Business Intelligence Lowdown

Data Warehouse Adds Power to Data Mining Tools

-- By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

This is business intelligence at its best – software that helps you read your customers’ minds. Teradata Warehouse Miner 5.0 claims to be able to do just that. The database tool from the data warehouse provider leverages the most advanced analytic skills when used in conjunction with data-mining solutions from SAS, SPSS, Fair Isaac Model Builder and KXEN, to provide a peek into the future buying behavior of customers. According to Randy Lea, VP of products and services at Teradata, the combined solution facilitates faster model development, with runtimes becoming 25 times faster.

With the latest version of the software, improvement is promised in operations like data profiling, Analytic Data Set (ADS) generation, Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML), and model management. Follow this link for more information.

Support For SQL Server 2005

The newest release of SQL Compliance Manager features ample support for Microsoft's SQL Server 2005, including x64-bit environments and tailored alerts depending to the seriousness of the security issue. Idera, which provides management and administration solutions for Microsoft's SQL Server, has released version 2.0 as a cost-effective option for companies to automate their compliance processes and make sure that their SQL databases are up to standard. The Compliance Manager allows all accesses, updates, and modifications to data and security settings to be audited in real time. Information related to the audit is stored in a secure, tamper-proof central storage system. The new ActiveAlert feature allows you to set well-defined policies that identify and raise alarms on activities and events that violate corporate audit standards. Database Trends and Applications reports:

Version 2.0 also includes audits for over 20 new trace events, over 40 new object categories, impersonation data and 400 object types unique to SQL Server 2005. The Compliance Manager architecture has been structured to take full advantage of the new SQL Server 2005 environment, including using the new secure audit data capture, using SQL Server 2005 databases as the SQL Compliance Manager repository, and using SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services as the reporting engine.

Email Management Tool

There's one more tool available out there for those of you who are wishing for a god-sent plan to help manage your emails. Information technology management firm CA has integrated its CA Message Manager with Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g, Microsoft Exchange, and IBM Lotus Notes, to provide a complete email archival and management solution. The tool will not only store your emails, but also monitor them for violations and allow you to set a retention period so you can meet compliance and litigation support regulations. Database Trends and Applications reports:

A single point-of-control for managing and archiving messages across the enterprises is a necessity in today's corporate environment, Mike Gundling, vice president of development for CA's Storage Management Business Unit said. "Email needs to be treated as a business record."

CTP for SQL Server 2005

With Microsoft's Service Pack 1 for its SQL Server 2005 scheduled for an April launch, the company unveiled a public Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the software recently. SP1 is planned to be a new customer collaboration model that will have a separate release mechanism for security fixes. Microsoft is using the Transparent Customer Collaboration Model to gain the customer's feedback, suggestions and opinions and incorporate them during the development cycle of the service pack. Customers will not have to worry about delays in updating security options in their server since there is a discrete release mechanism for the same. The company can also spend more time on other updates instead of rushing things to expedite the security fix. Microsoft has shown a profound level of commitment to the product by extending the CTP model to it. You can use this link to download the CTP. 

Location Intelligence Tool

If you are an IT administrator, there may be times when you would like to keep a finger in all the pies that are your geographically diverse and data centers. Well, here's a location intelligence tool from AdventNet Inc. that promises to help you do just that. With ManageEngine Applications Manager, a web application management solution, you can keep your eye on what's going on in all your data centers, no matter in which corner of the globe they are located. The tool monitors information by integrating its root cause analysis capability with Google Maps, and displays results on a single web console. The newest version of Applications Manager features web transactions, Microsoft.NET monitoring, an enhanced web client with integrated AJAX capabilities, and the ability to monitor application servers, database systems, web servers, mail servers, and websites. For more information before you buy the tool, read up on it here. Who knows, you may even pull out a plum!

Oracle SQL Developer

Database developers can now take advantage of Oracle SQL Developer (also named Project Raptor) to browse and create objects, run SQL statements and scripts, edit and debug PL/SQL code, view and update data, and build custom reports according to the needs of their development projects. The tool incorporates a code formatter and strings of code that reduce the time and effort needed to write a program.  Database Applications and Trends reports:

The tool is available for all releases of Oracle Database 10g and Oracle9i Database Release 2. Additionally, Oracle SQL Developer is certified to run against all editions of Oracle Database 10g, including Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, Standard Edition One, and Express Edition.

Ad-Hoc Query Builder

BI software provider MicroStrategy has added to its reporting capabilities with a new graphical interface for impromptu queries. Query Builder, which provides power users, developers, business analysts, and report consumers the ability to query operational databases without hand-coding SQL, is available with the newest release of MicroStrategy 8. Database Applications and Trends reports:

The graphical Query Builder interface makes it easy to select tables and columns and define joins visually. Power users with knowledge of the data model have vast flexibility to ask almost any type of business question with Query Builder.

Query Component for Multiple Relational Databases

A new data query service that eases access to data from multiple, relational databases is now available from data service management solutions provider MetaMatrix. The query component, MetaMatrix Query, streamlines development and maintenance of Java applications that use more than one relational database, by federating data from these repositories and optimising distributed queries. Database Trends and Applications reports:

With MetaMatrix Query, rather than having to write custom code to connect to several individual databases, extract the data and then integrate the data within the application, Java developers can embed a single data service component that handles interactions with all relevant relational databases, including a SQL query that spans multiple sources.

Illegal Data Mining

The scales have tilted in Google's favor in the tug-of-war between the search giant and the US government; score one for the common man's right to privacy. Now, the New York-based Datran Media Corp. has been forced to pay a settlement of $1.1 million for unauthorized use of nearly 6 million email addresses gleaned from various companies that used the lure of freebies to fool customers into giving up their personal information. Data Warehouse IT Toolbox reports:

"Personal information equals marketing dollars," New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said. "You learn more about consumers who you want to target in a hundred different ways and there's nothing wrong with that if you get the information properly."

Image Text Search Tool

A new web mining and data management tool that works based on the concept of image text search is now available from QL2 Software Incorporated. WebQL 3.0 promises to help structure an organization's data and enhance and improve its search procedures by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read text that is represented as images in web pages and PDF documents. Database Trends and Applications reports:

Thus, data that was previously inaccessible, because it existed as an image, is now available for extraction and delivery in an actionable format, like Word, Excel or CSV. WebQL 3.0 also has a number of new enterprise-grade features. New grid computing capabilities provide limitless scalability for large data integration projects, according to the company.