Data Warehouse

Link: http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=2712&p=3#0

By: Valentine George

Introduction: Data warehousing is a systematic form of storage. It allows for useful tools such as data mining, which increase efficiency. A data warehouse is sometimes called a major role player in a decision support system. It helps organizations to make an effective and good decision by looking at facts and trends from previous years.

Entry: Data warehousing is an essential part of an organization. It is used by organizations to come up with facts, trends or relationships that can help them make effective decisions or create effective strategies to accomplish their organizational goals.

There are many types of data warehousing. Online Transaction Processing is one of the data warehousing models. It is built for speed and easy to use. Another model is Online Analytical Processing, this model is difficult to use and it adds an extra step of analysis within the data. This model is slower than the online transaction processing model, as it requires more steps and more data to analyse certain queries. A common model of data warehousing is in which a data warehouse is subject oriented, time variant, non volatile and integrated. Subject oriented means that data is linked together and is organized by relationships. Time variant means that any data that is changed in the data warehouse can be tracked. Non volatile means that the data is never deleted or erased. This is a great way to protect any data, as it can be useful in future. Because this data is retained, it can be used later on as analysis to make important decisions for the organization. Finally, the data is integrated, which means that a data warehouse uses data that is organizational wide instead of from just one department.

In this growing age of technology, there are many types of data warehousing. They are Offline Operational Data Warehouses, Offline Data Warehouse, Real Time Data Warehouses and Integrated Data Warehouses.

·         Offline Operational Data Warehouse: This is the simplest type of data warehouse. All it does is copy and paste data from real time data networks into an offline system where it can be used.

·         Offline Data Warehouse: This data warehouse is updated frequently, daily, weekly or monthly and that data is then stored in an integrated structure, where others can access it and perform reporting.

·         Real Time Data Warehouse: This type of data warehouse is updated every moment, whenever there’s a new occurrence of a data. For example, a Real Time Data Warehouse incorporates data from a Point of Sales system and is updated with each sale that is made.

·         Integrated Data Warehouse: This type of data warehouse is used by other data warehouses, allowing them to process to past reports, as well as look up current data.

Data warehousing is very important in the business world as it helps increase consistency with the data. It also helps making decisions by looking at previous reports and analysis.

Types of Processing on the Mainframe: Batch and Online

Article link:

http://www.suite101.com/content/mainframe-processing-a301390

Diagram:

http://www.suite101.com/view_image_articles.cfm/2542644

By: Stephanie Mayes

Summary:

Batch Processing	Online Processing
·         Punched cards submitted thru card reader machine, Job Control Cards with Job Control Language (JCL) – now extinct	·         Online program that allows users to enter transactions into the program and get real time results
·         Now coded with an editor and stored on disk	·         Online JCL files
·         JCL creates records. JES (Job Entity Subsystem) program will process job based on class and priority	·         Started by a system console by an operator. Control regions to control traffic.
·         Once job is initiated, batch processing begins	·         To display data it must have a map. This map helps to control region for input transactions for online program
·         The program reads the input files and writes the output files	·         Online processing access one or more databases to
·         Errors will terminate jobs	·         Results are then transferred to the transaction processing control region

Mainframe Modernization - This technique leverages the existing assets and makes them more relevant in current business environments. Bell and IBM do this.

Impact on business:

                Online processing allows business to be more competitive by having timeliness as a key factor. Online processing is able to access more than one database allowing it to be more efficient. This is a program many businesses have converted to because of the benefits. Batch Processing is an older technology which has slower processing.

Politicians: Clueless on technology?

Article link:

http://news.cnet.com/Politicians-Clueless-on-technology/2100-1028_3-6130266.html?tag=lia;rcol

By: Tana Piotrowski

Summary:

·         This article states how politicians and members of government should be more informed about the technology we had today.

·         They are not informed enough about technology and information systems but yet they seem to be spending more money on technology schemes

·         Politicians rely on advisors for information on how to implement their broad intentions

·         Getting them more informed themselves on these topics will be much better for the decisions they make

Effect on Business:

                The major effect this has on business is negative.  Politicians aren’t making their own knowledgeable decisions when spending money.  How would this even make them good politicians if they don’t know exactly what the money is being spent on?  Shouldn’t they be informed on the topics in such matters to make the best possible decisions?  This just makes me question what other issues politicians outsource their information to make decisions.   

Without the proper knowledge of technology and information systems the truth is they aren’t making the best decisions that they could.  Since they need to outsource for their information regarding these topics, it could potentially mean people giving them the information can persuade them with their personal opinions on such matters. 

