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Data Integration Software Options

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

As business becomes increasingly dependent on electronic data the demand to integrate multiplesources of data into a single application or report has driven market growth for software that can natively work with proprietary and open source data. Known as data integration, this software accesses data stored in incompatible formats to produce new data and reports.Combining data from across the corporation, some of which can be decades old, with other data contained in databases, emails, documents, spreadsheets, or applications requires specialized solutions capable of interfacing with the data preferably natively so that unintended alterations aren’t made to the date during conversion.

The bewildering number of data formats means writing a custom translator is limited to corporations with large budgets and in-house developed databases, although even in these situations it is often still economic to license third party data integration translator software. The best third party integration software understands major formats such as SAP, DB2, Oracle etc.

Due to the complexity of data integration products most are proprietary in nature with distinct benefits and their own disadvantages. Typically, each vendor will provide a basic system for mapping data, and each supported format requiring the installation of extensions or plugins. Whilst many corporate databases and other information are also proprietary, the decision to license further proprietary software is contentious.

Data Integration Software Option

Several of the more popular formats for communicating data are open source such as XML, and almost all data integration software will export using this format if required, thus allowing applications such as word processors to access and manipulate the data, a major use of data integration at senior management level.

On road salespeople, financial advisors, delivery personnel, and merchandisers using portable data assistants (PDA) and laptop computers are not always capable to connecting to the corporate servers resulting in data that needs to be synchronized once back in the office. Data integration software is an ideal solution allowing for existing software installed on the laptop or PDA to be used instead of paying for multiple licenses of new software.

Wifi and mobile Internet may allow the use of a web browser to access corporate data, which also allows the data to be accessed by customers, and is another use for data integration software.

Further options for data integration software include the growing range of open source products that can be downloaded and assessed without charge, offering the promise of obtaining software that can be customized in-house yet also offering community assistance that is not limited to the original vendor.

Choosing the correct data integration software might be an involved process, and decisions shouldn’t be taken lightly if any form of data cleansing is to be undertaken and the source data consigned to permanent backup such as when older software are being retired.

Retiring older software without retiring or corrupting the data is possible, and of course may give the information a new lease of life allowing for more detailed and longer term customer profiling. Cleansing is the process of converting old data into new formats that also clears redundancies, and reconciles the information against other sources of data with common indexes.

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Data Integration Solutions

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

When data is scattered across multiple databases with different file formats, most IT administrators will immediately think of data integration solutions to solve corporate data mining operations. Data integration is the process of bringing together all of the organizations data into a single view that allows new manipulations and reporting previously not available.

Combinations of flat file or relational databases needing to be merged with data stored in spreadsheets, word processing files, letters or emails, and calendars never used to be possible without expending significant person time manually collating the information, sometimes many times over if the data aged and needed to be recompiled for monthly and quarterly reports.

Data integration software natively understands multiple data sources and can transform data using standard database tools, sometimes by directly accessing the source file, at other times thru the use of wrapper software that queries the source and then converts the data for use in other applications. Most data integration solutions will require extensive customizing owing to complexity of the task.

Data Integration

Most corporate data from databases and other software applications are stored in proprietary file formats that are rarely compatible with standards based formats such as XML. Lacking interoperability they are difficult to deploy, and create significant challenges for the organization in their efforts to integrate data and move towards a standards-based future.

Investing a great deal of time and cost in switching enterprise software when in fact existing applications already contain all of the data needed can be better achieved by adopting a data integration solution. Solutions that offer ease of querying thru simpler user interfaces and require less training are gaining in popularity.

Currently the most popular data integration products require teams of programmers, costly server  installations, and often a great deal of ongoing maintenance. Enterprise information can be very complex and require a lot of storage, resulting in huge queries. Integration products therefore need to scale to the enterprise level consistently and with relative ease.

As the market for data integration software matures visual tools are being developed by many of the smaller specialist vendors at prices far below those of the established market leaders. Visual integration tools allow new solutions without the overhead of a team of experts. Once the software has been installed a small group of trained personnel are able to drag and drop data fields and create new relationships with ease.

