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Welcome...
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Welcome to InfoAdvisors' website dedicated to information technology processes. You'll find subscriber-written articles on UML, data management, data modeling, process modeling, ITIL, information governance, as well as materials to help you improve your information management resources.
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Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture
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Author: |
Karen Lopez |
Created: |
Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:44:15 GMT |
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Insights and thoughts about data and IT-related concepts. |
By Karen Lopez on
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:45:58 GMT
I've just started reading Data Quality Assessment by Arkady Maydanchik. From the back cover blurb: DATA QUALITY ASSESSMENT is a must read for anyone who needs to understand, correct, or prevent data quality issues in their organization. Skipping theory and focusing purely on what is practical and what works, this text contains a proven approach to identifying, warehousing, and analyzing data errors. Master techniques in data profiling and gathering metadata, designing data quality rules, organizing rule and error catalogues, and constructing the dimensional data quality scorecard. Sounds intriguing. I'm a fan of theory though, because I think it helps professionals better react to real world situations, so I'll have to see what the publisher means by "skipping theory".
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By Karen Lopez on
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:30:03 GMT
Quote of the day: I am certain there is too much certainty in the world. - Michael Crichton
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By Karen Lopez on
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:05:50 GMT
I'm happy to announce that Gartner has published a research note on Industry Standard Data Models (ISDM) and InfoAdvisors' services in helping clients use them effectively. If you are attending DAMA, contact me (karen@infoadvisors.com) for information on how to get a complimentary copy of this case study.

This research note, InfoAdvisors: Modeling Beyond a Blank Sheet, authored by Michael Blechar, focuses on how organizations can benefit from adopting ISDMs. He discusses how InfoAdvisors provides insights into the benefits, risks and best practices involved with implementing industry-standard data models and patterns.
If your organization is a Gartner subscriber, you can download the note for free by visiting Gartner.com and searching for InfoAdvisors or using the research ID: G00154734.
Otherwise, you can purchase the note from the Gartner website.
As a reminder, I will be speaking on a similar topic at the upcoming DAMA LA meeting on 25 February 2008. See our event listings for more information.
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By Karen Lopez on
Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:24:23 GMT
Necessity of Conceptual Data Modeling for Information Quality
Pete Stiglich of EWSolutions has written an article for InfoAdvisors on why conceptual data models are critical for information quality. I especially liked his statement:
"The later in the project lifecycle problems are corrected, the greater the cost will be. However, the greatest cost is often the cost of poor Information Quality when the business cannot receive the information it needs, or is forced to make decisions based on incorrect or incomplete information."
That pretty much sums up the whole reason why we are so passionate about professional data management, doesn't it?
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By Karen Lopez on
Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:44:57 GMT
A valued colleague of mine, David Waxberg, sent me a link to a discussion on the history of the term blob. I had always understood that BLOB stood for Binary Large Object. According to some database pioneers, this just isn't the case.
According to Ann Harrison and Jim Starkey (who developed Interbase), the term blob started out as more of a yadda, yadda, yadda type phrase that was used to describe a new DBMS concept. Marketing and management, though, felt that they could not use the term blob and called the functionality segmented strings. Then marketing accepted the term blob, but did not want to say that it was just a filler term conscripted to be a serious DBMS functionality, so they came up with Basic Large Object as the meaning, turning blob into a backronym.
Then the Informix guys used the same concepts and described a blob as a Binary Large Object, yet another backcronym.
" For the trivia inclined: Blob don't stand for nothin'. It isn't an
acronym for "basic large object" or "binary large object". A blob is
the thing that ate Cincinnatti, Cleveland, or whatever.
The precise chain of events that lead to the creation of the sublime
blob is:
1. Barry Rubinson, my boss at DEC, was prone to wandering around
muttering "blobs, blobs, we gotta have blobs." When I asked
what a blob was, he pointed out that I was the architect and
that was my job.
2. Marooned in Colorado Springs (where Barry lived) because of a
snow storm in Massachusetts (where I lived), and unable to
derive the grand theory of transaction consistency, I invented
the blob instead. Ah ha! A concept to hang on a wonder name!"
Now you know more about BLOBs than you did before.
Look for my next post on the birth of a relational DBMS...
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