MD240 - MIS

Oct. 4, 2005
Databases & the Data Asset
Harrahs & Allstate Cases

Topics Covered
Data & Information
Data vs. information

Architecture basics
Data Warehouses & Data Marts
Transactional vs. query systems

Leveraging Data
Harrahs
Allstate

Data, Information, & Knowledge

Data - raw facts, figures, and details.
Information - organized, meaningful, and
useful interpretation of data. Has a context,
answers a question.
Knowledge - an awareness and
understanding of a set of information and how
that information can be put to best use.
Many firms are data rich and info poor: victims
of an old or poorly planned architecture

Examples of Data, Information, &

Knowledge
Data: raw, no context

900,000
1,200,000

1,150,000
1,100,000

Information: meaningful, has context

Quarter 1 Quarter 2
Post
900,000 1,150,000
Kellogg's 1,200,000 1,100,000

Knowledge: information above & other information

creates an awareness of impact
Post lowered its prices after the first quarter.
Price change has caused Post sales to rise at the expense
of Kelloggs

Clients, Servers, DBMS, and Databases

Server - responds to client requests
request
response

Client - makes requests

of the server
Database

DBMS - the program.

Manages interaction with
databases.
database - the collection of data.
Created and defined to meet the
needs of the organization.

a collection of related data. Usually organized according to topics: e.g. customer

info, products, transactions

Database Management System (DBMS)

a program for creating & managing databases; ex. Oracle, MS-Access, MS SQL
Server, IBM DB2, mySQL

SQL - Structured Query Language

Most popular relational database standard. Includes a language for creating &
manipulating data.

A Simple Database
CUSTID
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005

FIRST
John
Abby
Warren
Peter
Charles

File/Table
Customers

Field/Column
5 shown: CUSTID, FIRST, LAST, CITY, STATE

Record/Row
5 shown: one for each customer

LAST
Gallaugher
Johnson
Buffet
Lynch
Schwab

CITY
Newton
Boston
Omaha
Marblehead
San Francisco

STATE
MA
MA
NE
MA
CA

Now With More Data

CUSTID
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005

FIRST
John
Abby
Warren
Peter
Charles

LAST
Gallaugher
Johnson
Buffet
Lynch
Schwab

CITY
Newton
Boston
Omaha
Marblehead
San Francisco

STATE
MA
MA
NE
MA
CA

Customer Table

Transaction Table

One
Many

Many

One

BROKID
B001
B002
B003

FIRST
Ivan
Dennis
Michael

Broker Table

LAST
Boesky
Levine
Milken

Customer Table
Col. Name Length Type
CUSTID
4 Char
FIRST
10 Char
LAST
15 Char
CITY
15 Char
STATE
2 Char

Meta-Data
m
1

Broker Table
Col. Name Length Type
BROKID
4 Char
FIRST
10 Char
LAST
15 Char

Data that describes the characteristics of stored data

Enterprise Data Model
consistent, cross-functional, shareable meta-data model
standardization increases flexibility & use (data to info)
facilitates the creation of data warehouses

Transaction Table
Col. Name Length Type
CUSTID
4 Char
BROKID
4 Char
BUY/SELL
1 Bool
STOCK
4 Char
SHARES
8 Num
PRICE
6.2 Money

Warehouses & Marts

Data Warehouse
a database designed to support decision-making in an
organization. It is structured for fast online queries and
exploration. Data warehouses may aggregate enormous
amounts of data from many different operational systems.

Data Mart
a database focused on addressing the concerns of a specific
problem or business unit (e.g. Marketing, Engineering). Size
doesnt define data marts, but they tend to be smaller than
data warehouses.

Data Warehouses & Data Marts

3rd party data
Data Mart
(Marketing)
TPS
& other
operational
systems

= operational clients
= query, mining, etc.

Data
Warehouse

Data Mart
(Engineering)

Differing System Demands

network traffic
& processor
demands

Operational Systems

time
Managerial Systems
network traffic
& processor
demands

time

Query Tools & OLAP

Query Tools
user-lead discovery. Can return individual records or
summaries. Requests are formulated in advance (e.g. show
me all delinquent accounts in the northeast region during Q1).

OLAP - Online Analytical Processing

user-lead discovery. Data is explored via drill down into the
data by selecting variables to summarize on. Results are
usually reported in a cross-tab report or graph (e.g. show me a
tabular breakdown of sales by product, customer, and date).

OLAP
Online
Analytical
Processing

OLAP
Online Analytical Processing. (example
of cross-tab results presented below)
1. business unit

2. product type

3. year

Executive Dashboard aggregated report presentation of key business

indicators

Data Mining
automated information discovery process,
uncovers important patterns in existing data
can use neural networks, regression, decision
trees, or other approaches.
Requires clean, consistent data. Historical data
must reflect the current environment.

e.g. What are the characteristics that identify

if a customer is likely to default on a loan?

Insuring Success
Over 5 years:
Revenues up 26%
to $33.9 billion
Profits up 180% to
$3.1 billion
Stock up 187%
Insurance stocks
up only 31%