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Thursday, 10 December 2009 12:15 |
Public Spending Cuts
An article published by FT.com.
Nicholas Timmins, Public Policy Editor
Published: December 9 2009 14:5
Limited protection for patients, schools and the police accompanied by the fiercest spending cuts of modern times for virtually all other services were outlined by the chancellor on Wednesday.
Public sector workers will have to help pay for that with only a 1 per cent pay increase for the two years from 2011 on top of the 1 per cent limit already proposed for the coming year. Those on more than £100,000 a year will also pay higher pension contributions. The government will cap its contributions to public sector pensions.
For the two years from April 2011, NHS front-line spending – which the Treasury defined as the 95 per cent of spending that supports patient care – will rise in line with inflation.
Spending on schools will will increase by 0.7 per cent a year in real terms. Sure Start – the early years’ children’s centres – will receive inflation-linked increases and Mr Darling said sufficient funding will be provided to the police to maintain officer numbers, with a continued rise in overseas aid.
The price for that, however, will be spending cuts elsewhere at least as fierce as those outlined in the Budget. Other departments face year-on-year reductions in their cash spending out to 2014, with which they will have to meet pay rises, inflation costs and any extra demands put on their services by demography, such as a rising birth rate and rising numbers of elderly.
Public sector pay restraint will deliver £3.4bn of savings a year by 2012-13, the Treasury said, and the changes to public sector pensions will save £1bn a year from 2012-13 onward.
The government is to make £5bn of savings by 2012-13 by reducing the cost and scope of the NHS IT programme, cutting some adult skills and temporary employment programmes, reducing legal aid and outsourcing inefficient prisons to the private sector.
http://www.ft.com/ |
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Thursday, 03 December 2009 10:32 |
Technology Components of a Scalable Architecture
In order to successfully achieve information empowerment, today’s business intelligence (BI) applications must be scalable. Applications must continue to function efficiently as new constraints are imposed, including increased data volumes and changing user requirements. To completely address scalability, both infrastructure (technology) and architectural (design of the end-to-end solution) perspectives must be considered.
A key driver for selecting the appropriate technical infrastructure is the defined service level agreement (SLA). SLAs typically dictate timing of information release, application performance expectations and availability expectations (i.e., system response in the event of a software or hardware issue). Scalable BI technology architectures must support the demand for increasing data volume and user scale while maintaining the required service levels.
Technology components for the BI infrastructure primarily consist of hardware (servers), software (integration middleware, reporting/analytics software, data management software) and storage applications. For the overall infrastructure to scale, each of these components must be able to scale individually. By implementing the right scalable technology, an organization can minimize its initial investment and incrementally invest by growing that technology as demands increase over time.
Scalability is typically achieved either through the vertical or the horizontal scaling of hardware. Vertical scalability is achieved by adding computer resources (memory and processors) to the system to handle increased workloads. Horizontal scalability is achieved by adding more servers to balance the existing workload and to support increasing workloads. Horizontal scalability provides for load balancing and failover, which is the ability to keep the system running in case of a hardware failure. Horizontal and/or vertical scaling can be applied to each hardware and software component of the BI infrastructure provided that software is designed to support those methods of hardware scaling.
Traditional extract, transform and load (ETL) development often included proprietary hand coding technologies or leveraged database code functionality. Implementing enterprise solutions today requires robustly engineered ETL tools to handle increasing data volumes and smaller load windows. According to Forrester Research, “Most ETL vendors have focused on scalability as a top requirement.”1 Leading tools support scalable functionality by processing data in a multithreaded manner, performing parallel processing against large data sets and by distributing processing across multiple machines.
The data management platform must be designed to support efficient loading and retrieval of data. Large BI applications must provide data management strategies that dictate how data is managed over time. Database applications must be designed to support frequent data administration activities within tight load windows. Database vendors offer data partitioning and parallel querying to support scalability. Data partitioning segregates data to support parallel query execution and efficient data administration. ETL processes take advantage of the database partitioning features through efficient load process design. Parallel query provides support for faster data retrieval when used in conjunction with well-designed partition strategies. Robust database solutions support both horizontal and vertical hardware and software scalability configurations that provide high- availability solutions.
Reporting applications must scale to support increasing numbers of users and more complex queries over time. Fast response time for data access is important to keep users engaged. Vendors in this space achieve scalability by distributing the application workloads across multiple servers to balance usage. Applications should be able to distribute workloads seamlessly across multiple servers and must allow additional servers into the configuration (horizontal scaling) or an increase of resources on existing servers (vertical scaling).
BI applications require flexible and scalable storage solutions. New BI requirements necessitate that more data be stored. Mergers, acquisitions and the implementation of new systems increase the data storage requirements for existing BI applications. New government regulations and requirements for longer data retention require that data be stored for longer periods.
Implementing a storage solution, such as storage area network and network attached storage technologies, allows organizations to support current data requirements and scale over time by adding storage. Such storage solutions allow an organization to simplify the administration and costs associated with multiple storage systems into a single storage solution that is easier to support and scale. Today’s storage solutions provide applications for the complete management of data storage with features such as data redundancy to support failover and high-availability processing, central administration and support for disaster recovery efforts.
