked eye. However, our eyes and our technological knowledge have its own set of limitations. Data recovery is a highly specialized field that can cater to most of the data loss problems. Data loss can occur in strange and mysterious ways and each data loss incident can be different from each other. Due to these variations, the cost of data recovery can be heavy or light on your pocket. Data recovery, generally speaking, can be an expensive process. It may cost you several hundred pounds to just get the nature of data loss incident evaluated. This evaluation will merely give you an idea about the list of files that the data recovery company can recover. In addition, this evaluation cost may not be included in the actual cost of data recovery. So, what makes data recovery so expensive? Simply put, data recovery is expensive because it is a complicated process and not many companies are specialized in this field. Even though there are many companies that offer data recovery services, only the reputed companies can boast of effective data recovery. However, there are multiple factors that contribute towards the cost of a data recovery company, which consequently make the data recovery service an expensive alternative. Let us analyse the various factors that make data recovery an expensive option.

Factors that Influence the Cost of Services of a Data Recovery Company

• Data recovery companies can minimize on your business's downtime by providing a quick turnaround time. Most companies will be able to recover your data within the range of 24 to 72 hours. Consider the valuable time that would be wasted if you try to recover the data on your own. Since complex procedures need to be performed within a short period of time, the costs associated with the services are high.
• There are times when people use DIY software or their own expertise to recover their lost data. In such instances, there is a high probability of losing your data forever. In today's world, data means information, and information holds the power to make or break a business. A data recovery company ensures that your data is recovered in the most effective manner and is able to recover all or major portion of your data. A data recovery company hires experienced employees and uses effective tools to recover your data. These experienced employees come with a sound educational background as well as good industry experience. The nature of the work of these professionals is also highly complicated. Data recovery specialists need to evaluate and assess the nature of the data loss. Their skills are extremely effective in replacing or repairing fragile components. Therefore, the data recovery company has to match their salary with their experience. In addition, most data recovery companies use proprietary tools to recover the damaged data. These tools can be extremely expensive.
• There are some overhead costs involved for a data recovery company. There are times when hard disk parts would need to be replaced. However, replacing these parts becomes very difficult because the hard disk manufacturers do not sell these parts. Therefore, only a hard disk of the same batch and model can be used to ensure that the data can be read off the disk platters in an appropriate way. A hard disk that has the same model but is of different batch will have different set of parts inside. Therefore, to avoid wasting time in looking for hard disk parts, the data recovery companies tend to keep a stock of hard disk parts. These stocks contribute towards overhead costs.
• Hard disks are extremely fragile and prone to any kind of dust, air, or environmental contamination. Therefore, a data recovery company needs to invest in clean room facilities to ensure that the hard disks are handled in an appropriate environment. Establishing and maintaining these clean room facilities can be very expensive. Therefore, the data recovery companies tend to charge higher for their services.
• Since the nature of work of a data recovery specialist is very technical, the data recovery companies tend to provide extensive training to their employees to ensure that the data and the media are handled appropriately and the success rate is maximised. Each data recovery company tends to develop their own trainings in this field because not much training is available through schools or colleges. Companies tend to spend significant amounts on developing their own training procedures. These costs are reflected in their cost of services.

Why Should I Have Data Recovery Software?

If you are like most other computer users, you have probably some time accidently deleted some of the important data or documents from your computer. The good news if that there is data recovery software out there that is capable to recover the data you have lost, there is no reason to despair. Since data viruses have been a part of computer users' everyday life there are chances that a virus program would have deleted some of your important data from your system. Software used for recovering data is your assurance and functions pretty much the same way as an insurance policy.

There are lots of programs available in the market for recovering your lost files and for those files that were once rendered inaccessible. Data recovery software can

"undelete" files or information that have previously been deleted

recover any information lost after uncontrollable instances like virus attacks, power cut, software failures and more.

Since we all know how unpredictable technology can be, we must always be prepared for the worst scenario.

One of these recovery programs are called "GetDataBack". This is one of the most popular software for data recovery. It is one of the best selling pieces in the market today because of the frequency that people are losing valuable pieces of information and valuable files. This software functions easily, as do most other recovery software products, to recover entire drives. You can achieve this just by clicking a few buttons.

Are there data recovery services available?

There are also lots of data recovery services or so called "hotlines" that can be called to help assist you with recovery of some of your lost data. It is always helpful to have a little knowledge of your computer system because this helps you to describe the problem adequately to the customer service operator of the data recovery company and they can give you as much information as possible that is specific to your issue. If a drive of your computer was formatted or accidentally deleted by a virus or human error, a data recovery service can help you get your data back and restore your original settings in the computer.

Data recovery is defined as the process by which lost data is retrieved from a damaged or infected hard drive or any other piece of computer or electronic equipment. Computer users today use a special software for data recovery to get back the lost information from their personal computers, business computer systems, cellular phones, Blackberries, and any other electronic systems that store vital information. There are also cases where data simply disappears for no obvious reason at all. However, the software meant for data recovery can back the data to normal.

If you are an active computer user, it is important to have a backup plan and a good software for recovering data in case you lose your data accidentally or due to a virus sweep. Data recovery software is a must for your business and very important for computer amateurs as well.

The Perils of Using Data Recovery Software

The decision to use data recovery software versus the professional service of a data recovery company is one that should be weighed carefully. In extremely simple cases, the usage of data recovery software can be valuable. However, the use of recovery software often results in further damage to your hard-drive and permanent data loss. The software should only be used in extremely simple data recovery cases. If your drive is making any noise such as clicking or small vibrations then the case would not qualify as simple.

Most of the time a malfunctioning hard drive is the result of mechanical or electrical problems to the drive. In this case, data recovery software will do nothing but continue to spin the drive and result in further damage and possible permanent loss of data. Each hard drive contains spinning magnetic discs that hold all of your data. When software is used, the drive continues to spin, and if there is any sort of misalignment or electrical problem then the drive will simply be exposed to more forms of damage.

The best course of action to fix a damaged or malfunctioning drive is to discontinue use of the drive immediately. If the data on your computer is more valuable than the fees for a data recovery service, then it would be wise to seek expert advice. Unfortunately, many consumers are convinced to buy data recovery software simply because it is the cheapest method of attempted recovery. The software companies often do not disclose that their product often will result in further damage, and permanent loss of your valuable pictures of files. Most of the unrecoverable data problems that are sent to data recovery companies are the result of data recovery software or other utilities that have damaged the drive after a crash or malfunction.

Since a large majority of hard drive crashes are due to electrical and mechanical problems, the drive cannot be fixed with software. A data recovery company with expertly trained technicians must be used to give you the highest chance of recovering your files. Data recovery professionals charge fees that are much higher than data recovery software, but the service is also much more effective. If the data that you have lost is extremely important, it would be wise to invest in the money required to give yourself the best chance at a successful recovery.

The analogy is similar to a medical problem. The use of WebMD.com or any other medical advice website can sometimes be helpful for mild problems or symptoms. However, when you have experienced a serious medical condition you will obviously need to consult with a practicing medical doctor. It is more expensive, but the service customization and quality is at a vasty higher level. Data recovery service versus recovery software contains a very similar quality to cost ratio.

Truths About Data Recovery Software

There may have been instances in your life or career where your day starts with a hard disk crash or a physical memory dump. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it can happen anytime and catch you completely unawares. It can be very frustrating to loose all the important data, those great presentations, client briefs, portfolio, 3 years of research etc. If you install data recovery software on your PC, then you can retrieve all the lost data. A computer is not a perfect machine and the fear of data loss is real. Hence, we are going to share some tips and useful information on data recovery software with you.

Why is Data Recovery Software important?

Data recovery is important because most of the data on your PC or Laptop is valuable. But what is data recovery? It is retrieval of almost all the data that has been accidentally deleted from your computer or has been erased due to a hard disk error, virus attack, or bad script. You can use DOS commands to retrieve data but it will be partial recovery only. So the best solution is to have data recovery software that can retrieve the full data or undo the loss.

