While watching a television re-run of House MD a few weeks ago, there was an American Express commercial featuring Tweets from customers who have made purchases with their reward program points. American Express has taken ‘listening’ to social media data to the next level and is using it to its own advantage. By giving their customers a forum to Tweet their experiences through socialcurrency.com, they are taking the social media era by storm. Read More
Many years ago (over 30 to be precise) I can recall walking the halls of more than one fortune 500 company and seeing four-foot high stacks of boxes with computer printouts in the hallway outside of managers’ offices. In fact it was not uncommon to see pallet-loads of computer printouts in some companies. When I asked one manager what the reports were and why they had so many, he said “we don’t look at the reports any more but we don’t know how to get the data center to stop sending them.” Read More
If you haven’t already, I think you should read The Forrester Wave™: Data Virtualization, Q1 2012. For several reasons – one, to truly understand the space, and two, to understand the critical capabilities required to be a solution that solves real data integration problems.
At the very outset, let’s clearly define Data Virtualization. Simply put, Data Virtualization is foundational to Data Integration. It enables fast and direct access to the critical data and reports that the business needs and trusts. It is not to be confused with simple, traditional Data Federation. Instead, think of it as a superset which must complement existing data architectures to support BI agility, MDM and SOA. Read More
You may think of the mainframe as a thing of the past. Stop. People have been predicting its death for years; there are plenty of old articles about the demise of the mainframe. But reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. The mainframe is more like the Matrix, where it was called The Source. A quick search on the percentage of enterprise data on the mainframe will give you results citing 70 percent of enterprise data still reside on the mainframe. The reality is mainframes are still here and powering the global economy. Read More
The recent Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ruling requiring real-time reporting for over-the-counter (OTC) swap trading was decided over the holidays to increase transparency and provide a comprehensive view of the entire swaps market to help regulators monitor and govern market activities and hedge against increased systemic risk. This ruling is a major change for many companies who have had little to no regulatory reporting requirements prior to this rulings. The deadlines for real-time swap reporting are right around the corner as the first of three deadlines being July 16, 2012 to commence real-time swap reporting.
Meeting these new reporting requirements poses significant challenges for those impacted by the new ruling that cannot be ignored. Let’s take a look at what they are and how Informatica’s solutions can help overcome these obstacles. Read More
With his keen understanding of the role IT plays in the success of the business, Informatica CIO Tony Young shares his insight and recommendations for following best practices. Through real-world examples, he discusses the steps for using IT to realize business goals.