The hardware, ETL, data management, reporting and storage components of a BI architecture must provide scalability either through the ability to scale horizontally and/or vertically or through specific functionalities built into each of those components. For an overall solution to scale, every one of these components must be able to scale independently.
http://www.information-management.com/issues/2007_52/10001988-1.html
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Thursday, 10 September 2009 13:52 |
New Trends in BI Requirements-Gathering
Information Management Magazine, July/Aug 2009
Fernando Martinez-Campos
Traditionally, business analysts on business intelligence projects have spent their days interviewing, analyzing and organizing their work in what I call a document-centric manner. The documents in question are maintained with the usual office automation software, such as word processors and spreadsheets. Business requirements are listed in Microsoft Word, and data requirements are depicted with data models that usually started as static diagrams. And for basic content management, tools like Microsoft SharePoint are often used as repositories to provide access to the different artifacts stored as files.
These traditional approaches have worked for smaller projects. However, when multiple contributors maintain a formal business requirements document (BRD), take care to prevent people from overwriting the same sections of the document. Efforts by different contributors, including business analysts, subject matter experts, data architects and metadata experts need to be tracked and merged into the final document.
Moreover, if a single business requirement appears across documents, it needs to be cross-referenced to maintain consistency. This cross-referencing is often done manually, mandating administrative vigilance when documents move or change names. In the end, the document-centric approach to requirements gathering becomes awkward, labor-intensive and costly.
New Approaches, New Tools
Emerging requirements automation software tools include mechanisms that interrelate different requirements more granularly so they can be linked across documents and projects. BRDs can appear holistically with cross-referenced objects using hyperlinks embedded in the document. These objects may be text, diagrams, screenshots or spreadsheets and may appear as if they all existed in line in the document. This capability renders a BRD richer and more illustrative than text-only requirements descriptions.
As individual BI projects become more complex and services that have shared business processes and common needs emerge, requirements automation tools can drive efficiencies. This is especially true in cases when:
- Requirements reviews need to be done with geographically dispersed business users,
- The same business requirement is common across BI projects,
- There are several business analysts and small to midsized enterprises collaborating on a BI application,
- Diverse lines of business share the same requirements and
- A centralized team of business analysts or data stewards are responsible for gathering requirements at the enterprise level.
This concurrency and complexity of projects drives the need for a single requirements repository that allows access to common artifacts. As requirements are collected over longer time periods, they can be reused and applied to future projects. And as they span enterprise-level needs, they will be not be scattered in project-specific documents but shared across business initiatives. A new crop of software tools seeks to help in integrating these requirements across projects on an ongoing basis.
A Standard Methodology
These tools establish a common methodology that standardizes an analysis process using defined templates at every step. Some methodology steps and flows are specific to each toolset; others try to fit within common industry approaches. Standardized rules to enforce mandatory fields, naming, data types and relationships can be entered by business analysts or data stewards in a sustainable way. Some tools use templates to generate dimensional data models along with metadata for business rules and calculations. This reduces development time and ensures that requirements and data structures originate from the same place.
Business requirements toolsets produce artifacts that can drive business analysis workflow, driving subsequent design and testing rigor. It's a cumulative process that ensures that each artifact leads to the next artifact, thereby enforcing the implementation standards for the project. The benefit is the adoption of a common process, a set of rules and consistency of enterprise data. The fundamental requirements goals of clarity, reusability and consistency are thus more easily achieved.
These requirements toolsets also provide a cross-functional view for business analysts in different departments. Consider the following business rule: "When an existing customer opens a new account, the customer profile is updated." This rule should apply across the customer lifecycle, touching and affecting multiple lines of business. The tool identifies the primary "owner" application and all its related usages. If a requirement changes due to a regulatory reason, the tool can make the change in its repository and cascade the relevant change to related applications.
The following is an example of how one software tool provided a systematic progressive linkage of documents on one of our BI projects:
A business analyst creates a draft BRD containing itemized business and functional requirements, each with a line-item number. This will be used to cross-reference items residing in other documents.
- The requirements line items will cross-reference to data contained in the logical data model.
- The data modeling tool will create denormalized structures to form a physical database design and the resulting table structures.
- The extract, transform and load specifications will reference the physical tables and map them to the ETL to load each table.
- Test case scripts are prepared cross-referencing each requirement to the logical model, physical tables and ETL mappings.
- The generated reports will cross-reference the requirements, tables and test cases for user acceptance testing.
Automation Matters
As each of these main deliverables is stored in the toolsets repository - depending on the sophistication of the tool - table definitions, source-to-target mappings and other code may be generated to support the development lifecycle. In this manner, the toolsets establish a common way to create deliverables, provide a standard methodology flow and consistently apply checks to ensure that each deliverable is linked properly.
Requirements traceability is another traditionally labor-intensive (and, therefore, seldom-practiced) process that is nevertheless very useful to ensure that every requirement in the project has been supported by the data. There are two fundamental ways to effectively use requirements traceability:
Forward traceability: Every requirement flows into the next set of artifacts for design, implementation, test and deployment. This enhances BI development and highlights dependencies.