Most of the data recovery software available in the market can recover data from corrupted file systems like Windows (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5), Unix (UFS, EAFS, HTFS, VxFS, FFS), Linux (Ext2, Ext3, JFS, ReiserFS), Apple Macintosh (HFS, HFS+) and Novell Netware (NWFS, Net386, NSS). The data recovery software can also recover data from corrupt access databases, corrupt zip files, word documents and excel files.

Which data recovery software should I use and why?

There are many firms who sell data recovery services, but there are many brands who sell data recovery software. At times, it can be difficult to decide, which product will satisfy your need or requirements completely. One such data recovery software is The Undelete 3.1.1. The salient points of the software are that it is easy-to-use and it can provide a powerful backup program for Windows 95/98ME/NT/2000/XP. This data recovery software can work with FTP, local networks and even CD-R/W. It is useful data recovery software that applies powerful algorithms and methods and it can recover files that have been damaged, lost or deleted due to a power supply failure, program bugs or virus attacks. The Undelete 3.1.1 data recovery software can recover files with extensions like DOC, PDF, RTF, XLS, MDB, PPT, Visio, CSV, HTML, TXT, CPP, PAS, EML, and INI. It can also recover audio and video files with extension MP3, WAV, AVI, WMA, MPG, MOV, and ASF.

There are also data recovery software's, which have specific use based on platforms, files and functions. You will find data recovery software that offers a range of file system utilities as well as data recovery service. These services enhance recovery of lost data due logical hard drive failures.

What should I look for in Data recovery software?

When you go out in the market to search for data recovery software, you should be able to compare various products based on five important features. These are:

- Feature Set

- Ease of Use/Installation

- Recovery Effectiveness

- Search Capabilities

- Help/Documentation

The bottom line is that basic data recovery software should be able to recover Compressed Files, and Encrypted Files, should provide email recovery, network recovery and create image files. It should be able to recover from the recycle bin, damaged files, power failure, Format Disk, changed, or deleted partition, disks with bad sectors etc. It should support file systems like NTFS5, NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 as well.

Best-of-breed Approach to Finance and Accounting

CODA Group, a finance and systems specialist headquartered in the United Kingdom, offers financial solutions that help companies grapple with international business issues such as language, currency, and compliance. Designed to be an "upgrade friendly system", CODA applications offer open and standards-based reporting tools. CODA's alliance with Microsoft Corp. has allowed it to deliver a range of financial and management accounting systems, and it has made several strategic acquisitions to further strengthen its position as a compliance solution.

Part Three of the Composing Collaborative Financial Applications, CODA series.

Among its recent endeavors, CODA has recently announced new set of financial planning and budgeting products: CODA s-Planning ("s" standing for "standard") and CODA c-Planning ("c" standing for "collaborative"), as well as a range of improved analysis and reporting tools, which will be detailed shortly. Nevertheless, to date, these corporate performance management (CPM) capabilities have targeted mainly existing customers of the CODA transactional systems. These users have focused on financial analytics, budgeting, and planning, either through Microsoft Excel integration within CODA c-Planning and CODA s-Planning, or through a partnership with Cognos for enterprise-level planning and budgeting. CODA's consolidation capabilities have traditionally been limited to the basic ones inherent in Coda-Financials. While these are adequate for simpler enterprises, the vendor has thus far been unable to successfully compete with offerings from specialists such as Hyperion Solutions, Geac (formerly Comshare), Applix, Longview, Outlooksoft, or Cartesis. Yet, the importance of these functionalities has been witnessed by Cognos' acquisition of Adaytum in 2003 and Business Objects' recent acquisition of the specialist SRC. See Financial Reporting, Planning, and Budgeting as Necessary Pieces of EPM for information on the functionality.

Thus, this merger deal should benefit both parties for many reasons. While Simple Concepts should get access to CODA's well developed global distribution channel and benefit from its financial stability, CODA should fill the financial consolidation gaps in its solution. Immediate cross-selling opportunities into CODA's install base will expand further as CODA translates OCRA into more languages. Not to mention, there are opportunities coming from OCRA's prior integration with SAP, Oracle, and other leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. The acquisition also gives CODA a base for strengthening its direct sales operation and presence in Scandinavia.

The two recent acquisitions came at the heels of CODA's June 2005 launch of a suite of add-on applications that extends the range of planning and budgeting requirements: CODA s-Planning and CODA c-Planning . These could offer more benefits for CODA-Financials users. The suite includes Version 3 of the much talked about CODA-XL application. CODA-XL allows the fairly simple and secure output, manipulation, display, sharing, and input of CODA-Financials data within Microsoft Excel. s-Planning and c-Planning were seen to enable users to carry out a range of day-to-day tasks, such as producing and sharing statutory reports; processing expenses; or even developing and setting financial budgets using CODA-Financials alongside Excel and the other familiar Microsoft Office tools that most organizations probably already have in place. These new products were meant to make CODA-Financials the launch pad for a quicker and easier budget cycle. By combining the functionality and embedded control of CODA with the familiarity and convenience of Microsoft Excel, CODA s-Planning and CODA c-Planning should streamline the seeding, preparation, manipulation, and production of budgets, based on (or update) the user's CODA-Financials data. Moreover, CODA continues to develop its relationship with Cognos, offering the Cognos Enterprise Planning product where clients have wider enterprise requirements. The vendor also uses a mix of partnership and in-house development to address other CPM elements, such as activity-based costing (ABC), strategic planning and scenario analysis, shareholder value measurement, activity monitoring, information distribution, etc.

In addition to the "standard" budgeting and forecasting facilities provided by CODA s-Planning, users have the option to make their entire cycle more coordinated, efficient, and controlled by opting for the "collaborative" add-on of the CODA c-Planning product. This interfaces with the CODA-Control process management solution, adding a facility to publish budgets as CODA-Control web sites and tasks. This will keep all participants informed and aware of the input needed and when it is required. There are also audit trails and document history to support compliance reporting. CODA c-Planning aims to help organizations set financial budgets and collaboratively develop plans, which both reflect top-down business objectives and assess the need to account for bottom-up creativity and realities. For example, it will give budget managers visibility of process bottlenecks, including vacation and sick days of department managers, information on groups waiting for information from subsidiaries, and vice versa. Conversely, many other peer products focus purely on bringing together and reporting the figures in the system, and not on collaborative processes that are key to collecting and verifying the figures in the first place. The application's aggregation features often make the budgeting and planning process quicker, more dependable, and more predictable, giving financial professionals more time to analyze and consider their overall budget before making decisions crucial to the organization's mid-term plans.

Another analytic module worth mentioning is the CODA Collaborative Scorecard, which helps user organizations link corporate goals through group objectives and individual performance. Designed to be deployed to every desktop in the enterprise, the product supports multiple performance management methodologies. Generally speaking, scorecards assist organizations in monitoring their business performance beyond bottom-line results by tracking both financial and non-financial measures, and then reporting them in a graphical user interface (GUI). A key element is the way they cascade corporate goals through the organization, helping managers to set individual objectives, and then aggregate performance results back up through the company structure, so that management can review the contributions made by individuals and groups. This aligns corporate strategy with the activities of individuals within the organization.

CODA believes that scorecards should be a strategic pillar of any analytic framework, bonding personal accountability to the enterprise's overall performance management. Initial releases of CODA Collaborative Scorecard have complied with commonly used performance management methodologies, such as the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) balanced scorecard, Six Sigma, etc. to provide a relatively functional and flexible method of managing and aligning enterprise, group, business unit, and personal objectives. However, one should note that, although scorecards should be the fundamental link between personal performance and the overall objectives of the enterprise, they are frequently the weak link in the CPM closed-loop cycle, either because they are too difficult to deploy widely in the organization, or because they have fixed, inflexible methodology (see Why Most Balanced Scorecards are Subverted).

