The general premise of data warehousing hasn't changed much over the years. The idea is still to aggregate as much relevant data as possible from multiple sources, centralize it in a repository of some kind, catalog it, and then utilize it for reporting and analytics to make better business decisions. An effective data warehousing strategy seamlessly enables trend analysis, predictive analytics, forecasting, decision support, and just about anything else we now categorize under the umbrella of "data science."
The premise is not different these days, but rather, it is more the shifting nature of the data sources that the warehouse must draw from to capture as much useful information as possible. It's the data that's changed, not the goal.
First, there is the rapid proliferation of social-generated data in all of its unstructured forms, making the data extraction and transformation components of loading data to the warehouse more difficult than it has been in the past. But this isn't really groundbreaking for 2013, as social data and the creation of various Big Data technologies its growth has spawned, such as Hadoop, have been emerging for several years now.
Instead, what will likely be significantly different in 2013 is the acceleration of the deployment of a multitude of SaaS applications within the enterprise, especially in the larger, often slower to adopt, companies that populate the Fortune 2000. As the deal sizes grow in size, the SaaS footprint is clearly becoming significantly bigger.
This is where it becomes interesting. It's not just that an organization has several different SaaS applications such as Salesforce, Workday, and Success Factors in place and in use across the enterprise, with a single instance of each in use by all. Instead, due to the nature of the easier adoption of these SaaS applications, many of them have come in through the back door departmentally and at different times rather than through a centralized IT-controlled proliferation. This means that multiple instances of the same application are popping up everywhere.
For example, there are large enterprises that now have 10, 20, or even 50+ instances of Salesforce running across the entire organization. Each instance has its own set of customization of data collection and storage, separate add-on applications installed, different data feeding these applications, and unique implementation approaches. This could result in the old adage of solving old problems while creating new ones.
Some questions that could be asked are what kind of data collection and ETL challenges will this cause for those wishing to leverage a data warehousing strategy? Is the fact that the operational data from these various SaaS applications is stored and maintained by different vendors, each of which who is incentivized to keep it that way, make things easier or more difficult for data warehousing and the analysis it enables? Will data fragmentation and the resultant data integration strategies scale across all of these instances of SaaS applications? It will be interesting to see organizations meet the "SaaS sprawl" challenge, especially as it relates to cross-enterprise data collection strategy.
Furthermore, SaaS applications have taken an ever-increasing hold of the enterprise as of late with larger and larger deals. With the Cloud and SaaS applications a major part of their 2013 strategies, Oracle, SAP, IBM, and the more traditional software vendors have taken notice. SAP's Business ByDesign, Oracle's Fusion Applications, and recent SaaS acquisitions will surely add to what could become a hodge podge of SaaS applications across the enterprise.
To meet these challenges currently, cloud data warehousing offerings from companies like BitYota and Amazon's Redshift are beginning to emerge with a core theme of the cloud as the centralized data storage repository. ETL and data integration solutions such as Informatica's Cloud and Dell's Boomi are racing to meet these traditional data warehousing requirements in the cloud paradigm. Also, the traditional data cleansing requirements of data warehousing are being met with their cloud-based counterparts for better, more usable data in these new age warehouses. One thing that will never change is that bad data will always equal bad analysis, and the need for making investments in data quality strategies will continue to exist.
As the landscape of SaaS continues its rapid expansion, and the data within these applications continues to burgeon, 2013 will definitely be a pivotal year in the dawn of a new class of data warehousing technologies.
I've had an opportunity to work closely with ActivePrime lately as they are in the homestretch of beta-testing their CleanVerify product. CleanVerify is one of a suite of products they market to help companies improve, organize, and better utilize the data within Oracle CRM On Demand. I'm really excited about what they have accomplished.