The advantages to the corporation are many, costs may be reduced, training can be simplified, and new reports designed on as needed basis allowing greater use of the raw data across an ever larger range of departments. Previously the preserve of the strategic planning and marketing departments, data integration solutions are now finding greater application within manufacturing, logistics, legal, and many other departments not normally associated with accounting and CRM data.

With the move to standards-based file formats such as XML and the significant use of Linux powered servers and database applications open source solutions for data integration are entering the market, offering attractive new possibilities.

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Database Software Options

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

When you’re ready to start your own business or do your own stuff, then it’s probably time to purchase your database.  Choosing a database is not that difficult.  You need to understand what you want and what you need and choose the database that suits you best.

Whether you use your database for business, education or other purposes, it is quite important to focus on the capacity of the database you’ll be choosing.  For instance, if you’re in business, you’ll probably need a server database.  On the other hand, you can use the desktop database since it is for single users.  Moreover, you can use a web-enabler database if you want to have access to information via internet.

In choosing a database, you can look for the features that would not only fit your lifestyle but will definitely fit your budget.  That’s why this article will help you in choosing the database administrator software options.

Desktop Databases

If you’re self-employed and you need to store and organize your files, then you need to plan on having a database.  The desktop database is the best option for you.  Desktop databases are less complex and inexpensive.  With the use of the desktop database, users will be able to extract, store and manipulate necessary information.  Desktop database is basically compatible for personal or desktop computers.  Some examples of desktop databases include Microsoft Access, Paradox, FileMakerPro and Lotus approach.

Desktop Database

If you’re going to use the desktop database, you will definitely benefit the following:

1.         Cost-friendly.  Most desktop databases only cost around $100.  A user can definitely purchase a desktop database like Microsoft Access by buying the Microsoft Professional Office Software.

2.         User-friendly.  Desktop databases are definitely easy to understand.  These databases are installed with easy-to-navigate graphic interface, and you’ll never need to memorize the SQL.

3.         Web Solutions.  Desktop databases will help you gain access to the World Wide Web and publish your data through the internet without any errors.

Server Databases

If you have large volume of data, you’ll need some hardcore software databases.  The server database is the best choice for you.  Some of the major server databases include Microsoft SQL server, Oracle and IBM DB2.  The server database is definitely comprehensive, and it can handle large volumes of information without breaking down.  The server database offers organization and allows users to manipulate and store data without affecting the system.

Here are the advantages of using the Server Database:

1.         Versatility.  Server database can handle just about anything.  They can handle huge amount of information with the use of their customized options or programs.  Users can utilize these programs/options to effectively extract, store and manipulate data.

2.         Powerful and durable.  Server databases can handle hard situations.  The best server databases can handle hardcore platforms if you want them to.  Modern server databases can manage high-speed platforms and processors, bandwidth connectivity and storage technology.

3.         Scalability.  This benefit definitely complements the previous one.  Server database can practically adjust to any hardware resources rapidly, and you don’t need to look for added features just to reassure compatibility.

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Data Integration Tools

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

Data integration is the process by which data and information from disparate and often incompatible  sources is brought together by transforming the data into a single unified view, usually within a new application that offers additional reporting designed for users outside of the usual user base of the source data. Data integration also goes under the name Enterprise Information Integration (EII).

The process of data integration is complex and over time has evolved into very sophisticated tools available as standalone software from third party vendors, or as modules within programming languages that natively query the original database. Two broad methods of achieving data integration have been developed, data warehousing and mediated schema, each with their own advantages and disadvantages that should be considered when evaluating available tools.

In data warehousing, the data from multiple sources is extracted, transformed, and loaded (ETL) into a single new database which can be queried by the end user and reporting configured to their specific need. Date warehousing has the advantage that query time is reduced, but suffers from the disadvantage that data in the warehouse may be out of date, and in some applications even a few seconds might render the query irrelevant.