Related to the above line of products is CODA Analytic Explorer, which is a business intelligence (BI) tool that allows CODA users to carry out multidimensional browsing across CODA-Mart and any other relational data source. It is a generic, on-line browsing tool with both two-dimensional and multidimensional browsing capabilities built in, and has a separately licensable cube builder that provides extra performance. As finance departments struggle to add value to their businesses, performance management enables them to deliver better decisions more efficiently. However, CPM is not about static plans that sit on the shelf and get dusted off at board meetings, but rather about continuously adjusting to the range of inputs that the business is constantly receiving. To that end, CODA Analytic Explorer provides the ability to investigate exceptions and trends quickly and easily, so that corrective actions can be taken, and forecasts and plans reviewed.

Enterprise Application Players Keep Refining Value Propositions

Software as a service" is experiencing a rebirth. Despite the initial problems the first generation of application service providers (ASP), on-demand availability, appropriate pricing models, and other delivery approaches for enterprise applications are gaining new prominence. Small and medium companies in particular are looking for better alternatives to rigid user licenses, labor-intensive application maintenance, and the initial, large investment and time for return on investments to emerge. (For detailed information on "software as a service" see the Trends in Delivery and Pricing Models for Enterprise Applications series)

Responding to this demand, recent moves by the most prominent players in the software realm in late 2004 suggest that "software as a service" are here to stay. In particular

* SAP America, Inc and Hewlett-Packard (HP) introduced new managed solutions for medium companies at the end of 2004.

* PeopleSoft (now merged with Oracle Corporation) announced customers can outsource some or all of their support for PeopleSoft applications.

Part One of the Enterprise Apps Players Keep on Refining Their Value Propositions series

The SAP and HP Alliance

SAP America, Inc., the US subsidiary of the largest enterprise applications provider SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), and Hewlett-Packard (HP) (NYSE: HPQ; NASDAQ: HPQ), the information technology (IT) powerhouse, have long provided managed and hosted services for large enterprises. Their new vertical industry focus, "software as a service" solutions for medium companies, will supposedly help companies reduce the guesswork and expense of deploying sophisticated business management technology by providing software, services, and support. They will create a single point of contact at a total monthly cost for as low as $325 (USD) per user. The aggregate monthly cost assumes that software license, maintenance, and implementation fees are financed through the SAP Financing Program and that the remaining services are paid on a monthly basis.

SAP and HP recognize that many medium companies, while understanding the operational efficiencies and competitive advantages of deploying enterprise applications, often hesitate to implement them because of uncertainties about expenditures and the overall complexity and project scope. Hence, SAP and HP believe that managed industry solutions will eliminate these concerns by clearly defining the costs and resources necessary to run a complete, managed enterprise solution environment over time. Their solutions were devised to greatly simplify IT evaluation, adoption, and management, offering a breadth and depth of industry process management and strategic value that is typically unavailable from point, best-of-breed solutions. Supposedly their solutions will consolidate all components of the IT landscape within a predictable cost structure and provide the added convenience, safety, and efficiency of hosted delivery.

Through HP, SAP will initially target mid-market companies in oil and gas fuel distribution, consumer products/food, high-tech, and in the technical service industries. Additional industry solutions will be added over time. Equally important, knowing that successful hosting comes through true partnerships that reduce costs and improve efficiency for the client, SAP requires its partners create at least one vertically-oriented extension to the suite in order to become a mySAP All-in-One solution provider. SAP provides hosting expertise through a special operation quality service and solution portfolio to help partners drive innovation. So far this has been fruitful. Three of the four mySAP All-in-One industry flavors, slated to be released as hosted offerings, were written by partners. In return, both HP and SAP will compensate partners that sell the managed service: HP will offer a one-time referral fee, and SAP will pay a recurring revenue stream. SAP also pledges to support its partners to operate SAP solutions better, to drive the number of escalations down, to enable faster operation planning, and to share knowledge about best practices.

Along with its four hosted vertical solutions, SAP currently has twenty-nine channel partners that provide over forty-five mySAP All-in-One products in North America. The pre-packaged template products include real-time integrated applications software for supply chain operations, manufacturing, maintenance, financials, CRM and business intelligence (BI), etc. These aim to provide "best-in-suite" applications for mid-market prospects, which should be more appealing than a diverse "best-of-breed" approach. These managed solutions also include software and implementation services from SAP and its solution partners, as well as maintenance and end user training, support, functional management, and application management from SAP.

As the datacenter provider for the solutions, HP will offer a full range of services, including operations, infrastructure hosting, storage-on-demand, business recovery solutions, managed Web solutions, and security services that will enable ongoing process improvement and innovation. The solutions will leverage implementation and support services from SAP, HP, and their partners. A dedicated SAP customer service manager will be assigned to each customer, thereby reducing the risk and the required in-house resources at the customer site. Additionally, customers will hold the software licenses, enabling greater control and strategic value. They will also have an option to switch to an on-premise solution if necessary.

As for the SAP Hosting division, although SAP has noticed of the likes of salesforce.com, it is still not directly competing with them. The HP alliance does not provide a kind of a subscription service, but rather it is a lower entry point for cash strapped customers who can spread the software cost over a few years through SAP Financing programs. SAP Hosting is positioned to provide more complete SAP-centric solutions including operation, application, and infrastructure management. Accordingly, SAP will offer customers one-stop-shopping or selective outsourcing services focused on SAP. At the same time, it will support the license sales of SAP subsidiaries, reduce TCO, and strengthen operation quality. SAP claims a strong partner focus through interfaces with the partner community, a rich set of partner services, and by working with partners on a project level.

SSA GT Beefs Up BPCS V8 Through Partnerships' Spree Part 2: Market Impact

Nevertheless, one should hold his/her horses in the SSA GT's case. It may seem cynical to object to SSA GT's returning to profits by severely trimming fat and milking revenue from the existing client base only; the fact that the vendor had reached its near extinction point lends its positive results more than mere a psychological gravity. The face value of the indisputably impressive SSA GT's marketing rhetoric must be seen in the light of the recent demise of many other software companies.

To be fair, SSA GT has mostly achieved its most imminent and important goal of enticing existing BPCS customer base to stay on their maintenance contracts. With over 1,700 accounts having signed up for continued support so far, SSA GT has secured a sound revenue base, although that might not sustain it while keeping BPCS abreast of the latest technology and functionality scope. Therefore, the above product strategy blueprint is sound given the hiatus the company has been in for some time, provided the new management team continues with an established good track record for on-time delivery of promised functionality.

The company has established partnerships to expand the BPCS footprint to envelop the vastly more comprehensive applications' functionality scope beyond core ERP, which is however available nowadays as a matter of course by many. The company seemingly intends to achieve its all-round product portfolio and implementation approach through in-depth strategic partnerships with specialized application providers. The result should be a functionally rich core manufacturing ERP product, with best-of-breed, industry specific add-ons, and systems delivered by professional service teams drawn form its target industry sectors.

The above announcement indicates SSA GT's determination to shore up its customer base, as it has been focusing on keeping its large install base content by offering them incremental value proposition extension through its SSA GT Portfolio (a.k.a. 'Open eRP') marketing strategy - surrounding BPCS with a slew of horizontal and vertical industry software, and with SSA GT's lean manufacturing methodologies toolkit. Dealing with a single point of contact for most IT needs could indeed be attractive to some manufacturers at the higher end of the mid-market.

Additionally, SSA GT's established global infrastructure and customer base (over 6,500 installations and operations in more than 70 countries), strong core-ERP functionality with a sharp industry focus and regulatory compliance, strong multinational product functionality (support for 20 languages), and a relative ease of implementing BPCS are some of the company's bargaining chips in the game of averting its customers from defecting and of giving other intruding competitors run for their money. Actually, vendors vying to be replacement solutions for the BPCS ERP system could be in for a bigger hurdle than expected as the SSA GT strategy might resonate with manufacturers that have been happy with BPCS and that are reticent to replace functioning ERP system deeply embedded in plants worldwide, particularly in these days of reduced budgets.

However, these positive developments should be backed up with the continued more aggressive commitment to expanding the native BPCS product scope internally. Although BPCS V8 is an ERP suite that can accommodate different manufacturing environment such as discrete lean manufacturing, assemble-to-order (ATO) and make-to-order (MTO) operations, and process manufacturing too, the fact remains that SSA does not yet offer much more than its traditional ERP product in conjunction with bundling extended-ERP software components from alliances.