ActivePrime has integrated several services from StrikeIron as part of their solution. I am helping them test the usability of the integration. Utilizing StrikeIron's Cloud-based address verification, email verification, and phone validation products, ActivePrime is able to deliver a powerful, high-performance, real-time data validation and data cleansing solution fully integrated within Oracle CRM On Demand. This enables customers to focus on closing business rather than the ongoing maintenance of data within their CRM system.
For example, a call center representative collecting contact information from a customer and entering it into the Oracle CRM On Demand system can now automatically validate that the collected mailing address, phone number, and email address are all correct (see screen shots below). Validating data at the point of collection before it ever gets into the CRM system can reduce the cost of downstream data cleansing efforts as much as 10x, ensuring a high level of quality data within the CRM system from the moment the data is entered.
In addition to validating the data in real-time, additional information, such as correct ZIP+4 and county, is also added to address records.
Another nice feature is a log that gets created that keeps track of every validation that occurs within the Oracle CRM On Demand system, ideal for administrators and other data stewards who like to stay on top of these kinds of things.
If you would like to try the integration during the beta period, or anytime after, ActivePrime is offering a CleanVerify trial here.
Validating a mailing address:
Validating a phone number:
Validating an email address:
View log/report:
Many of StrikeIron's direct customers integrate our various API-delivered data services into applications, Web sites, and business processes entirely on their own, usually with a single line of code or two - a testament to how easy this is to do. These product offerings available on the Cloud can be integrated into anything that can consume a SOAP or REST-based Web service (which is just about anything).
However, StrikeIron has also developed technology integration partnerships with many of today’s top software and Internet solutions platforms, solutions which are all enhanced by integrating Data-as-a-Service capabilities from StrikeIron.
Having these capabilities, such as real-time address verification, email verification, sales tax rates, foreign currency rates, SMS text messaging, and phone verification, pre-integrated into various other platforms that are already in use by large customers every day can be a very compelling solution. It is a win-win-win scenario for our customers, partners, and our technology.
One such partner is Informatica. Informatica has integrated several StrikeIron services for the purposes of contact data validation within its Informatica Cloud platform, as data validation is a very important step in the integration of data between various platforms. These services can be used via the Informatica Cloud StrikeIron plug-in, or as directly integrated within the Informatica Cloud platform per our most recent partnership. In the latter case, some of our services are available for use simply by checking a box directly within Informatica's Cloud application. This makes it very easy to have high quality, validated data arriving at a target destination, having been cleansed as an intermediate step while in transit from its source. You can view a recorded Webinar here.
Have we gotten to the point where almost everything delivered over the Internet is considered "Cloud"? In fact, now it doesn't even have to be delivered over the Internet, as "Private Clouds" are quickly becoming a catch-all phrase to market older software and hardware products while simultaneously jumping on the Cloud bandwagon. After all, almost every IT management survey these days is indicating the "Cloud" as the key computing platform for quite some time to come. Many vendors, even deceptively at times, are rewriting collateral to match the trend.
While some will say that there is no true definition of Cloud and they can therefore "Cloud-promote" as they please, there are things an astute buyer should look for when determine if a product or service is actually "Cloud-like", especially since Cloudwashing might very well reach its crescendo this year.
For example, there should be a multi-tenant architecture allowing the underlying software resources to be shared transparently. There should also be a usage-based metering and billing business model, so costs of resource utilization matches actual use across a community of users.
There should also be linear scalability, a virtualized infrastructure, and an abstraction away from any underlying hardware and software complexity. In other words, reduced complexity is generally proportional to how "Cloud" a given software service is likely to be. As an example, our
IronCloud platform that delivers
commercial data-as-a-service products is a usage-based billed service that adheres to all of these principles.
Even though it is true that there are scenarios where a "Private Cloud" makes sense, it should still adhere to the above characteristics of a Cloud, even if it is limited to a single organization and resources are being shared across that organization in a true multi-tenant sense. But if you start to hear terms like "upgrade path", "required hardware", "required OS", "appliance", and so forth, very likely the use of the word "Cloud" has been liberally applied to describe the product or service.
