WhereScape participated on a TDWI webinar today. The intention of this webinar was to position the current leaders in a newly defined category of Data Warehouse Automation tools against each other. The inspiration for this webinar was a thread in TDWI’s group on Linked In about WhereScape. And to their credit TDWI saw value in running this webinar to open up this discussion from an independant standpoint.

Our bit in webinar was supposed to be a 5 minute presentation by Mark our VP of Sales with myself present to answer any technical questions. Unfortunately due to technical problems I ended up having to do the presentation as well. Now I have seen the presentation (in longer form) several times, but to give it with a moments notice was tough. If I was incoherent then I apologise. If you are new to WhereScape I would recommend viewing our online videos, asking for a sales demo or catching the next Webinar that we are running (5/19/09 1pm PDT), register for this webinar or any others at WhereScape Seminars.

The short answer to “can a techie present?”, based on feedback from colleagues, is a resounding “almost”. But don’t give up the day job.

The date for the next WhereScape RED webinar has been set…Tuesday 19th May 1-2pm PDT.  We are trying out gotowebinar, and you can register here or via the WhereScape website.  Full text for the invite is here:

Business Intelligence on a Shoestring Series

WhereScape RED Webinar

Join WhereScape for a complimentary one-hour webinar to learn how to get to value quicker on your next data mart / data warehouse project.

Tuesday 19th May, 1 – 2pm PDT (4 – 5pm EDT)

Making use of a data mart or data warehouse to improve the speed and accuracy of business decisions just makes good business sense – but why do they have to take so long to build?
 
Join us as we talk about approaches to build data marts and data warehouses faster. We will show you – live and in real-time – a working data warehouse, built from scratch, in under an hour. You’ll see methods, techniques and of course software that can speed up your next data warehouse development.

Who should attend:

Data Warehouse Developers
ETL Developers
IT Professionals
Anybody who wants more out of their BI environment!!

We announced WhereScape RED 6 at the TDWI show in Chicago last week.  This is the latest version of WhereScape’s award winning Integrated Data Warehouse Development Environment. While WhereScape aficionados have been using V6 for a while now, it is always good to officially release it. 

Thanks to Peter and Claudia for providing quotes.  The full press release (for those who like reading press releases) is below:

Portland, OR  – May 5, 2009 – WhereScape, the provider of a comprehensive Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for data warehousing that supports the entire data warehouse management life cycle, today introduced WhereScape RED 6, the latest version of the company’s software which enables organizations to ensure that the structure of their data always meets the changing needs of the business.

WhereScape RED 6 is the only software environment focused on data warehouse developers who utilize the software to build data warehouses quickly and easily adapt them to keep up with the business. WhereScape RED 6 can access source data from multiple environments, create procedural code, scripts, and tables, build cubes, schedule updates, and generate documentation in HTML format, all while maintaining existing BI front-end compatibility.

New in WhereScape RED 6 is native support for IBM DB2, giving WhereScape seamless integration with all of the leading enterprise databases including Oracle, Teradata and Microsoft SQL Server.  In addition, WhereScape RED 6 provides support for Teradata’s Linux scheduler as well as other new enhancements for DB2, Oracle and SQL Server that further expedite data warehouse development.

“In this tough economic climate, companies are operating with leaner IT staffing and decreased budgets, making WhereScape RED 6 an attractive alternative for quickly prototyping, building and deploying data marts for targeted BI solutions,” said Claudia Imhoff, President of Intelligent Solutions, Inc., a leading consultancy on data warehousing and BI technologies and strategies.  “WhereScape RED 6 can be thought of as a ‘data mart in a box’, that can be rapidly and easily adapted as business dictates.”

Vodafone Using WhereScape RED 6

Vodafone is the world’s leading international mobile telecommunications company with nearly 300 million proportionate customers worldwide with a significant presence in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the United States.  Vodafone New Zealandis a long time WhereScape customer and has recently upgraded to WhereScape RED 6.  Vodafone New Zealand have a large data warehouse with over 20 terabytes and 10,000 objects. The recent upgrade to version 6 has provided them with enhancements in management and performance.

“WhereScape RED 6 provides us an affordable, quick-to-implement, data warehouse development environment that has served Vodafone well over the past several years,” said Peter Gavin, Business Intelligence Architect, Vodafone New Zealand.

