A data container is a transportation solution for a database required to run from one computer system to another. A data container is a data structure that “stores and organizes virtual objects (a virtual object is a self-contained entity that consists of both data and procedures to manipulate the data).” This is similar to the packaging of a […]
Data Warehouse vs. Data Lake Technology: Different Approaches to Managing Data
Solving business problems using big data depends upon the approach taken. For example, if an organization only knows data warehouses, then challenges will be framed to fit using a data warehouse. As Abraham Maslow, a prominent psychologist eloquently said “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat […]
What Is Business Semantics?
Business semantics describes metadata, reconciled to have consistent organizational terms and meanings. While business metadata describes data to enhance business value, business semantics makes up a sub-set of this metadata, the vocabulary. Business semantics can result in a business glossary, but it may take on a combination of different formats. Conceptual data models, data catalogs, […]
What Is Enterprise Information Management (EIM)?
The Gartner IT Glossary defines Enterprise Information Management (EIM) as: “An integrative discipline for structuring, describing and governing information assets across organizational and technological boundaries to improve efficiency, promote transparency and enable business insight.” According toOpenText, EIM: “Helps businesses attain 360-degree views of their Big Data and Analytics by streamlining organizational workflows, increasing the quality […]
What Is Data Cleansing?
Data cleansing (aka data cleaning or data scrubbing) is the act of making system data ready for analysis by removing inaccuracies or errors. This process prevents questionable and costly business decisions based on messy data. Data volumes and sources have grown much bigger and are expected to scale up even quicker. Companies wish to access […]
What Is a Data Silo?
Data silos have often had a negative connotation. They describe isolated data islands that appear or are discovered upon finding disjointed Data Management components. These include: Systems that cannot programmatically work with other systems because of older or incompatible code Fixed data that is controlled by one department or team but is cut off from […]
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence (BI) includes the technologies and tools used to analyze and report on different business operations. Business Intelligence uses raw data stored in varying data warehouses, data marts, data lakes, and other storage platforms, and transforms it into actionable knowledge/information assets. Such elements include dashboards, spreadsheets, data visualizations, reports, and many others. According to […]
NoSQL Databases: The Versatile Solution for Continuous Intelligence
Most businesses tend to rely on relational database management systems (RDBMS) to provide business insight, including continuous intelligence. Cloud relational databases have improved computing power they bring to the table, to handle more massive amounts of data. However, relational databases, even ones in the cloud, face two issues. They have a harder time with the […]
What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
According to the SAS Institute: “Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks. Most AI examples that you hear about today – from chess-playing computers to self-driving cars – rely heavily on deep learning and natural language processing. Using these technologies, computers can […]
Graph Database vs. Document Database: Different Levels of Abstraction
“Remember that every science is based upon an abstraction. An abstraction is taking a point of view or looking at things under a certain aspect or from a particular angle. All sciences are differentiated by their abstraction.” (Fulton Sheen) Graph and document databases (aka document stores), also demonstrate this principle. A few years, graph databases […]