Overheard in the tech blogosphere » data management

Overheard – data federation technology

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:45:49 +0000

Federation technology has two real benefits, a business benefit and a technical one. It increases visibility into lines of business, and it can help reduce costs and complexity by reducing the need for an extra, expensive database server. It also saves users time by removing the need to query multiple data sources manually.

Wendy Tam, as quoted in Data federation technology complements fragmented data warehouses

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is data federation technology.

Overheard – Master data management

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:45:42 +0000

“Master data management? We didn’t even know the words existed three months ago.”

Jonathan G.R. Spaetzel, as quoted in Master data management adoption ‘broad but shallow’ across industries

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is master data management.

Government tech – President Obama, tear down those walls!

Margaret Rouse — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:06:21 +0000

“When Vivek Kundra became the federal government’s chief information officer, he talked about the value of using standard off-the-shelf computer systems instead of the custom-built ones that government agencies are inclined to buy. With the new government site Data.gov, Mr. Kundra is showing off the value of standard data formats as well.”

Saul Hansell, Data.gov: Unlocking the Federal Filing Cabinets

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). Basically, it’s a framework for ensuring that different government agencies can share information more effectively while still being able to maintain their own proprietary databases.

Much to my amazement, standardized technology in the US government is becoming more than just a wish.

Remember back in 1983 when the United States government invaded Grenada? There’s a famous story about an Army officer in Granada who needed air support and wanted to communicate with a Navy aircraft carrier he could see offshore. The radios that each branch of the military had purchased operated on different frequencies, so the officer ended up using his telephone calling card in a public phone booth to call Fort Bragg, Virginia and get his message relayed to the Navy — who forwarded the request for air coverage to the ship. The story reached the ears of Senator Barry Goldwater and he pushed for the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (more commonly known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act).

Anyway, it looks like those days of government technology silos are going the way of the Berlin Wall. Data.gov is another step in the right direction.

A primary goal of Data.gov is to “improve access to Federal data and expand creative use of those data beyond the walls of government by encouraging innovative ideas (e.g., web applications).” Think of it as Government Information Technology 2.0. Thank you, President Obama. Tear down those walls!

From the newly launched Data.gov site:

Data.gov includes searchable catalogs that provide access to “raw” datasets and various tools. In the “raw” data catalog, you may access data in XML, Text/CSV, KML/KMZ, Feeds, XLS, or ESRI Shapefile formats. The catalog of tools links you to sites that include data mining and extraction tools and widgets. Datasets and tools available on Data.gov are searchable by category, agency, keyword, and/or data format.

Overheard – What color is your meter MAID? Green

Margaret Rouse — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:29:35 +0000

Data center managers are starting to recognize that 70 percent to 90 percent of their data is not transactional in nature, but rather, persistent data that is rarely changed, and infrequently accessed…The key to managing persistent data is to deploy storage systems that are tuned specifically to its needs. One technology that is ideally suited for persistent data is MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) storage.

Will Layton, Getting Ahead of the Data Storage Energy Crisis: The Case for MAID

Tonight I’ve been reading about MAID and how it can help cut energy costs in the data center by limiting the number of spinning disks. This week’s buzzword (besides Obama) seems to have been “intelligent power management.”

Ironically, according to a CDW Corp. report titled “Energy Efficient Information Technology,” 94 percent of IT executives with purchasing responsibility said they cared about energy efficiency but had no idea how much energy their IT operations used — even though they realized that that knowledge is critical to energy reduction efforts. CDW should have sent them all this list of low-hanging-fruit energy savers from SearchSMBStorage.com

Overheard: More than token opposition to tokenization

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:29:41 +0000

The most popular reason for not implementing tokenization is that companies have already implemented data encryption and key management systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and either they did not feel they needed tokenization or they were unwilling to be perceived by upper management as “changing course” by recommending the removal of the data they just spent all this money to protect.

Evan Schuman, Opposition To Tokenization A Lot More Than Token