Make Your Small Business Look Bigger With Virtual Services

Article Link:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/216739/make_your_small_business_look_bigger_with_virtual_services.html

By: Roddy Chung

Summary:

Work is no longer constrained by the physical limits of the world. With the Internet, businesses can be much larger than they were before telecommunications became as widespread as they are today. Just think: somewhere, sometime, someone in the world is doing something, contributing to work in one form or another. Businesses today are online - why should it be a surprise that there are businesses online for businesses?

Effect on Business:

Society is no longer constrained by distance or time. If there's one thing that the Internet's done for humanity as a whole, it's brought us closer together. It's also made us busier, thanks to global communications being so prevalent in both home and office. The work day is no longer 9-to-5 on weekdays only, but 24/7, 365 days, always industrious. Imagine: at any time, someone, somewhere, could be working. Right now. With you, or for you, even.

It's happening today. Business may be using telecommunications already to expand and link their work all across the world, businesses THROUGH telecommunications have the potential to become business unto themselves. It's already happening, in fact. With the virtual world of the World Wide Web mirroring the real world in terms of work and businesses, it should only follow that virtual business also exists. Today, business exist online as they do in a physical location, offering many of the same services, such as accountancy, telemarketing, or even secretarial work.

Globalization means outsourcing is more readily done by businesses today than in the past. With potentially the entire world within reach, the chances of having someone/somewhere/sometime available for any given task at hand has been made a lot better than relying upon a single list of workers restricted to a single organization. While this does go against the traditional structure of work cultures, the obsolescence of old ways is being far outweighed by the many, MANY possible benefits of the new.

This especially applies for small businesses that may otherwise not have the skillsets or manpower to expand much further beyond their physical restrictions of space and time. Online, however, one's reach is expanded much further than in the 'real-life' world.

Examples demonstrating the potential of online effort are many. Examples such as Google (google.com), Facebook (social site), or Wikipedia ("The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit") demonstrate the reach of the World Wide Web and industriousness of Internet-wide effort; all three names started as business with a total number of employees that you could count on one hand - today, all three names are multi-million business entities.

The Internet IS making the world smaller. It's only natural that this also applies to the world of work.

HST fuelling economic growth

Link
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/920012--hst-fuelling-economic-growth-duncan-says

By: Tana Piotrowski

Summary

·         How the HST implementation has been one the main pushes that helped get us out of recession

·         Business spending on machinery and equipment has increased by more than 10 per cent due to the tax reforms

·         Regained 96 per cent of jobs lost during the recession and that last year there were 119,700 net new jobs created

Impact on business

This article deals with the HST tax and how it has affected our society since it has been implemented.  The journalist who wrote the article has stated that because of the combined tax it has made our society better by pushing us out of recession.  This is good for businesses because it means we have made more jobs which is a push for more business.

 To better understand this look at economics.  Since the tax introduction we have been making our way to a better economy.  This means that more people are working and which leads to more people spending money.  This would cause more businesses to have more job availability, because demand is going up, which requires more people to fill those job availabilities.  Overall, the HST has caused a good impact on business thus far.  Although we are still on the border line for our unemployment rate the article states that the HST tax will continue to help make the economy better as long as all other underlying factors remain the same. 

Five Business Benefits of ERP for Small to Mid-size Enterprises

Aritcle link:
http://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2010/09/five-business-benefits-of-erp-for-small-to-mid-size-enterprises/

By: Stephanie Mayes

Summary:

·         ERP’s help small and medium size businesses to grow

·         It is an essential element

o   Cost saving

o   Improves operations

o   Transaction based

·         Out of 578 small/mid size business surveyed, results were:

o   80% growth in revenue anticipation

o   22% operating cost reduced

o   20% reduced administration cost

o   17% reduced inventory

o   19%  improved on time delivery

o   17% improved scheduling

·         Companies that do not use ERP create a performance gap and create risk compared to those that do use one

Impact on business:

                This article supports the use of Enterprise Resource Planning. It has strong facts that are supported by research (survey). Small/mid size businesses that use ERP will benefit by three main reasons; cost saving, operation improvement and transaction ease. These are very strong reasons to convince small/mid size companies to convert to using ERP. The article also explains this by emphasizing the performance gap that is visible between users and non users. This tool is very important during economic downturns.  The benefits of ERP are very evident and this article encourages businesses to use ERP.

                We support the author as it gives small/mid size businesses a competitive edge by improving their business process. ERP will help the “little guys” to increase their revenue and performance. ERP helps to reduce expenses (administration/inventory/operating). This is very important during economic down times. Also, it is important for businesses to be constantly improving their processes.  An ERP will strengthen small/mid size businesses.