So the next time someone says "to the Cloud!", make sure that is where you are really headed.
StrikeIron is excited to announce its inclusion in SAP's PartnerEdge Program and the integration of our Cloud-based Web service product offerings into
SAP's Business ByDesign business management solution. This integration and partnership enables us to broaden access of our
Contact Record Verification Suite into the ecosystem of SAP Business ByDesign, SAP's fully integrated business management solution. SAP Business ByDesign is delivered on-demand and dedicated to companies in the small and midsize enterprise (SME) market, as well as to subsidiaries of large enterprises running SAP solutions.
Here is a YouTube video demonstration showing StrikeIron's Cloud-based
Reverse Phone and Address Lookup Web Service integrated into SAP's Business ByDesign. The entire workflow is demonstrated:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB5OJArHWBQTo read the full release:
http://bit.ly/zD6jHV
We are excited to announce today that we won two of the 2012 Cloud Awards. We won "Best Cloud Infrastructure" and "Cloud Computing Company of the Year". We were chosen out of a field of almost 200 organizations.
Our IronCloud platform is the foundation on which StrikeIron is built, so we take great pride in the recognition of our platform in the Infrastructure award.
Cloud Awards organizer Larry Johnson said, “Almost 200 organizations entered the program, which is among the first of its kind. We were swamped by entries, and the standard was remarkably high. Judging the submissions was a challenging task. But we’re happy to endorse StrikeIron as among the best of the best in their field."
Thanks, this is a great way to kickoff 2012!
The full press release can be found at: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/1/prweb9090732.htm
SAP Business ByDesign is a comprehensive, integrated SAAS business management suite that can run the entire information chain of a business, including financials, human resources, sales, procurement, customer service and supply chain.
In its partnership with SAP, StrikeIron helps deliver additional functionality to the Business ByDesign offering in the form of pre-integrated SOAP-based Web services and SAP's "enterprise mashup" capabilities. This enables end user personalization and key user adaptation without requiring development skills.
In the following screencast, you can see a demonstration that utilizes StrikeIron's Cloud-based
Reverse Phone and Address Lookup Web Service, integrated into SAP's Business ByDesign product by the SAP team. The entire workflow is demonstrated:
Be sure to turn up the volume!
AA9UEB4TK42V
Much of cloud computing terminology is based on the notion of ‘as a Service’ (or ‘aaS’).
The ‘as a Service’ tag has migrated to several new uses. Here is my attempt at a set of definitions (and please comment if you disagree):
- SaaS (Software as a Service) – I mainly see this as an application that runs in the cloud and requires the user to download no (or very little, maybe a browser plugin) software to use the application. (e.g. SalesForce, Cisco WebEx, Google Apps)
- DaaS (Data as a Service)* – This is providing data over the cloud either as the result of a query (is the email address me@acme.com valid) or involving a data transformation (correct the address 101 First Ave, Mytown, NC 2513). (e.g. StrikeIron!)
- PaaS (Platform as a Service) - Providing a platform for running applications, data storage abstraction, etc. One step up the software stack then IaaS (e.g. Google App Engine, Force.com/Heroku, PHP Fog)
- IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) – Providing a virtual machine and storage mechanisms that can be loaded with operating systems and software (custom, open source, commercial, etc). (e.g. Rackspace, Amazon AWS, GoGrid)
There are some proprietary aaS’s as well. My favorite is HP’s Everything as a Service. I am not sure what this really is but it sounds impressive.
Clear as mud? There is certainly some overlap between the different technologies but at the end the trend is clear. Leverage the efficiencies of scale, lower the barrier of entry, and speed up the time for implementation.
*DaaS can also refer to “Desktop as a Service” and “Database as a Service” in several sources.
In a report last week, the Open Data Center Alliance published that its members plan to triple Cloud deployments in the next two years according to a recent membership survey. This significantly outpaces the adoption forecasts from several different analyst firms and is another indicator where the I.T. industry is headed.
