Informatica World 2008 in Las Vegas

carlos — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:37:25 +0200

Finally I could attend the Informatica World 2008, now I'll try to explain what I found there. The conference was held under the slogan 'Gain the Edge' from june 3 to 5.

First day began (after breakfast) with a general session entitled Vision. Strategy. Technology Announcements. Industry leadership. At the session both Sohaib Abbasi, President and CEO of Informática, as Chris Boorman, Ivan Chon and Girish Pancha, Vice-presidents in the Marketing, Data quality and Data integration areas respectively, showed their vision of current market, how technology and business are evolving and what role play in this context data and data-related aplicacions.

Much of what was familiar to me, because I had seen before at the Powerday 2008 Barcelona. This is an indicator that the company maintains a well-defined strategy, and shares with its partners.

Each speaker under the perspective of his area made particular emphasis on data value and the importance for each organization of the ability to maintain consistency and quality, ensure on time data availability, protection, sinchronization, and eficient data management and exchange with other organizations.

We noted that now having a Data Warehouse System that delivers new information every certain hour interval is insuficient. Internet and technological development, the globalization and our competitors are the reason. We heard repeatedly terms like SaaS, Real Time and Data Quality, clues about the new features of Powercenter and other tools of the company.

They also made an interesting demo about how an application like Salesforce.com can be synchronized in real time through the internet with a Google Docs spreadsheet. This cloud to to cloud computing example was made showing Salesforce.com on left screen and Google spreadsheet on right screen, each controlled by a laptop. The made a change in Salesforce.com data, and we saw how Google spreadsheet was automatically updated. Then they made a change in the spreadsheet and we saw how Salesforce.com data was also updated. Finally, they repeat the last part, but using an iPod Touch instead of the laptop. We must consider the opportunities that new mobile devices bring when we connect it to Internet.

We also attended a lively presentation of Royce Bell, CEO of Accenture Information Management Services, who knew how to keep the atention of everyone.

The general session of this Informatica World edition gave way to the breakout sessions, each classified into one of these categories:

Products and technology
Architecture
Enterprise Data Management
Solutions
Tech Talk
Business Impact

In addition each one was catalogued by level of experience and role of the assistants.

Levels were Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Roles were Architect, Practitioner and Business and IT Influencer.

So we could select the most interesting sessions depending on our professional profile.

In total there were 56 sessions, and we could choose 8 at maximum. I list below session titles classified by categories, and stress the ones that I chose.

Products and Technology

What’s New in PowerCenter
Data Quality with Identity Resolution: A Leap Forward for Data Quality in the Enterprise
How to Get More from Informatica Metadata Manager
The Informatica Roadmap: Vision for V9
Informatica B2B Data Exchange: Building a Data Exchange
What’s New in Informatica Data Explorer and Informatica Data Quality 8.6
Protecting Private Data Using PowerCenter Data Masking
Real-Time Data Integration

Architecture

Customer Panel: Real-Time Integration Architectures for Right-Time Business Value
Informatica Architecture: Where to Start?
A Practical Approach to Building Data Services with PowerCenter 8.5
Informatica Orchestration and Human Workflow: Process-Enabled Data Integration and Data
Maximizing Operational Uptime: Real-Time Data Integration with Informatica
On Demand Data Integration: Overview and Demonstration
Deploying PowerCenter on Grid Computing Architectures
PowerCenter Data Federation Option: A Unified Platform for Data Integration Flexibility

Enterprise Data Management

Data Quality, The First Step on the Path to Master Data Management
Where Real-Time Data Integration Meets Real-Time Data Warehousing
IMS Health: Global Data Integration for Financial Information Management
Customer Master Data Management at Major Telecommunications Company KPN, Netherlands
Measuring and Improving Data Governance Maturity: A Practical Approach
Information Management: An Implementer’s Perspective
Measuring Data Quality in Philips Consumer Lifestyle
Lowering Cost and Risk with the Data Migration Factory
Data Profiling and Data Quality Improvement: A Practitioner's Approach
Velocity Methodology: Best Practices

Solutions

Campaign Marketing and Customer Relationship Management at Daimler AG
A Trip to Better and Faster Corporation Travel Management: A B2B Data Transformation Success
Informatica B2B Data Transformation: Success with LOGTEC for the Defense Logistics Agency
Assuring Success When Integrating Salesforce CRM with the Rest of Your Business: A Partner Profile with Case Studies from Ellie Mae and Millennium Pharma
Data Migration Success at G&K Services
Leveraging HP and Informatica for Large-Scale Data Migration Efforts: A Case Study at CVS Caremark
Strategy to Implementation: How to Get Started on your Data Quality Initiative
Identity Resolution: What It Is and Why It Is Important

