Terabyte Territories

Organizations of all sizes-from grocery chains to multinational financial
services firms-are amassing and exchanging more information than ever, thanks
to Internet and e-business technologies. Decision-makers from CXO level, down to
first-line managers, need to closely monitor the information to assess business
performance. By doing so, they can streamline business processes, track IT
assets in a better way, improve inventory flows and boost customer service.

But that can be an unpredictable exercise if you cannot draw meaningful
insight from information on demand, making it possible to make faster and better
decisions as market and supply chain conditions change. According to IBM
estimates, the size of a typical enterprise database has grown 100 times over
the past five years, from gigabytes to terabytes of information. While original
information on paper continues to grow, it mostly comes in the form of office
documents and email. There is also a flood of digital media flowing freely on
radio, television and the Internet.

That information resides in so many environments that quickly extracting this
insight has become a daunting challenge. And it's only going to become a
bigger challenge as emerging technologies such as wireless, embedded and RFID
generate more information-and increase number of people and points of access.

Business Intelligence (BI) extended now enables companies to mine information
scattered throughout their organization, in all forms-including e-mail,
graphics, video and voicemail. Companies are also extending BI technologies to
business performance management. Organizations are looking beyond real-time
financial management to other operation areas, such as human resources, CRM,
supply chain and system performance. This will make it possible to better access
their own operational and sales performance in real-time.

Imagine a company looking at all its information at once. That's
information integration-a new technology that is significantly opening new
opportunities for business intelligence such as spot hidden trends before they
occur and recognize opportunities before they knock. That's the new business
intelligence enabled by information integration.

BI enhanced with information integration makes it possible to adopt a
"sense and respond" model of doing business. When that happens, the
headaches are reduced-and the odds of winning in business are substantially
higher.

CIO directions

Given the pressures of the economy, today enterprises are trying to achieve
better quality of service (performance and high availability) as well as reduce
their cost of computing. There is a clear move in the market towards
consolidation to reduce costs and increase simplicity. Analysts have predicted
that pricing models, integration, and consolidation will be key moves for
achieving RoI in 2005. To address these challenges, many vendors have introduced
infrastructure software specifically designed for the next generation of
computing-enterprise grids. With enterprise grid computing organizations can
build a powerful infrastructure with a variable cost structure that can be
adjusted as needed. Grid infrastructure software adapts to your organization's
changing business needs.

Database management is the most significant overhead in the cost of managing
data centers. Oracle, for example, responds with grid, self-managing databases,
integrated BI solutions and Linux support while IBM addresses this with
outsourcing, Linux support and federated databases. With a grid computing
architecture you can quickly and easily create a large-scale computing
infrastructure from inexpensive, off-the-shelf components like server blades and
commodity storage. There are three steps that companies should undertake on
their journey to grid computing:

• Standardization on low-cost, high-density modular servers and storage
  based on technology such as Intel Itanium processors, blade servers, and
  Linux or Windows
• Consolidation of servers clusters and storage shared among one/more data
  centers
• Automation of all day-to-day management tasks, enabling a single
  administrator to simultaneously handle hundreds of servers in clusters

Each stage brings its own possibilities for savings and
efficiencies: Gartner estimates that typical enterprises with mainframe, Unix
and Windows deployments could save between 8.5% and 10.5% of the data center
budget by implementing standardization, consolidation and automation; Giga
estimates that companies can potentially save 20% or more through consolidation.

Just to give the readers an idea of the underutilization of
resources, amongst Enterprises, the figure on an average varies from 40—60%
(computing power as well as storage). What a CIO must keep in mind is to choose
a vendor who provides the grid infrastructure that is platform independent. The
organization should be able to pool servers and storage into a flexible,
on-demand computing resource for all enterprise computing needs.

With contributions from editorial advisors -R
Dhamodaran, VP and Country Executive, Software Group and Developer
Relations, IBM India and Sundar Ram, GM, Technology Sales Consulting,
Oracle India

Choosing the Right Database

Information today is more important than ever. In this age of
information overload, it is necessary to disregard any information that is not
related to one's needs.

Filtering one's data can help arrive at smart information.
Avoid the following:

• Information that is not to the point

• Duplicate information

• Erroneous information

• Abstract information

• Subjective information

To provide the requisite information, a systematic study of the information
requirements is necessary. When considering information requirements, one key
point needs to be kept in mind.

While choosing a database, the information system in an organisation needs to
be kept in mind. A good information system is one that divides the information
of the organisation into secured and unsecured layers. The basic database
structure should suit different types of information seekers and also avoid
duplicate data entry system. Most critical of all, databases should be simple,
so that easy debugging of complicated problems is possible. That should be the
guiding principle for anyone choosing a database for his organization.

When it comes to actually buying a database, the CIOs face the biggest
challenge. It is tough for them to marry the requirements of the organisation
and its various information seekers to the framework set out by the CFO. While
choosing a database for the organisation, the following points need to be taken
into account:

A database should cater to the corporate objectives of the company like
meeting demands for flexibility in load handling (managing peak in demand) and
the speed to deploy new applications

A database should make the most efficient use of hardware and IT resources-that
is, the architectural framework should be such that it reduces the complexity in
terms of integration, multiplicity of vendor solutions and the need for multiple
skills.

A database should be forward-looking-a solution for the future in terms of
moving database management towards a utility rather than making it more arcane.

A good DB should automate time-consuming, error-prone administrative tasks,
so database administrators can focus on strategic business objectives.

With Grid Computing or Utility Computing being the buzzword in integration, a
database that coordinates the use of large numbers of servers and storage,
acting as one self-managing Grid for the highest quality of service on low-cost,
modular hardware proves very beneficial to an organisation and heavily reduces
investment costs.