Backward: Every artifact item is traced back to prior artifacts, all the way to individual requirements. This ensures consistency from test, development, design and requirements. Backward traceability also proves useful for change control and impact analysis of proposed changes.
When these methods are applied, requirements traceability ensures that every articulated business requirement is being implemented and that every function delivered is supported. You also ensure that every requirement is tested to prevent production surprises. And you will be able to determine that no new extra functions are built that were not supported by a requirement.
Requirements also need to be validated by other methods. Traditionally, the user reviews, comments and signs off documents. In order for this validation to be effective, the user should see the requirements both in visual and textual formats. For visualization purposes, data models and prototype screens illustrate the data structures. A walkthrough of the business questions and data model verifies that all the data exists in the model for the BI requirements. Prototyping tools can demonstrate the look and feel of BI screens and report contents. Once business users experience the look and feel of the new BI application, it becomes easier for them to understand the intended deliverable. Thus, new requirements software tools aid in user expectations management as well as streamlining development.
As with any technology, requirements automation software is a process enabler. Your BI team will still need the right expertise, clear roles and responsibilities, and a basic requirements-gathering process before successfully deploying these tools. Solid business/IT alignment goes a long way, too. Using these toolsets in client engagements has breathed new life into some moribund BI requirements conversations. And, as any experienced BI practitioner knows, if it helps engage business users, it must be worth trying.
Fernando Martinez-Campos is a senior consultant with Baseline Consulting, specializing in business analysis and technology architectures. He may be reached at
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Monday, 17 August 2009 11:53 |
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London UK, It was announced today software solutions company Information Edge has launched its financial governance software solution.
Managing Director, Vilosh Brito talks about the pressures and complexities CFO’s face. “Demands on them are strong and financial governance can be an error prone process. Today's corporate officers are held to higher standards of accountability than ever before and stakeholders demand faster access to accurate results.” For those companies that are still using the outmoded spreadsheet they may find themselves falling behind their competitors or facing compliance issues.
Information Edge software helps companies close their books quickly and confidently in this challenging environment. Information Edge has developed a powerful, thoughtful and client focused product that is far most cost-effective than the others out there. There is a need for more competitive products during these tough economic times and a boutique experienced player can offer a competitive alternative to the big players.
Key components of the solution handle:
- Data collection from disparate sources
- Validation of data
- Intercompany eliminations
- Foreign currency conversion
- Consolidation adjustment / journaling
- Different consolidation methods
- Financial reporting
Alongside managing the steps and complexities of financial consolidation, the solution has been designed to structure, track, validate and submit data in a unique way to give you complete traceability, auditability and transparency and enhanced visibility.
Its performance attributes are unmatched:
- Benchmarked to be able to handle at least 300 times the data handling capacity of traditional applications
- Can handle schemas of 15, 20 or 30 dimensions. Traditional systems can only handle up to 10.
- Handles real time updates of schema
- Users can define and store versions of structures at any point in time
- Benchmarked as being at least 10 times faster than competing systems and, in certain circumstances, over 100 times faster
ENDS
About Information Edge
Information Edge delivers performance management, financial management and business intelligence solutions for commercial and public sector organisations. We have patented technology enabling us to provide innovative solutions that have unmatched scalability and stability.
Founded in 1992 Information Edge has over 15 years of experience. Some major clients include the H M Treasury, the DFT, the CPS, leading banks and an airline. With a unique team we have developed innovative software that works interdependently. This allows us to offer flexible solutions that address; single and multiple business needs or the entire performance management and business intelligence platform.
Our existing architecture, modules and technology means we can implement a bespoke solution very quickly for whatever financial management, performance management or business intelligence need a company has.
For more information please contact:
Sarah Warren
Marketing Manager
www.informationedge.com
Tel: 0207 073 2715
Mobile: 07771714093
Token House
11-12 Token House Yard
London
EC2R 7AS |
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Monday, 10 August 2009 13:15 |
Mothercare has invested in a data management platform to manage product information across its Mothercare.com and Early Learning Centre websites.
The STEP Master Data Management system will provide the company with consistent, accurate data, and allow it grow its online business, said Vic Watson, head of direct IT.
"The fast and continued growth of our online business has meant we have a large amount of product data to manage and absolutely no room for inconsistencies," he said.
The data management system, supplied by Stibo Systems, is expected to free up Mothercare's IT and marketing teams to concentrate on other work.
Online sales helped to boost Mothercare's total sales by 9.4% last year. Mothercare's web-based home delivery service, Direct in Home, reported sales up by 17.4%.
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Mothercare revamped its website last year, introducing its interactive Ask Carrie service, which provides mothers with answers to 500 commonly asked questions.
The revamp followed Mothercare's deployment of Transversal's interactive web self-service technology.
The website cut the number of calls and e-mails to Mothercare's contact centre, allowing staff to concentrate on answering more complex queries.
Mothercare used the Transversal technology to serve relevant, tailored advertising and special offers in line with questions asked using Transversal's Sales Engine software. |
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