“We are very pleased to be a long-time partner with Vodafone and are delighted with the ongoing role that WhereScape RED 6 plays in Vodafone’s data warehousing strategy,” added WhereScape Founder and CEO Michael Whitehead.  “Fast and inexpensive data warehouse development does not mean companies have to settle for isolated, or ‘throwaway’ project implementations.  WhereScape RED 6 ensures that organizations are not only data warehousing developing solutions quickly, but that that they are easily adaptable and integrate into the existing IT infrastructure as well.”

Pricing and Availability
WhereScape RED 6 is available immediately and priced on a per developer basis, beginning at $50,000 USD.

About WhereScape

WhereScape provides a product, WhereScape RED, which enables organizations to ensure that the structure of their data always meets the changing needs of the business. WhereScape RED is the only comprehensive Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for data warehousing that supports the entire data warehouse management life cycle, integrating source system exploration, schema design, metadata management, warehouse scheduling and enhancement into a single, simple integrated design.

More than 300 customers worldwide are using WhereScape RED on a variety of platforms. Projects performed using WhereScape RED typically come in under budget, ahead of schedule, with improved performance, greater transparency and built on more solid foundations over the systems they replace. WhereScape has head offices in Auckland, New Zealand, Portland Oregon, and Wokingham, UK.  For more information, please visit www.wherescape.com.

###

 All products or company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

I have two claims to fame in the technology world.  The first is that I once went on a date with Julia Packard.  The second is that I worked on two projects with data warehouse guru Ralph Kimball back in the early 90s, just after his first book was published.  So I was excited to learn he was going to be speaking at the TDWI chapter meeting here in San Francisco.  WhereScape is a sponsor of this TDWI chapter and all of their events have been great, but this one promised to be extra special.

It was interesting to hear Ralph speak and think about what has changed in our industry over 15 years.  One thing was immediately obvious: I’ve lost a lot of hair.  I had a pony tail back in ’92 which has now been replaced by a vast shining dome.  Ralph was already balding back them and from what I could see now his hairline has neither advanced nor receded.

More to the point, Ralph spoke about the advancing tidal wave of data that we are all facing.  “I thought the data warehouse problem was solved in 1997,” he said.  “Between banks, retailers, and insurance companies it seemed like we had captured all of the data that humans could generate.”  Deep breath.  “Boy, was I wrong.”  He described how the web generates levels of data unanticipated by anyone.  Some companies are generating as much as 10 terabytes PER DAY.  “Any Teradata employees out there?” he said to the TDWI crowd.  “I think it’s time to change the name of your company, though I don’t know what you’ll change it to that won’t be obsolete in a few months.  How about just ‘Lotadata’.”

Another issue in DW today is data frequency.  “Some departments are demanding their data in ‘real time’, even though they don’t know what that means.  I’ll give you the precise definition of ‘real time’,” Ralph said.  “Real time’ just means faster than your ETL can deliver it.”  This brought out a lot of knowing laughter.  “No matter how fast your ETL is, someone will want it faster.”   There was discussion of new database technologies, but when it comes to delivering real information, speed is not necessarily the highest priority.  “Even if you have an infinitely fast database appliance,” he said,  “it’s worthless if it gives incorrect answers.”

He also talked about the business pressures we are facing: the enterprise need to get more out of the data but spend less.  “So given this environment, how can we do to make a difference in 2009?” he asked.  “What project should we take on?”

What came next could have been right out of the WhereScape RED sales presentation.  He is a strong advocate of agile methods for DW: “Get rid of the traditional software development life cycle,” he said. “You want a short development cycle that is driven by users.  The users should be running the project and you should be putting
something new in front of them every 20 days.”

He advised carefully targeting your 2009 projects: “Work with only one or two fact tables at a time,” he said.  “Start with only one or two dimension tables.  If you get those right, your users will have plenty to do as you move forward.  Don’t waste time and money on subject areas that aren’t going to help the business right away.”

Then, Ralph being Ralph, the presentation took off into outer space. He talked about Service Oriented Architectures and Business Process Execution Language and other stuff that I couldn’t follow.   I could feel my eyes glazing over and a sudden pressing need for a Starbuck’s Venti no foam soy milk triple latte.  But I forced myself to pay attention.  Ralph, after all, has a track record of being twenty years ahead of his time.

After the presentation I went up to shake his hand.  I asked him if he remembered the Monsanto project that we worked on together.  “Sure,” he said.  He squinted and smirked. “I see you got rid of the pony tail,” he said.