In terms of product scope, it is mainly in the realm of manufacturing management (MRP II, JIT, repetitive discrete and some process industries), supply chain management (configurable order management, logistics and warehousing), financials, quality management, business intelligence (through Cognos) and some e-commerce. Supported platforms are the IBM AS/400 (now eServer iSeries), HP Unix/Oracle, and also from very recently, Windows NT on IBM Netfinity.

Contrast to Competitors

Moreover, contrary to Baan and Ross, SSA GT has not been able to cite a slew of new customers, except for some minor new accounts in the Asia-Pacific market. The management's rhetoric might even suggest that SSA GT is banking its future solely on its installed client base. The possibly insufficient revenue stream might, therefore, require some additional downsizing in the future as well as the R&D cutbacks. Any attempt to increase revenue by, e.g., bloating significantly support & maintenance fees, may backfire in customers' defections to preying competition.

In another contrast to Baan or Ross, SSA GT has an inordinate scope of functionality to cover through external partnerships, as seen from the above press blitz. While the best-of-breed approach has its merits and is a necessity for some plant-level applications that ERP vendors do not typically provide (e.g., data acquisition), it inadvertently leads to additional integration costs and complicates service & support arrangements. Interfaces between disparate applications like ERP, CRM and/or e-business usually require significant tailoring. This can be a barrier to future changes as further modifying already modified code is notoriously time consuming, costly, and risky. Also, the profit margins for third-party products are typically lower than for natively provided functionality, which again lessens the bottom line.

Challenges

More importantly, except for Cognos and SynQuest or Manugistics (for an advanced planning & scheduling (APS) product add-on), the above partnerships, which have certainly made a splash, are either in their infancy or are just another bite at the cherry. For partnerships to solidify and result with a true commitment and solid products, one needs time and significant user acceptance (read sales), both of which have yet to happen in earnest. There are the indications that SSA's sales force has sternly resisted some previous management's attempts to sell partner products in the past, which has resulted with faltered alliances.

Also, while embracing the IBM WebSphere platform for e-procurement, CRM, and other components integration strategy cannot be debated, the caveat lies in the fact that the company has done it only very recently. To that end, much more aggressive interaction with the analyst community and more perspicacious explanation of positioning of its Semantic Message Gateway (SMG) and Direct Data Gateways (DDG's) interconnectivity technologies would be important. There have been indications that SMG's had exhibited poor performance, hence the addition of DDG's. However, the DDG's have reportedly only been tested once for an adapter for SynQuest integration. There are no performance statistics available, and there have been no other DDG's officially announced.

While SSA GT plans to keep previous BPCS versions (e.g., V4.05CD) alive was prudent and necessary as to avoid an adverse revenue shortfall, the need to make any new functionality backward compatible and to devise an enterprise architecture to tie multiple versions together with a common portal (and even as a commercialized Private Trading Exchange (PTX) further in the future) will likely impede the speed of delivering these. The story seems to be quite compelling although one should be cognizant of the magnitude of the efforts to execute it. This may also mean that users of the most current product versions will see their annual maintenance revenues being dissipated to enhancements for V4.05CD and not to the current versions.

SSA GT is also burdened with the immaturity of some products and/or low traction issues. The V8 product could have used a longer beta testing phase, while the NT product released at the end of 2000 has reportedly resulted only in a handful of new licenses. Furthermore, the company's silence about MAX product it acquired not so long ago (see SSA Acquires MAX Hoping To Leap From Its MIN) might indicate that it was an impulse purchase and that the company has not many ideas as what to do with it, since MAX essentially competes with its own BPCS NT product.

The above challenges may impede SSA GT's ability to leverage its existing client base and channel, as illustrated in the fact that more than 3,000 BPCS users have yet to be possibly reinstated within maintenance contracts. Also, SSA GT has only recently delivered a Web Browser Interface that is not fully browser-based, which makes it quite behind its competition regarding e-business capabilities, and consequently vulnerable to their attacks. As a summary, while the company's gallant attempt to regain credibility in the industry is noteworthy, unlike Baan, it seems to have much more catching-up to do, with the market keeping a close eye on its execution..

User Recommendations

The above SSA GT's moves should be welcomed by existing BPCS customers that have been yearning to rejuvenate their almost outdated technologies in place. Less technologically aggressive global companies and/or their divisions with an inclination towards lean manufacturing philosophies may be better off by staying with BPCS for the time being. Nevertheless, keep a close eye on the company's moves and develop contingent plans for moving to a new technology if need be. Identifying and approaching your local SSA GT sales representative and vigorously negotiating assurances and firm commitment to future product roadmap, and service and support would be the best course of action at this stage.

Until the new product components, particularly through the above-mentioned partnerships, have been officially delivered and put through their paces by reference customers, we advise potential and current users to evaluate the product cautiously even within SSA GT's automotive, consumer packaged goods, electronics, pharmaceutical and chemical industries sweet spots.

The “Gentler” Giant’s Value Proposition to Overcome the “Little Guys’” Perception

The “Gentler” Giant’s Value Proposition to Overcome the “Little Guys’” Perception

Software giant Oracle, a long-time provider of enterprise software systems for the largest of corporations worldwide, has now set its sights on the small to medium business (SMB) market, thereby giving Microsoft and other leaders in this segment the kind of competition they have never had to contend with before. The vendor has begun a campaign to attract smaller partners in an effort to show SMBs that its offerings are viable choices for their organizations. For more background, please see part one of this series, A “Gentler” Giant’s Success in Reaching Out to the “Little Guys.”

Strong Product and Capabilities Still Matter

As mentioned in part one of this series, resellers have to work directly with value-added distributors (VADs) that are Oracle Remarketer Authorized to transact orders using Oracle's standard terms, conditions, and pricing for Oracle's 1-Click Ordering Programs, which currently include the following:

* Oracle Database Standard Edition and Standard Edition One, including Oracle Warehouse Builder, an extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool, and Oracle Application Express, a rapid development tool for Web applications atop the Oracle database.

* Oracle Application Server Standard Edition and Standard Edition One, and Oracle Application Server Java Edition—application servers that are all part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware family for hosting a company's web site and applications. This middleware suite also provides an instant portal for creating an extranet and content management for managing unstructured information, such as purchase orders, marketing collateral, or presentations. Oracle Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is an additional tool.

* Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition One—this business intelligence (BI) product provides users with access to dashboards (via Oracle Interactive Dashboards) to format and distribute reports (via Oracle BI Publisher) and to enable ad hoc analysis of data integrated from disparate sources (via Oracle Answers).

Oracle Database is the company's flagship product and the main element of the Oracle VAD Remarketer Program discussed in A “Gentler” Giant’s Success in Reaching Out to the “Little Guys.” . In mid-2007, the vendor launched Oracle Database 11g. This product, which at this stage is not part of this initiative, features new technology to accelerate the adoption of database grids, improve storage, and simplify access to data in online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes.

The previous version of the company's flagship database, Oracle 10g R2, came out in 2005, two years after the original version of Oracle Database 10g. The "g" in 10g and 11g stands for "grid," as in grid (or utility) computing. With 10g, Oracle introduced the feature that it refers to as Real Application Clusters (RACs). These are a way to join servers running Oracle's database together to work on database queries in parallel (see Oracle Further Orchestrates Its SOA Forays). According to Oracle, about half of its database customers have upgraded to 10g, with a fraction using RAC grids.

Among 11g features that Oracle hopes will attract more users to its grid computing systems are Oracle Real Application Testing and Oracle Data Guard. These features allow the splitting of grids to permit the testing of upgrades or system changes before moving them into production, as well as to facilitate backup and disaster recovery. Storage improvements in the latest release include automated data partitioning, better data compression, a feature for backing out of delinquent transactions, and the Oracle Total Recall capability. Oracle Total Recall allows administrators to run queries against the data as it stood at a specified point in the past. Finally, Oracle Database 11g allows native integration with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development tool set, which was done with the hope of attracting Microsoft partners.