Data Integration

Mediate Schema is a more modern approach where the original source data is accessed for every query, and no single data warehouse ever exists. Data integration tools that use this approach setup multiple wrappers around the source data which are queried in real time and the results fed to a virtual database (the EDI client) where data is transformed for one time use and presented to the user. In some cases, caching may be employed to reduce query times for non time-sensitive data.

Which date integration tool to use and rollout across the organization is unfortunately not a simple decision, with each vendor having their own strengths and expertise, and at the same time numerous weaknesses. A common evaluation method involves matching source data complexity with vendor expertise, and ranking vendors according to relative ease and cost effectiveness of customizing unsupported formats and platforms.

In selecting a data integration vendor, IT administrators should be aware that the industry is undergoing a series of mergers and takeovers as vendors try to position themselves for maximum gain heading in the future. Several of the larger and more established players regularly hunt for smaller niche vendors to takeover which could result in unplanned licensing issues for organizations as well as increased costs of ownership.

The data integration tools market is being driven by customer demand more than ever before as the benefits of EII become more accepted outside of IT. Significantly, cost control is being seen as one of the reasons for the increasing acceptability of data integration tools, notably because organizations are no longer willing to pay for staff time in extracting, merging, and reporting data from multiple sources.

Tools for data integration continue to develop and the next decade promises  to see the traditional market for niche products and custom solutions replaced with general tools capable of interfacing with almost every data format.

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Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Auditing

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

Between forty and sixty percent of all businesses that suffer a business threatening disaster fail in the next five years so disaster planning is not taken lightly by stockholders, or regulatory authorities. Conducting an audit of the disaster recovery plan will immediately make obvious any discrepancy that would affect business continuity

Disasters occur all the time, and are rarely anticipated. Many IT administrators and organizations plan for hardware failure in their networks or attacks from hackers and viruses, and understandably many will have no plans for natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding or fire. Even fewer will have plans in place to cope with terrorism or pandemics such as the much anticipated bird flu.

Business continuity planning is a vital task of all departments even though it might be coordinated by IT or primarily involve disaster recovery of data. Of course all departments need to take responsibility for their specific roles under the disaster recovery plan. The written plan in a large organization may extend to several hundred pages, and would be difficult to keep updated without frequent testing of procedures and regular audits.

No audit of disaster recovery procedures would be complete without first reviewing the plan and its documentation. Staff and third party contact details need to be up to date, and all staff with responsibilities under the plan issued with detailed instructions. Training of staff that is adequate for the duties need to be arranged and tested, and new staff inducted into the company disaster recovery procedures.

Business Continuity Auditing

Company insurance policies need to maintained at levels suitable for expected losses after a disaster, the audit should establish that these are paid for or if paid monthly or quarterly are not in arrears. Similarly, the audit will be investigating third party contractors and ensuring all networking, backup, mirroring, and data center provisioning is in place as per agreed deliverables.

Backup procedures are an important component of disaster recovery and should be tested for integrity and completeness on a regular schedule with occasional simulation of a failed server. Auditing teams will be looking at the efficiency of restoring procedures and whether full service is resumed, as well as systems in place to catch incomplete data restoration.

If fail over networks, redundant servers and spare critical components are factored into the business continuity plan then auditing their usefulness and response times will be considered. Off-site locations will be evaluated for suitability, disaster immunity, and security of data. If a hot site is provisioned, auditors will want to eliminate deficiencies that may affect the success of disaster recovery

Performance of disaster recovery plan duties by staff and third party contractors at audit time are not left untested, business continuity depends on the people implementing the plan to get it right. Excellent communication skills and expertise in their role can be evaluated against industry standards in addition to running simulations with staff.

The auditors job is to ensure that disaster preparedness is as complete as humanly possible, so staff shouldn’t feel threatened. During a disaster recovery and business continuity audit, management need to allay the fears of staff, yet also reinforce that ultimately the corporation cannot afford to not be prepared.