Of course, there are different ways to measure Cloud adoption, and while adoption rates may always be debated, there is little question of the Cloud's growing significance in I.T. Even though some Cloud forecasts combine infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS) with Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) and others keep them separate, in either case the trending is upward.
So here are four primary reasons why this trend is occurring and likely to continue for a long time to come:
- Cost. When deploying to the Cloud, one only has to deploy the needed I.T. resources at any given time. Capacity can be added or reduced as needed and whenever necessary. With this cost-savings "elastic" approach, usage spikes can be handled as well as increased resource demand over time. It's the difference between renting a server by-the-minute versus committing to two-year contracts with a data center provider at maximum capacity requirements. The latter, traditional approach front-loads application costs and requires significant capital expenditure. These heavy up-front costs go away in pay-for-what-you-use Cloud scenarios, including the ability to get things up and running more cheaply. Many startups deploying to the Cloud are spending less money on hardware and software investments than just a few years ago and getting up and running faster.
- Abstraction. Cloud deployments hide the details of the hardware, bandwidth resourcing, underlying software, load management, and ongoing maintenance of the given platform. This frees up resources to focus on one's own business rather than endless architecture meetings and decisions - unnecessary for a large majority of applications. This is why Salesforce.com has found success. Customers no longer have to deal with software upgrades for sales people, database choices, syncing data from laptops to servers, hardware deployment decisions, etc. It's just easier in a Cloud SAAS model.
- Innovation. An organization can leverage the innovation and expertise of those who specialize in a given Cloud-based platform such as within data-as-a-service offerings like StrikeIron provides. This continual innovation can be leveraged as a Cloud platform becomes more advanced without any effort of the organization's own resources. The platform improves daily, and these incremental improvements are put to use immediately for the benefit of customers and without company-wide software upgrades and rollouts. Instead, it's built-in and essentially automatic with the Cloud model. Another example is Amazon's EC2, where an increasing number of new features and capabilities can be leveraged without application redeployment.
- Platform Independence. When deploying to the Cloud, many different types of devices and clients can leverage the application via APIs or other interfaces, from PCs, tablets, smart phones, and other systems, as all communication between machines is via the ubiquitous Web, available just about any time anywhere. This makes interoperability easier, and extensive "middleware" investments of the past to make things work together can be dramatically reduced. This is one of the primary reasons why tablets such as the iPad for example have grown considerably in adoption now versus ten years ago – they work with the Cloud and can access a broad array of useful applications from just about anywhere.
These benefits of the Cloud aren't going away, and this is why the adoption trend is accelerating upward.
Oracle announced the Oracle CRM On Demand Release 19 Innovation Pack at the Oracle OpenWorld event today in San Francisco.
The release includes an enterprise marketing component enabling marketing professionals to build and manage campaigns, Web sites, and other customer-facing documents. It also includes lead management capabilities as well as role management and segment targeting.
In addition to the marketing features added to Oracle CRM on Demand, there is also a hosted contact center capability introduced in this release.
Presumably, much of these marketing features are the bearing of fruit from the Market2Lead acquisition last year. Oracle's expansion into a marketing automation platform demonstrates continued investments into SAAS and CRM On Demand, enabling it to compete more against entrenched SAAS stalwarts such as Salesforce.com
With marketing automation being added to Oracle's CRM on Demand platform, high quality and comprehensive data at the foundation becomes an even greater imperative. Fortunately, StrikeIron's integration of its Contact Data Verification Suite into the Oracle CRM On Demand platform will play an even greater role in the success of Oracle's SAAS initiatives going forward with this new announcement.
In addition, StrikeIron's mobile messaging solutions can play a significant role with the new campaign capabilities introduced today, as it does with many customers currently using it on other marketing automation platforms as part of critical mobile campaigns.