Until recently, Oracle’s research and development (R&D) emphasis has been on performance and scalability (i.e., customer satisfaction and product quality) rather than price and ease-of-use for the masses. The company remains the overall database market share leader, and it now insists that, after years of playing and trying, it has finally gotten the ease-of-use (employee productivity) and packaging formula (i.e., a better solution value—more features for lower cost) established, and it is ready to make a renewed push to small businesses. In fact, Oracle touts many recent benchmarks that purport its leadership in database performance and value, such as that Oracle Database 10g is 45 percent faster and 14 percent cheaper than Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

According to the Transaction Processing Performance Council (www.tpc.org), the Oracle database is also the price and performance leader in the TPC-C online transaction processing (OLTP) performance benchmark and the TPC-H data warehouse performance benchmark. Also, Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One comes cheaper than Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SE, in terms of both the number of users and the number of sockets. Given that the database is also tightly integrated with Microsoft Windows, Oracle also touts a better (i.e., lesser) price and performance figure on that operating system too.

The typical problem with non-Oracle databases is when a small customer calls and asks the resellers for a small server to build a database. The straightforward solution is to sell the customer a two-way server with a standard Microsoft SQL Server database. Six months later, the same customer might call again and ask for a little more horsepower, in which case the reseller will offer a four-way server and more standard SQL Server software. However, some time down the road, when the customer’s business is really booming and it could use even more horsepower, a dead end appears in terms of a more scalable offering.

Conversely, the Oracle alternative is to sell this customer a two-way server from Hewlett-Packard (HP) with Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One. Several months later, that solution is still working great, but the company could use a little more horsepower. The Oracle reseller now has the following options:

Managing the Overflow of E-mails

The impact of e-mail on businesses these days is enormous. Companies use e-mail to conduct business, for responding to clients, for internal communication, for discussing strategy, and for responding to regulations. Roughly 35 billion e-mails are sent a day, and the number is growing. The Radicati Group estimates that by the end of 2006, 52 billion e-mails will be sent daily, including all types of correspondence. More importantly, 60 percent of business-critical data is sent via e-mail, according to Gartner.

E-mail Evolution

Unsupervised and improperly disciplined e-mail behavior causes headaches to corporate management. Viruses hiding within e-mails can cause huge harm to organizations. The fact that so many e-mails are sent every day means that there is a chance of inappropriate e-mails (with respect to virus content, sensitivity or privacy issues, incorrect addresses, and so on) slipping through. Yet organizations do need to focus on storing business-critical information, and it is essential that this information is properly stored so that it is accessible and reusable.

E-mail management aims at the preservation of e-mails and the information contained within them. Historically, e-mail management consisted only of storing and preserving e-mails to optimize server efficiency. The focus of e-mail management today, however, has shifted to addressing regulatory compliance more than anything else.

The current market seeks to integrate e-mail management with a full document and records management (RM) solution. This enables organizations to index e-mails, and provides users the ability to search and to use the repository as a knowledge archive.

Currently, most content management vendors have already moved towards integrating an e-mail management solution with an RM solution. Examples include EMC/Documentum's acquisition of Legato, a provider of e-mail archiving products, and IBM's integration with iLumen, a provider of enterprise message management tools.

Knowing What to Store

Storing e-mails or any other kind of data is not problematic for organizations. The cost of extra storage space has decreased significantly over the last decade. The problem is knowing which e-mail content to store and preserve, and which to destroy.

Organizations need to set forth policies on e-mail usage. Policies should address not only e-mail use and misuse, but also retention and destruction. According to research conducted by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), 80 percent of organizations have some kind of policy for e-mail use, but 60 percent have no formal policy governing its retention. Organizations need to rethink their strategies on e-mail management: currently, 31 percent of all organizations keep e-mails indefinitely, and preserve 26 percent of e-mails for less than 120 days, or establish a maximum storage on people's inboxes to limit the retention.

The problem with this approach is that inadequate restrictions or improper methods can eventually harm the organization itself. For example, internal e-mails regarding lunch appointments do not need to be saved, while an e-mail regarding a lunch appointment with a business client should be. Saving all e-mails in the hopes of preventing some information loss is not the right solution. On average, according to AIIM, 75 percent of e-mails are not useful for saving, but finding the 25 percent that are important can be quite difficult.

One potential solution is to create business rules within archiving software. These business rules avoid unnecessary storage, as users can flag the e-mails they want to archive. Defining these rules has to be a joint effort between the information technology (IT) department and the business sector to make sure it covers more than just the technical side of actual e-mail storage. Flagging should be made possible based on a company name, keywords, subject or message text, the sender, or even the software used to send the e-mail.

However, users should not have full control on what should be saved within the e-mail management business rules: this should be controlled at a systems level. This way, the basic principles will be governed at the administrative level, while individuals can refine the rules on a more personal level.

Manage Volume and Risk

The volume of e-mails grows daily. And it's not just the number of messages, but also their size. Organizations deal with all sorts of messages: chain letters, joke-of-the-day e-mails, lunch meetings and arrangements, business e-mails, and so on. E-mail also grows in size because of attachments, pictures, movies, large documents, and even colorful signatures with company logos or theoretically witty sayings. Also, the misuse (or lack of knowledge) on the part of undisciplined users leads to unnecessary duplication of e-mails through copying and forwarding and replying, which in turn causes capacity overload. Because of this overload, organizations have to focus on managing e-mail volume.

Even though storage decreases in price every year (a 550-gigabyte hard drive currently sells competitively for about $400 [USD]—that is, $0.80 [USD] per gigabyte), retaining too many e-mails means storing needless data. The cost of retrieving the data (and the risk of not being able to find the right information within an appropriate time frame) is even more important than just the cost of storage.

Can Enterprise Applications Meet the Challenge?

Nowadays manufacturers are increasingly subject to massive pressures due to the need for driving down costs and increasing efficiency. What makes things worse is that with product life cycles decreasing, manufacturing and distribution are increasing in complexity. This, for the manufacturer, translates into a need to better manage customer demands and expectations and to respond accordingly. Furthermore, manufacturers of electrical and electronics equipment must comply with a growing array of strict environmental regulations, many of which have already been implemented in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). More regulations are pending in Japan, China, and other countries. As in many other industries, the cost of compliance can be high, but the cost of noncompliance can be far greater. Thus, the industry winners have to gain the capabilities they need to adapt their businesses to meet regulatory requirements—from product design to compliance reporting, and from sourcing and procurement to service and repair—so that they can avoid costly penalties and product recalls, optimize processes to comply with changing regulations, build trusted brands, and protect shareholder value.

Such manufacturers will have to turn somewhere to comply with these high-tech and electronic industries' significant and stringent environmental policies. Specialized, private marketplace service providers that offer auction platforms to off-load a company's excess and obsolete (E&O) inventory are the logical outlets for manufacturers to use in order to ensure compliance with these new regulations. Ideally, these providers should have an established number of treatment recycling and transportation management company partnerships. An environmental policy came into effect in August of 2005 for member states of the EU. The Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment (WEEE) Directive 2006/96/EC sets recycling and reuse standards across a variety of industries from home appliances to computer products. The WEEE directive holds the manufacturer (producer) ultimately accountable for recovering products and for recycling up to 75 percent of the material content by weight. Failure to comply results in the manufacturer paying a penalty of 2 percent of its annual revenue. In other words, the WEEE directive establishes rules for the collection, treatment, recycling, and recovery of electronic waste in the EU. It states that electronics manufacturers and importers must manage and pay for the recycling of electrical and electronics waste.