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Disaster Recovery Best Practices

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

Disasters occur, and very rarely according to anticipated schedules. Given the overwhelming reliance on IT in most organizations a disaster has the potential to force out of business the unprepared making disaster recovery and adherence to best practices vitally important. Any organization without a disaster recovery plan is courting fate and is unlikely to survive.

Disaster recovery in an IT context is not the same as high availability and the two should not be confused, yet in many organizations this is the case. High availability defines a network that is online most of the time, yet even the best planning cannot completely eliminate downtime caused by disaster such as staff being unable to enter the workplace and implement the disaster recovery plan.

Yet despite the obvious differences, following best practices is capable of narrowing the gap and in less serious disasters it may be possible for a network to remain operational even if large parts of it  are incapacitated or destroyed. Actively seeking the advice of disaster recovery experts and vendors at the planning stage brings relevant expertise into play.

Database Recovery

Ensure the plan can be implemented by staff outside of the planning process, the authors may be unavailable in a disaster or may have left the organization so clearly written policies and procedures are desirable outcomes. Using plain English understood outside of the IT world, and providing training to all staff on disaster preparedness is likely to offer more opportunities of successful recovery.

An audit of the disaster recovery plan at regular intervals, perhaps every year, and empowering staff to actively engage the audit looking for improvements will allow better long term planning decisions to be made. The IT administrator or CIO and business continuity team need to be involved in setting the scope of the audit. At senior management level the audit report needs to be to discussed and understood in terms of contingencies and future strategic planning.

Best practices in drafting the disaster recovery plan will dictate the goals are clearly defined and written down in detail with the aim of full technical recovery despite the worst disaster that could occur. Disasters upto and including pandemics, terrorism attacks, the threat of war, and natural disasters can all be planned against.

Depending on the scope of the disaster significant parts of the business may be destroyed, but good communication of the recovery goals and procedures should be sufficient to ensure survival of the business. Documenting data restoration procedures along with visual media such as screenshots or video presentations, along with locations of supplies and media satisfies common best practice guidelines.

A full test of the disaster recovery plan, and regular testing of isolated parts of the plan highlights any issues that could arise during an actual disaster. Simulations should not be relied on to identify potential problems, as it might not uncover issues of comprehension amongst non-IT staff or  potential resourcing issues from senior staff not being available as might be the case if passwords, PIN numbers, or keys are required as part of the restoration.

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Disaster Recovery Software Options

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

Catastrophic data loss is any IT administrator’s worst nightmare and disasters can strike at any time. Evaluating the available disaster recovery software options as part of the organizational disaster planning is often overlooked in favor of adopting known packages that may not in fact be the best choice.

Disaster recovery software covers a range of niches, from backup and recovery, to mirroring, network monitoring, data salvaging from corrupt disks and more, so there certainly are enough options available for protecting the corporation’s critical data.

Software that allows a hard drive to be imaged and then cloned across multiple systems or servers has taken on added importance since the advent of the disaster recovery industry and is no longer restricted to being used solely for rapid deployment, although this is certainly its main function. In disaster planning new servers can be kept in storage and cloned relatively easily.

Disaster Recovery Software Options recovery software options

Disasters affecting servers or buildings often tend to destroy more than just data, so imaging an identical system and then running a data restore reduces downtime considerably. If the corporation cope can with the downtime required to clone and restore a server this is a valuable option for the IT administrator.

A significant problem in many smaller corporations is the mindset that backing up the company accounts and documents is sufficient, meaning that system and network configuration files, user settings including calendar and browser passwords, mail server data, even web server data are lost. Sadly this is why many smaller corporations fail after a disaster.

Backup software are not all created equal and relying on the backup scheduling inherent with most operating systems is just not good enough. Additional software is almost always recommended that is designed specifically for disaster situations as well as archival purposes. Backup solutions that scale with the growth of the network should be considered essential.

File mirroring software has in recent years matured into a solid and dependable technology giving IT administrators an extra option in their arsenal of disaster recovery software. Mirroring software eliminates the need for identical hard drives or dedicated server links, the only requirement being similar or greater storage capacity and reliable network uptime.

