Information on Demand in Action

Darren Silvester – Design Authority17th September 2009

Information on Demand – the story• The End Goal• The Journey• Senior Management Buy In• Tools Selection• Design and Development Approach• Delivery Team Selection• Tools In Use

The End Goal

• All information to be provided from a single trusted source

• Same trusted source to be used for reporting, analytics and CRM

• Access to information to be 24 x 7• Near real-time access to key information• Decommissioning of Legacy Business Intelligence

applications• Minimise and standardise the toolsets in the BI area• Reduced cost base for TCO

The Journey - Why build a strategy?• Information not trusted - many reports showing similar

information• Lack of visibility of the source data for the executive level reports• Terminology differences across departments and within

departments• Cost of Integration• Impact Analysis takes days and sometimes weeks• Data Quality issues not known and not visible• Number of cottage industries• Lack of understanding of importance of metadata.• Cost of infrastructure increasing• Infrastructure becoming aged

Senior Management Buy In

• Presentation of the strategy• Long term vision – tactical wins are very difficult• Focus on Metadata – a challenge• 5 Year Plan• Secure Funding• Mobilise

Tools Selection

• Evaluating the marketplace for technical tools led us to select the IBM Tools on the basis of Business and Technical benefits

• Information Analyzer (Data Profiling and Quality)• Industry Standard Models, Telco and Retail (Data Models)• Infosphere Data Architect (Data Modelling)• Business Glossary (Business Terms management)• Business Glossary Anywhere (Business Visibility)• Metadata Workbench (Metadata and Lineage)• Fasttrack (Efficient design and development)• DataStage (ETL)• Infosphere Balanced Warehouse (Data Warehouse, Analytics)

Design and Development Approach at• Metadata is the key to everything and is the focal

point• Central Metadata Repository is an imperative• Metadata Repository is the key to linking business and

technical teams• Close working between technical and business areas• Metadata Standards and Practices• Naming Standards• Design and Development Standards• Regular reviews and updates of standards documents

Delivery Team Selection

• Various Methods available– On shore– Off shore– Near shore– Mix

• Design and Development Team all on-site• Team were recruited• Ease of Communication, monitoring progress and

resolving issues

Information Analyzer

• Used at 3 UK to profile data and to report data quality issues.

• Is used to target specific issues and to find new issues• Used against source system databases for Operational

analysis and Information Management analysis

• Business will be provided with a data quality dashboard based on the output from Information Analyzer

• Data Quality issues will be identified, resolved and tracked on a regular basis

Infosphere Data Architect

• Used for modelling in conjunction with the IBM Telco and Retail Industry Data Models

• Used when designing for new projects• In the process of migrating from Erwin into IDA

• Single database design tool which enables integration with the other Infosphere products, to provide a business facing logical data model

• Metadata is captured on any database entities and columns in IDA, which is then imported into the Metadata Repository, to give the business user s visibility.

Business Glossary and BG Anywhere• Key tools to provide visibility of the business terminology,

and definitions to the whole business and technical teams.• BG used by Data Stewards to manage the business terms• BGA used by business to view the definitions of the KPIs,

metrics and terms.

• Business users have a single repository, which assists delivering trusted information, as terms are clearly owned (stewards) and defined.

• Business user s can toggle easily from a document via a hot key to the term in BGA

Metadata WorkBench

• Single tool to view all metadata, operational, business and technical

• Enables impact assessments to be done rapidly using search capability in the tool

• Impact Assessments for Business projects are turned around quickly, which speeds up the estimating and decision making process.

• Full lineage from source system to report provides a clear graphical audit trail – backs up the trust in the information provided.

Business Metadata View

DataStage – Where is the metadata?

Key Business Benefits• It’s about TRUSTED information provided to the business in a TIMELY

manner

• Quite simply, leveraging the power of the IBM tools will deliver reliable information to the business when and where they want it

• Provide the business tools which allow them to ensure Data Integrity across the business – this will lead to reduced time spent discussing who’s data is right and more time deriving insight from this data

The quality of BI information and underlying data will be improved, emphasising the need for increased business ownership where appropriate, to increase confidence in decision making and reporting.

• The time spent finding and analysing data will be reduced therefore reducing the delivery time for Intelligence solutions

THANKYOU

• Happy to take any questions over coffee

Fasttrack

• Relies on having a metadata strategy, framework and commitment as the tool uses the metadata repository

• Used to design new jobs, and generate skeleton Datastage jobs – enhances documentation on the go.

• Early days and some pilots.• Increased analysis/design/development by 25-50% in small

pilot exercises• Typically spreadsheets are used, with another source of

metadata. Deign documentation is in one place and can be linked with the analysis results from Information Analyzer