In addition, the WEEE legislation's directive states that electronic product manufacturers, excluding retailers and distributors, are responsible for providing take-back programs for all electrical and electronic equipment sold in the EU's member states, as well as in Norway and Switzerland. The directive defines, prescribes actions, and sets regulatory milestones for the collection, treatment, recovery, and financing of discarded electrical and electronic equipment across ten product categories. These ten categories range from information technology (IT) and telecommunications equipment, large and small appliances, and tools to toys and leisure equipment. Naturally, product reuse (that is, the resale or reuse of whole appliances for their original intended function) is to be given priority over recycling. For IT equipment, telecommunications, and consumer electronics that do not have a whole product reuse option, 75 percent of the product weight must be proven to be recycled. New products must be marked with "do not trash" symbols, and information on product disassembly must be provided by manufacturers. The target date for commencement of these programs was August 13, 2005. Since then, the EU member states have been obliged to provide for the financing of the collection, treatment, recovery, and environmentally sound disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment. They have had to set up separate collection systems to eliminate the disposal of such products into municipal waste. To that end, distributors must ensure that waste of the electronics equipment can be returned to them free of charge, and manufacturers must set up and operate individual or collective take-back systems.

Since December 31, 2006, EU member countries have had to meet WEEE recycling targets in that the rate of recovery for IT, telecommunications, and consumer equipment is at least 75 percent, which is measured in terms of average weight. Manufacturers must now state the weight of the electrical and electronic waste entering and leaving treatment and recovery or recycling facilities. Member states must draw up a register of manufacturers along with the quantities and categories of electrical and electronic equipment placed on the market, collected, recycled, and recovered in their territory. Each member state must also transpose the WEEE legislation into local law, which is where local differences create WEEE compliance reporting issues even though there is general adherence to the EU level directive. The task of monitoring manufacturers' sales in volumes to each country (for the purpose of establishing recycling quotas) will fall to a member state's agency working under the direction of its national Office of the Environment as the managing authority for WEEE. On their side, manufacturers must register up front with each country's authority for the purpose of reporting recovery and recycling results. The initial recycle quota is set at a relatively low bar of 4 kilograms per capita per year, although countries such as the Netherlands have had established programs that exceed this volume for years.

Although the WEEE directive has jurisdiction only over the EU, most multinational electronics and telecommunications companies will implement the infrastructure and IT necessary to manage compliance processes on a global basis. They do this in anticipation of similar legislation in other regions and to maintain worldwide process standardization. With legislation like WEEE, supply chain management (SCM) and product lifecycle management (PLM) have become cradle-to-grave endeavors with significant depth and complexity added to the reverse logistics process. But an even bigger burden might be the requirement for manufacturers to recycle a portion of electrical and electronic waste made way back when, which seems a daunting task, and the specifics of how it will work exactly are still largely unknown.

Advancing the Art of Pricing with Science

Though companies recognize the need for a better way to manage their pricing strategies, many continue to lose money by using archaic pricing methods. But there is a new approach beginning to surface in the market of price management. Science-based software can be leveraged to help companies create more accurate and complete pricing strategies in order to meet their margins. To learn more, please see Know Thy Market Segment's Price Response.

In 2005, Zilliant, an Austin, Texas (US)-based provider of data-driven, strategic pricing applications, and the Institute for International Research (IIR) released the results of a survey that showed strategic pricing was gaining in priority among some US businesses. The PriceX Conference poll surveyed nearly seventy businesspeople responsible for making pricing decisions at their respective companies.

Despite this finding, adoption of strategic, science-based pricing and associated technologies is relatively minor in industries other than airlines, hotels, and retailers. These industries practice a form of science-based pricing called yield management. Yield management, also known as revenue management, was invented three decades ago; its goal is to fill as many seats and rooms as possible while charging the highest prices the market can bear. Since then, these industries have adopted sophisticated software programs to predict demand and to set prices, resulting in as many different price points per flight as passengers, or per room as guests.

Armed with a wealth of customer data, programmers then developed formulas that could manipulate prices up or down depending on existing sales, the likelihood of last-minute purchases, and other variables ranging from weather forecasts to competitors' prices. The underlying logic was that airplane seats and hotel rooms are worthless if unused, and selling them even at a loss meant gaining some revenue.

Given that "computer power" is much more affordable these days, user enterprises can harness statistical science to analyze transactions and other customer data to more accurately explore the cause-and-effect relationship between prices and purchase decisions. The idea here is to be able to discern customers' "willingness to pay," and set "take-it-or-leave it" prices where companies will make the maximum revenue.

Using mathematical formulas and massive databases of sales records, companies can forecast their sales plans, and test pricing and demand elasticity under various discount or package scenarios before trying them in the market. Layering in data from other customer interactions can help companies set prices, schedule markdowns, and identify top performing buyers with more sophistication than ever before. Companies can also set prices based on the value consumers derive from specific products, or even plan different discounting and pricing strategies based on anticipated customer behavior.

Again, as indicated earlier on (see Know Thy Market Segment's Price Response), business-to-business (B2B) pricing environments are different in that pricing is opaque and largely discretionary. Now that technologies have been brought to market that address these dynamics, B2B companies are getting on board too.

Nevertheless, according to Zilliant, although pricing is generally accepted as a core business practice, the process most B2B companies go through in determining a price is often archaic and arbitrary. Some businesses simply take the cost of a product and add margin on top of that price, while others simply match or better their competitor's offering. Another common practice is the so-called "out of thin air" (OTA) or "sucking (knowledge) out of my thumb" method; in other words—guessing. According to the above mentioned PriceX survey, 56 percent of companies polled have some sort of pricing strategy in place, while only 44 percent have a dedicated pricing department or an individual with pricing responsibility.

Other key trends uncovered in the survey included that 35 percent of companies consider pricing to be a top priority, yet 61 percent of companies use Excel spreadsheets to determine price (rather than specialized pricing applications from a vendor). Data cleansing was cited as the main obstacle to improving pricing policies, followed by ineffective customer segmentation.

In a somewhat older survey (taken a few years ago) by the Professional Pricing Society of its members, 30 percent of respondents said they priced new products by mirroring their nearest competitors' prices, and another 22 percent set prices for new products based on recovery of costs and to tack on a profit. Only 18 percent revealed that they performed some sort of customer research to determine the value of the product or service to potential customers. And when it comes to the Internet pricing, 40 percent said they simply mimic the pricing of their off-line sales channels, and 28 percent responded that they do not have an Internet strategy at all.

In other words, most businesses lack a detailed understanding of their market segments' responses to prices and deal terms. They rely solely on undifferentiated discount policies and sales team discretion to structure all types of deals, from quotes to orders, agreements to contracts. As a result, some deals go through with overly generous terms, while others are lost due to gross pricing misalignment.

These harmful practices continue to take place despite some pricing pundits "shouting blue murder" (protesting) about the ingrained, casual thinking that pervades the global economy regarding pricing. Both consumers and businesspeople erroneously assume that price has everything to do with cost. Yet, while any company has to know the cost of a product, it is only so that it can understand the profitability implications of the price, not for the purpose of setting the price. The value (benefit per unit price) is in the eye of the customer and depends on the circumstances surrounding the deal. Another faulty practice is the assumption that when a company is in a competitive situation and prices drop, the company must match the price-drop. Also, executives who are devoted to using data and analytics in all kinds of other functional areas still think it is entirely acceptable to set prices based on "history," "experience," or "instinct."

The Necessity of Data Warehousing

Data warehousing is an integral part of the "information age". Corporations have long known that some of the keys to their future success could be gleaned from their existing data, both current and historical. Until approximately 1990, many factors made it difficult, if not impossible, to extract this data and turn it into useful information. Some examples:

* Data storage peripherals such as DASD (Direct Access Storage Device) were extremely expensive on a per-megabyte basis. Therefore, much of the needed data was stored offline, typically on magnetic tape.

* Processing power was very expensive as measured in MIPS (Millions of Instructions per Second). Mainframes had to reserve most of their processing power for day-to-day operations, reports could only be run overnight in batch mode (without interaction from the user).

* Relational database technology was still in its infancy, and server engines were not powerful enough to support the data loads required.

* The type of programming that had to be done with third generation languages (3GL's) was tedious and expensive. Fourth generation languages were needed to abstract some of the required coding, but 4GL's were still in their infancy.

