Category: Actian

Feed: Actian. Author: Pradeep Bhanot. Valued assetsOrganizational assets are defined as capabilities and resources. To be valued strategic assets, they have to contribute to the success of the organization. There is no business value contributed to an asset that does not have an understood return on investment (ROI) for the organization. Capabilities can be defined as the ability, power, potential, or competence to do something or carry out an activity for producing a service or product. Examples of categories of capabilities are people, organization, process, knowledge, and management. Capabilities can be generalized or specialized. When specialized, they can create a ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Pradeep Bhanot. Leveraging dataData is everywhere. Data comes from social interactions, personal devices, cloud service interactions, the environment, and many other places and things. There is a wide variety of data and a significant volume of data being collected every second. The velocity and quality of data are increasing every minute. Big data can be considered a moment in society that will continue to grow by double figures each year. Any research on big data will give you insights into the magnitude that this moment is growing across the globe. People, organizations, and machines crave data to ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Pradeep Bhanot. Why model anything?There are many types of models with many types of usages, such as physical, scientific, mathematical, computer, concrete, communication, etc. The overall purpose is to define, support analysis and decisions, and to communicate or validate a system or perspective. Models can also be used to help speed things up or slow things down if needed or enable integration and collaboration. Holistic data models are used to understand how systems influence each other. Models can help with realizing economic and operational benefits for an organization. These perspectives are sometimes separated. Models have scope and ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Lewis Carr. A long time ago (read: before the COVID-19 pandemic started), companies around the world were interested in developing a full 360-degree view of their customers. The importance of creating a tailored, data-enhanced customer experience was understood, but formidable challenges—the fact that the data comprising an individual customer profile resides in so many disparate systems, that individual customers use several different devices and interact through different channels at different times and for different reasons, and more—often frustrating operations and executives alike.Since the emergence of COVID-19, though, that interest has become imperative. COVID-19 has affected the buyers’ ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Jeff Veis. In a year dominated by the dark cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic and the tragedies that ensued, we seem to be ending on a hopeful note. We saw the incredible power of human ingenuity, as not one but several vaccines have been developed at breakneck speed, surpassing even the most optimistic of expectations. We also saw how technology could be used to effect amazing transformation on a global scale.With this positive and promising reminder, here are my four predictions for analytics in 2021: Data analytics will fundamentally transform the supply chain, bringing greater visibility to ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Jeremy Hankinson. Actian Avalanche on Google Kubernetes EngineGoogle Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is now running containerized versions of Actian Avalanche cloud data warehouse, a high-performance hybrid cloud data warehouse designed to power an enterprise’s most demanding operational analytics workloads. Why is that important? Because now an enterprise can deploy one of the world’s most advanced data warehouse systems in about five minutes—a fraction of the time it takes to deploy in other cloud environments. Let’s break this down a bit. The Google Kubernetes Engine—GKE—works with containers, which are, effectively, self-contained, pre-built component images. That’s important because in other, ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Emma McGrattan. Why Performance MattersMy very first sales call to an analytics prospect was with a customer using an OLTP database for reporting. Some of their reports took hours to run and one particularly challenging report typically ran for more than thirteen hours. Our performance benchmarking had shown that for analytics workloads, Actian would be up to 100 times faster than an OLTP database and I was anxious to see if that would hold true in the real world.  Indeed, we were able to take the 13-hour report and complete it in less than twenty seconds. It ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Pradeep Bhanot. What is innovation?Innovation is doing something new that does not currently exist or something new that improves efficiency, effectiveness, cost, and/or creates a competitive advantage. A new method, process, product, or service can be considered an innovation. This also includes the integration of different markets with the utilization of a new product that services both markets. An example of this is the cellular phone market, which has leveraged and integrated other markets such as photography and electronic payments on one mobile device. These innovations have created a new mobile device market, making the cellular phone ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Pradeep Bhanot. Systems thinking and the organizationThere are many ways to describe system thinking. We can say system thinking is a way of viewing or thinking about a system in terms of structure, patterns, cycles, and data exchanges. System thinking can also be thought of as a way of integrating a person into organizational flows of the system or the way the organization works to make decisions. Then there is system-1 and system-2 thinking. System-1 is based on one’s experiences. System-2 is based on analytics or data. There have been studies to categorize system-1 as fast thinking ... Read More

Feed: Actian. Author: Pradeep Bhanot. Defining good serviceAll organizations want to provide good service to their customers. There are many definitions of what good service is from a giving and receiving perspective. Good and excellent service can mean the same thing in many cases. Then there is exceptional service; this is the type of service many organizations try to avoid because it’s an exception to good or excellent service and will raise the expectations of the customer beyond the other services that they may deliver. When they experience another service from the same organization that is not exceptional but is ... Read More