Software mirroring is generally considered more flexible allowing IT to configure specific settings not available at I/O level, or indeed over wide area networks using VPN tunneling. In addition, software mirroring may not require identical operating systems to be installed on the source and target servers.

Data loss from a failed hard drive is minimized thru backups and mirroring, yet even then it may still be necessary to recover data from a failed hard drive, particularly when users don’t follow policy and save files to their local drive. Ignoring this disaster may not be an option if the CEO is the guilty user and insists on software recovery.

Not looking into disaster recovery software options thoroughly enough at the disaster recovery planning stage might affect business continuity after the disaster, and would be a career breaker for any IT administrator.

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Disaster Recovery Solutions

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

When disaster strikes your IT infrastructure or network, having quick access to disaster recovery solutions is paramount if the system to is to be restored to full service. Whether they are in-house or outsourced, the solutions called for in the disaster recovery plan need to be available in a timely and reliable fashion.

Disasters are by their nature unpredictable, difficult to anticipate, and usually very inconvenient to users of the system. Little can be done to prevent many disasters, especially natural, but even man made disasters are often not easily prevented, hacking attacks or denial of service attacks are rarely advertised before the event.

Proper planning for disaster recovery solutions is therefore one of the primary roles of senior IT staff, who are required to analyze all systems and threats in detail, finding specific failure points, before beginning the process of setting goals and determining possible solutions in the event of disasters.

In smaller corporations it is often better to outsource disaster recovery solutions to the contractor responsible for building and maintaining the network, who are better placed to understand the threats faced and make contingency plans for retrieving off-site backups or swapping out problem components.

Disaster Recovery Solutions recovery solutions

Outsourced disaster recovery solutions are often considered an efficient use of company resources allowing the IT team to focus their energies on improving and maintaining existing systems. Cost wise, outsourced solutions mean that backup components don’t require capital investment, but are still available when required.

By contrast, internally sourced backup and redundant components offer peace of mind and security in larger corporations where specific components are chosen for compatibility and reliability, and where unknown components are considered a risk to the overall goals of providing uninterrupted service levels.

Disaster recovery can take many forms, each solution potentially requiring different resources and implementation. Similarly, scaled solutions often require vastly different implementations, for example the need for off-site backups may not require much more than contracting a security firm to collect daily backups, or it may require real-time backup synchronization on redundant systems that are capable of taking over instantly.

Successfully recovering from disaster is not luck, very few corporations have remained viable businesses after a disaster has struck, the few who do service have demonstrated a willingness to invest in solutions, preparing for the unforeseen, and have plans and systems in place to cope. Larger corporations are at the same time more vulnerable, and yet also more resilient, than small localized businesses, but once the market has lost faith in their ability to recover from disaster, their days are numbered.

Those corporations that seem to weather the storm more successfully than others also tend to have IT managers who work well with other senior management and adopt a whole-of-business outlook. The reality is that any disaster recovery solutions planned and then implemented need the support of key personnel in other departments if fiasco is to be avoided.

Staff training, and the insistence of senior management that policy is followed are critical to the success of any disaster recovery. Solutions need to be implemented across multiple departments and often disparate locations. The IT department needs to know that it can carry out it’s function without undue influence from nervous departmental managers, and that the solutions they implement are accepted.

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High Availability Architecture

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

High availability networks are complex and costly systems to rollout with long planning timeframes  and high expectations from users that the system will perform. To choose the correct hardware and software and the optimum network design IT administrators and their staff invest a considerable amount of time in analysis of corporate needs. Network architecture that is rated high availability needs to perform to very strict standards of uptime.

Redundancy rather than being a stated goal becomes a necessary component of high availability networks, inherent in the design architecture. From RAID, redundant networking, to spare hot servers, high availability requires them all. From the use to the data and back again, almost every connection will be duplicated at least once, although in mission critical networks that require 100% uptime this may increase to 4, 6, or 8 duplications.