Most operational data is stored in what is referred to as an OLTP (On-Line Transaction Processing) system. These systems are specifically designed for high levels of transaction volume with many concurrent users. If the database is relational, it has probably been "normalized" (the process of organizing data in accordance with the rules of a relational database). If the database is non-relational, custom programs have to be written to store and retrieve data from the database. (This is often accomplished with the COBOL programming language). Whether relational or non-relational, the very design that makes an OLTP system efficient for transaction processing makes it inefficient for end-user queries. In the 1980's, many business users referred to their mainframes as "the black hole", because all the information went into it, but none ever came back out - all requests for reports had to be programmed by the Information Systems staff. Only "pre-canned" reports could be generated on a scheduled basis, ad-hoc real-time querying was virtually impossible.

To resolve these issues, data warehousing was created. The theory was to create a database infrastructure that was always on-line, contained all the information from the OLTP systems, including historical data, but structured in such a way that it was fast and efficient for querying. The most common of these schemas (logical and physical database designs) is known as the star schema. A star schema consists of facts (actual business facts) and dimensions (ways of looking at the facts). One simple way to look at a star schema is that it is designed such that the maximum amount of information can be derived from the fewest number of table reads. Another way to reduce the amount of data being read is to pre-define aggregations (summaries of detail data, such as monthly total sales) within the star, since most queries ask questions like "how many were sold last month?"

Data warehousing also led to the development of the concept of metadata management. Metadata is data about data, such as table and column names, and datatypes. Managing metadata makes it possible to understand relationships between data elements and assists in the mapping of source to target fields. (For more information of Metadata see "Metadata Standards in the Marketplace ")

Next came the creation of Extract/Transform/Load (ETL) tools, which made use of the metadata to get the information from the source systems into the data warehouse.

Additional tools, which made use of SQL (Structured Query Language), were developed to give end-users direct access to the data in the warehouse. As time went by, the query tools became user-friendly, and many now have a parser that can turn plain English questions into valid SQL. These end-user tools are now loosely referred to as "business intelligence" tools. In addition, there are other database constructs used to assist business intelligence tools in multi-dimensional analysis of data in the warehouse. These databases are referred to as hypercubes (also known as cubes, multi-dimensional cubes, or MDB's).

Since the early 1990's, data warehouses have become ubiquitous, technology and methodology have been improving, and costs have been decreasing. In 1998, data warehousing was a $28 Billion (USD) industry, and growing at over 10% per year. In addition, a recent survey of top IT executives indicated that data warehousing would be the number one post-Y2K priority. Data warehousing is now recognized as an important way to add business value and improve return on investment, if it is properly planned and implemented.

Selection Issues

Selecting a set of products for a data warehouse effort is complex. The first and most important issue is to ensure that the Extract/Transform/Load tool that is chosen can effectively and efficiently extract the source data from all the required systems.

The selection of the ETL tool requires an understanding of the source data feeds. The following issues should be considered:

* Many warehouses are built from "legacy" systems that may be difficult to access from the computer network. ETL tools often do not reside on the same machine as the source data.

* The data structures of the legacy systems may be hard to decompose into raw data.

* Legacy data is often "dirty" (containing invalid data, or missing data). Care must be taken in the evaluation of the tool to ensure it has an adequate function library for cleansing the data. Depending on the complexity of the cleansing required, a separate tool designed specifically for cleansing and validation may have to be purchased in addition to the ETL tool.

* The ETL tool should have a metadata ("data about data") repository, which allows the data sources, targets, and transformations to be tracked in an effective manner.

* The tool should be able to access legacy data without the need for pre-processing (usually with COBOL programs) to get the data into sequential "flat files". This becomes increasingly complex when working with filesystems like VSAM (Virtual Sequential Access Method), and files that contain COBOL Occurs and Re-Defines clauses (repeating groups and conditionally defined fields). It should be noted that a large percentage of the world's data is stored in VSAM files.

* A final issue is whether the ETL tool moves all the data through its own engine on the way to the target, or can be a "proxy" and move the data directly from the source to the target.

Selection of the business intelligence tool(s) requires decisions such as:

* Will multi-dimensional analysis be necessary, or does the organization need only generalized queries? Not all warehouse implementations require sophisticated analysis techniques such as data mining (statistical analysis to discover trends in the data), data visualization (graphical display of query results), or multi-dimensional analysis (the so called "slice and dice").

* Will the architecture be two-tiered or three-tiered? Three-tiered architectures offload some of the processing to an "application server" which sits between the database server and the end-user.

* Will the tool employ a "push" or a "pull" technology? ("Push" technology publishes the queries to subscribed users, much like Pointcast works, "pull" requires that the user request the query).

* Will the information be broadcast over a corporate intranet, extranet, or the Internet?

* How will the organization implement data security, especially if information is being broadcast outside the corporate firewalls?

A One-stop Event for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Information

The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) hosts its quarterly World Conference in cities across the US to help organizations involved in data warehousing, business intelligence (BI), and performance management, by giving them access to industry experts, and providing impartial classes related to topics pertinent to the industry. As the industry grows, organizations are faced with questions about how to best access their data to drive profits and meet goals and budgets. The need to understand data warehousing and the best means of leveraging data has become essential to developing a forward-looking approach to a BI solution.

This year, TDWI's summer event was held in San Diego, California (US) from August 20 to 26. Participants were able to take advantage of courses given by worldwide BI experts, as well as network with peers, have access to vendors and product demonstrations, and participate in one-on-one sessions with industry experts and instructors. The six-day event provided one-stop shopping for participants, who were able to take advantage of planned networking events, a two-day trade show highlighting various vendor offerings, and classes ranging from data warehousing testing techniques to best practices in performance management. The advantage of this one-stop shopping approach was that organizations had the opportunity to evaluate software, compare vendor offerings, and gain knowledge from other organizations that have implemented their own data warehousing environments.

The conference focused on five main themes, namely business analytics, leadership and management, data analysis and design, data integration, and administration and technology. These themes identify the main areas within data warehousing and BI, and provide the necessary knowledge related to the whole design and implementation process. A series of classes were offered in each area to allow users to focus on a specific industry aspect, or to gain an overall understanding of the sector and the different driving forces within it. Not only does TDWI focus on technology and the drivers associated with technological advances, but a key advantage to participating in the conference series is the additional focus on the business side of technology, and on managing the business processes associated with BI and performance management.

TDWI Overview

TDWI delivers research, education, and news, which enables individuals, teams, and organizations to leverage BI industry information to improve organizational decision-making, optimize performance, and achieve business objectives. One of TDWI's goals is to provide organizations with the impartial information required to make informed decisions. Although the organization runs events sponsored by various vendors, and provides users with product-related information, TDWI touts itself as being a central impartial resource for information. Business and information technology (IT) evaluators of solutions—whether in the requirements-gathering or enhancement phase of a current platform—can access a wide range of information, including classes, webinars, on-site training, and research.

TDWI has an international membership program, and provides industry publications and news, and a comprehensive web site. A division of 1105 Media, TDWI was created in 1995. It has over 5,000 members from Fortune 1000 companies, and includes both business and technology professionals. It is regarded as one of the central organizations for collecting data and providing insight into the world of data warehousing and BI.

TDWI collects and promotes best practices research to educate technical and business professionals about new BI technologies, concepts, and the approaches that have been applied in other organizations. This research also addresses significant issues and problems that organizations have experienced, and how they were handled. Many companies use TDWI's information to identify how they measure up to industry standards, how to take advantage of new or upcoming technologies, and how to address issues that relate to how they conduct business. The benefit of this information is two-fold. First of all, organizations can keep on top of enhancements within the industry, and can gain a wider knowledge base than that provided to them by their service provider (their selected vendor). Secondly, TDWI can help drive industry trends by leveraging the needs of organizations, as well as the way vendors should develop products to meet those needs.