Tech Talk

Extreme Automation: Traceability of Requirements through Testing, Governance and Compliance
Planning and Tuning Informatica for Large Loads
Tips to Improve Productivity Using Self-Service Support Tools
Command and Control: Using Informatica Workflows to Regulate Complex Business Processes
Informatica Developer: Tips and Tricks for Architecture and Development
Upgrading to the Latest PowerCenter Release: Tips and Tricks, Testing and Pitfalls to Avoid
Using Team-Based Development: A Practical Exposé
High-Volume Data Processing (>150GB) Using Informatica
Informatica Developer Tips for Troubleshooting Common Issues
Power of Informatica PowerCenter at Verizon Wireless

Business Impact

Driving Business Value with Integration Competency Centers: Customer Presentations, a Two-Part Series (Part 1 of 2)
Integration Competency Centers: Panel Discussion, a Two-Part Series (Part 2 of 2)
Anti-Money Laundering Compliance: Stopping Financial Crime - a Data Quality Approach
Quantifying Business Value with Informatica: Best Practices and Techniques for Funding Enterprise Data Integration and Data Quality Projects
Informatica B2B Data Exchange: Success with Paramount Pictures
Integration Competency Center at Duke Energy
Building a Business Case for B2B Data Exchange at a Major HMO
Data Governance in a Global Enterprise
Enterprise Data Warehouse at a Medical Device Manufacturing Company
Informatica B2B Data Transformation: Success with GfK Group

As you can see, I was more interested in Enterprise Data Management than in any other category. Anyway I must clarify that I don't use any Informatica software, so I wasn't very interested in categories related to specific topics of the tools, or to development.

I found most of the sessions very enriching, no one better than the Informatica experts and consultants to explain the last trends in data management, data quality or data warehousing, or to recommend best practices or steps to follow in a project of this type.

In any case normally I like presentations of people independent of the software vendor or consultants, normally customers that explain their experience in a more impartial point of view. In this sense I believe that the best breakout session I attended was Customer Data Management at KPN, by Thomas Reichel (KPN) and Chris Phillips (Informatica).

Following these days of Breakout Sessions arrived the Thursday 5, which took place the general session that marked the end of the event. The title was Gaining the Edge. In Real Time.

After having showed in the initial meeting the need for organizations to manage their data efficiently, and adapt to market and technological progress, this session focused on how to achieve this goals with the help of Informatica software and support, and in new features offered by the version 9 of the product.

I liked the Ivan Chong demo on how to manage and conduct Data Quality processes with this new version, but the most impressing for me was the presentation made by Ron Swift, Vice President of Teradata, on the importance of manage data in real time in order to be able to react appropriately to certain situations. He showed the successful example of a casino that implemented a system that analysed in real time the behaviour of their customers while playing. If the system found that someone was loosing too much money, the staff was warned by an alarm and they tried to persuade him to continue playing. The objective was to avoid losing the customer, and real time data analysis and management helped to achieve it, they gained the edge.

Data Quality and Integration at PowerDay 2008

carlos — Mon, 26 May 2008 09:55:38 +0200

This April the Powerday's seventh edition was held. This is an annual event organised by PowerData and it's objective is to give attendees a comprehensive view of the appropiate strategy to make the most of his data. I had the opportunity to attend at the one celebrated in Barcelona.

They showed half-hour presentations, which talked about the importance of Data Quality and Integration processes, and about the current market and technological situation. Obviously they talked also about how Informática tools like PowerCenter can help to make things easier.

These are the presentation titles:

Value of correct data beyond the IT department
Practical principles to ensure good Data Quality within the organisation
Data masking: an effective response to demands for confidenciality
Integration of corporate data in Caprabo
The importance of having good data in analytical environments
The real time oraganizational model imposes new demands on information management
Trends in the Spanish market of Data Management

I found particularly interesting the fourth one, conducted by Sergio Champel, head of architecture and integrity area of Caprabo. Sergio explained how they had organized both management and architecture for conducting an ambitious and successful integration project for remodeling the Business Intelligence System of this company. They have improved important business processes, and integration between operational systems and Data Warehouse.

I liked the phrase We learn to use a hammer and we think everything is a nail that he mentioned to make it clear what wanted to avoid when they defined architecture. I think it was an appropiate sentence, applicable to many situations.

Emphasize that Jorge Zaera, CEO of Microstrategy conducted the fifth, The importance of having good data in analytical environments.

The rest were submitted by Powerdata executives and experts, who showed different aspects to consider relating to integration and Data Quality, what role play these matters in recent market technological trends, increasingly more process and service oriented. We listen about Data Management role in Saas (Software as a Service), SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), BPM (Business Process Management), CPM (Corporate Process Management) and EIM (Enterprise Information Management)

For those who prefer talking about more tangible things, they also provided project types clasification we can find in Data Management terms:

Data warehouse
Data migration
Data consolidation
Master Data Management
Data synchronization
B2B data exchange

After presentations there was a raffle for a trip to Las Vegas to attend Informatica World 2008. It turns out that the lucky winner was me, so I hope to be posting in a few weeks a new article about my experiences in the event .