High availability networks are measured on the percentage of time they are online doing their assigned task, mission critical networks needing 24 hour uptime 365 days a year cannot fail, and uptimes are measured in the high 99th percentile. To put this in perspective, the architecture needs to be designed with goals of just one hour of downtime per year (99.99%), or just 5 minutes of downtime per year (99.999%)

Disaster Recovery Architecture

Levels of uptime in the high 99th percentile is only achieved thru developing architecture that allows part of the system to be brought down without affecting running processes and user access. Scheduled maintenance of primary servers can then be carried out over time periods stretching into several hours without loss of productivity.

The architecture of high availability networks is generally designed with two purposes in mind, local high availability, typically for networks in smaller corporations, and geographically distributed high availability networks that are more typically rolled out within very large corporations and where disaster recovery is an important design consideration.

A number of node configurations are possible in high availability architectures, and no single design can be described as best since each installation is always different requiring specific design features over others. The service level standards being applied will for the most part dictate the design chosen of the many that are commonly used, namely active/active, active/passive, N+1, N+M, N-to-1, and N-to-N.

To be effective, a high availability network needs to be configured to avoid conflicts in the event of a failed device. Planning the design architecture should promote reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) thru designated succession whether this is pre-configured or voted on by the remaining servers.

Correctly configured, most high availability servers include heartbeat daemons that actively send small packets to other servers in the network, which are in turn also sending heartbeat packets, and all are listening so that a failure is quickly identified and the failed server fenced off and it’s duties reassigned within the system. The avoidance of a split brain scenario where two or more servers attempt to control resources, a situation that will quickly bring down the network and could result in severe damage to data.

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High Availability Solutions

September 11th, 2009 by DatabaseGuides

High availability is no longer a luxury beyond the affordability of most corporations, in the 21st century it is now considered a requirement for almost all businesses regardless of industry and solutions are actively sought. Quite simply, a computer or server that fails might very well prevent the business from operating, and in today’s online world that may equate to significant lost revenue.

Within select industries such as government, financial services, legal, or health and hospitals, downtime is simply not acceptable. High availability of service is considered mandatory and may face regulatory oversight with penalties levied if uptime guarantees are not met. Meaning solutions that ensure minimal downtime and optimum service for the required number of users are actively sought out.

Solutions that encourage high availability comprise all facets of the IT network, and need to be designed with architecture that makes a failover anywhere in the system transparent to the user. This also offers the advantage that systems and components can be repaired or replaced without downtime or added pressure from users when IT perform maintenance.

High Availibility

Duplication of network components is easily the most popular solution for ensuring high availability across the network, typically most IT administrators install multiple RAID in their server farms or use storage area networks (SANs). Multiple redundant paths and failover routers and hubs are also used extensively and so too are backup servers that run hot and are ready to seamlessly take over resources if a failure is detected in the primary servers.

The need for duplication stems from most systems and components lacking fault tolerance that would allow continued operation despite a failure, forcing IT to create fault tolerant networks thru increased spending on backup components, and additional pipes. The cost of creating a dedicated backup network is usually beyond the budget of most corporations, with high overall costs of acquisition.

Third party data center and network leasing is a viable and affordable alternative, and leasing services within third party owned data centers that act as backup for critical network servers and components removes the onus on the IT department for planning and maintaining backup networks. By contracting out for backup services, complexity increases, but also allows for greater flexibility in testing failover procedures.

Designing systems and procedures that monitor performance of servers and network components and create log files, but more importantly generate resource usage reports over time are integral to high availability systems. Determining the correct solutions thru analysis of actual needs is preferable to running simulations of potential problems.

Training staff to recognize problems before they occur promotes a culture of excellence, helping personnel make better decisions and recognize potential problems before they occur, often be being able to read incomplete information. High availability solutions are complex, and trained personnel are better able to anticipate bottlenecks and failures, thus making less mistakes.

Adding redundancy at the staff level in these economic times will rarely be sanctioned, so reducing reliance on a single staff member thru cross training and task swapping supports high availability solutions. This needn’t be a threat to highly skilled staff, indeed their employability will increase.

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