TDWI's annual BI Benchmark Report identifies best practice metrics and compares TDWI's data warehousing maturity model to the industry. Many organizations consult this report to benchmark their BI use to ensure they are optimizing their implemented solutions, and discover ways to continuously improve their technical platforms and BI environments. This can include comparing their current environment with other organizations, or looking at information about other organizations within their vertical markets. TDWI also distributes other industry-related publications:

* The Business Intelligence Journal, published biannually, provides information and resources for BI and data warehousing professionals. The focus is on actionable advice on how to plan, build, and deploy BI and data warehousing solutions.
* Ten Mistakes to Avoid is distributed quarterly, and advises readers on different topics related to building, deploying, or maintaining a data warehouse, or managing a data warehouse team.
* What Works: Best Practices in Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing, also distributed quarterly, gives readers a comprehensive collection of case studies, questions and answers, and lessons learned from the experts.
* TDWI e-mail newsletters provide up-to-date news and industry commentary.

These publications provide users with continual information on the industry, and can help identify pitfalls in order to prevent them from making those same mistakes. Also, organizations that are in the same situations can gain insights on how to solve issues, as well as learn from other organizations and industry experts.

TDWI also develops webinars to discuss pertinent issues in the BI and data warehousing industry, and gives training at customer sites. TDWI seminars deal with the skills and techniques used to ensure successful implementations of BI and data warehousing projects. Overall, TDWI leverages its decade of experience within the data warehousing and BI industries to provide organizations with the information needed to make the best decisions possible. This way, organizations can access information that is industry-specific (without a bias towards one vendor versus another), and benchmark their own BI and data warehousing environments against organizations that have more experience implementing and growing these solutions. Also, organizations can compare and contrast challenges and issues as they arise.

TDWI Conference Tracks

Each of the quarterly conferences focuses on different tracks. These tracks present business and IT users with classes and seminars that highlight main industry trends, and provide a basis for enhancing their current data warehousing and BI environments (or aid in the requirements and selection process to implement such an environment). Not only do classes provide a wealth of information that can be justly described as verging on information overload, but in-class exercises, depending on the class, allow users to internalize the information to which they are being exposed. Aside from diverse and in-depth topics, the instructors are experts (whether within their respective industries, or their consultancy practices). Not only can users learn about the topics being presented, but they can also meet with experts to gain additional insight into topics directed specifically to their organizations.

Over fifty classes were offered during this summer's six-day conference. Topics ranged from data warehousing testing techniques to performance management benchmarking practices, in either full-day or half-day sessions. This allowed participants to learn about the latest trends, best practices, and industry insights on how to improve their current structure or enhance their technical platforms. Five tracks were presented during the event:

* Business Analytics
The business analytics track focused on both business and technical aspects of analysis. Topics included performance management, the definition and delivery of business metrics, data visualization, and the deployment and use of technology solutions. Solutions discussed included online analytical processing (OLAP), dashboards, scorecards, and data mining, as well as analytic applications. This focus allows organizations to gain insight into areas within BI and the different aspects of insight that analytics can provide. Organizations that require a subset of BI can identify how their needs can be met, by identifying requirements based on the topics presented. Additionally, they can take advantage of the trade show to identify those vendors that meet their needs, or those that (while not all-encompassing BI vendors) play in a specific space within the industry, such as data mining or data integration.

* Leadership and Management
The leadership and management track provided users with the insights needed to take a project from inception through to completion. Aside from identifying process and project management methodologies related to data warehousing and BI projects, emphasis was placed on the overall management of these projects. Ideas presented ranged from team building and the high level technical requirements needed to manage such projects, to other business areas such as customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM). This focus allowed users to identify a broad range of topics and considerations needed to implement and manage a data warehousing project through the systems development life cycle. Additionally, outside markets were identified to show the interrelation between BI and other industries. For example, many operational BI efforts are driven by SCM and the need to manage day-to-day decisions from the shop floor.

* Data Analysis and Design
A key focus of the data analysis and design theme centered on the skills needed to identify business needs and to transform those needs into data structures that are adaptable, extensible, and sustainable to the business unit. Course topics included needs analysis, specifications of business metrics, and data modeling. These topics and surrounding concepts encompass the backbone of developing a data warehousing and BI platform. Identifying business and systems requirements and translating them into the appropriate systems requirements is essential within any project. Within data warehousing and BI, it becomes more important as platforms are designed, and as business needs analysis has to be integrated into the actual design of the platform. Integration questions center on whether the current systems will integrate with the new software—and more importantly, how they will integrate.

* Data Integration
The theme of data integration included all the topics related to implementing a data warehouse solution. Included were data profiling; data transformation; data cleansing; source and target mapping; data cleansing and transformation; and extract, transform, and load (ETL) development. It is important not to underestimate the importance of data integration, as the way data is integrated into a data warehouse or BI solution is the essence of that system. If a scorecard is developed to measure an organization's sales metrics and the source data is not accurate, the key performance indicators (KPIs) set and reported on will be meaningless.

* Administration and Technology
The administration and technology track identified and covered topics related to infrastructure management, and the continued successful operation of data warehousing and BI solutions. The focus was on technology architecture, planning and configuration, system and network administration, database administration, and access and security administration. Maintenance of the implemented architecture and platform is essential to continued success in the data warehousing and BI environment. This section helped bridge the gap between administration and technology, and identifies the complexity of managing these two aspects of a data warehouse.

Microsoft Goes Their Own Way with Data Warehousing Alliance 2000

"REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced that 47 applications and tools from 39 top vendors throughout the industry have qualified for Microsoft Data Warehousing Alliance 2000. Alliance members and partners are committed to delivering tools and applications based on the Microsoft Data Warehousing Framework 2000, an open architecture for building business intelligence and analytical applications based on the open standards and services built into the Windows 2000 operating system, Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and Office 2000. Application vendor membership for the Data Warehousing Alliance has more than doubled since it was originally announced in October 1998."

According to the release "organizations leveraging the framework and using alliance member products are better able to align local decision-making around key business drivers and harness the full potential of the web to win new customers, retain and extend customer relationships, and work more effectively with partners."

The architecture is based on OLE DB and the Open Information Model (OIM), in "recognition of the value and competitive advantage provided by the data warehousing services built into Microsoft products."

According to Microsoft, this technology is based on the Microsoft Data Warehousing Framework, which "is based on open, published protocols for interoperability and integrated end-to-end data warehousing services. It utilizes technologies provided in Microsoft Office 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 products, and a partnership with Data Warehousing Alliance members for complementary tools and applications. The DWF enables data warehousing solutions where the data comes from virtually any source and where any type of information can be delivered to any compliant client interface or application."

Market Impact

Once again, Microsoft is using proprietary standards (OLE DB and OIM) to achieve its data warehousing goals. The more widely accepted standards are under the stewardship of the Object Management Group (OMG), which has over 800 members. OIM is a standard developed by Microsoft and turned over to the MetaData Council (MDC) which has "close to 50" members. For more information on the dueling standards bodies see "Is There Finally A Metadata Exchange Standard on the Horizon?", (http://technologyevaluation.com/news_analysis/09-99/NA_DW_MFR_9_28_99_1.asp,September 28, 1999). The alliance criteria require compliance with OLE DB for data access and the Open Information Model for sharing metadata. According to Colin White, president of DataBase Associates International Inc., "The Microsoft Data Warehousing Framework 2000 makes it easy to build Digital Dashboard applications integrating business intelligence, collaboration, and Web content right into the environment many knowledge workers live in: Outlook 2000."

This effort should make it easier for customers to integrate and use tools from multiple vendors, as long as their database is Microsoft's, and the other vendors are members of this alliance. The web component is to be provided by Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0, a component of the Windows DNA platform (Distributed interNet Architecture, introduced in 1997, Microsoft's umbrella term for its enterprise network architecture based on COM and Windows 2000 (NT 5.0)). The Windows DNA platform is advertised as "Microsoft's comprehensive platform for building Web applications."

We believe this will only serve to further fragment the data warehousing market. Obviously, Oracle is not a member of this alliance, and other applications show spotty representation. For example, in the enterprise resource planning space, Baan NV is represented, but SAP AG and PeopleSoft are not. In the area of supply chain analytics, the only vendor represented is Manuguistics Inc.