Data Strategy [Paperback]

Sid Adelman (Author), Larissa Moss (Author), Majid Abai (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321240995 | ISBN-13: 978-0321240996 | Publication Date: June 25, 2005 | Edition: 1

Without a data strategy, the people within an organization have no guidelines for making decisions that are absolutely crucial to the success of the IT organization and to the entire organization. The absence of a strategy gives a blank check to those who want to pursue their own agendas, including those who want to try new database management systems, new technologies (often unproven), and new tools. This type of environment provides no hope for success. Data Strategy should result in the development of systems with less risk, higher quality systems, and reusability of assets. This is key to keeping cost and maintenance down, thus running lean and mean. Data Strategy provides a CIO with a rationale to counter arguments for immature technology and data strategies that are inconsistent with existing strategies. This book uses case studies and best practices to give the reader the tools they need to create the best strategy for the organization.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The definitive best-practices guide to enterprise data-management strategy.

You can no longer manage enterprise data "piecemeal." To maximize the business value of your data assets, you must define a coherent, enterprise-wide data strategy that reflects all the ways you capture, store, manage, and use information.

In this book, three renowned data management experts walk you through creating the optimal data strategy for your organization. Using their proven techniques, you can reduce hardware and maintenance costs, and rein in out-of-control data spending. You can build new systems with less risk, higher quality, and improve data access. Best of all, you can learn how to integrate new applications that support your key business objectives.

Drawing on real enterprise case studies and proven best practices, the author team covers everything from goal-setting through managing security and performance. You'll learn how to:

• Identify the real risks and bottlenecks you face in delivering data—and the right solutions

• Integrate enterprise data and improve its quality, so it can be used more widely and effectively

• Systematically secure enterprise data and protect customer privacy

• Model data more effectively and take full advantage of metadata

• Choose the DBMS and data storage products that fit best into your overall plan

• Smoothly accommodate new Business Intelligence (BI) and unstructured data applications

• Improve the performance of your enterprise database applications

• Revamp your organization to streamline day-to-day data management and reduce cost

• Data Strategy is indispensable for everyone who needs to manage enterprise data more efficiently—from database architects to DBAs, technical staff to senior IT decision-makers.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Sid Adelman is a principal in Sid Adelman & Associates, an organization specializing in planning and implementing data warehouses, in data warehouse and BI assessments, and in establishing effective data architectures and strategies. He is a regular speaker at the Data Warehouse Institute and IBM's DB2 and Data Warehouse Conference. Sid also speaks often at DAMA conferences. He chairs the "Ask the Experts" column on http://www.dmreview.com.

Sid is a founding member of the Business Intelligence Alliance. Its members include Colin White, Herb Edelstein, Larry English, David Foote, Douglas Hackney, Pieter Mimno, Neil Raden, and David Marco. Sid is also a frequent contributor to journals that focus on data warehouse and data-related topics. He co-authored Data Warehouse Project Management with Larissa Moss. He is the primary author of Impossible Data Warehouse Situations with Solutions from the Experts.

Sid can be reached at [e-mail]. His web site is http://www.sidadelman.com.

Larissa Moss is president of Method Focus Inc., a corporation specializing in enterprise information management. She frequently lectures at data warehouse and data quality conferences worldwide on the topics of data warehousing, business intelligence, and other enterprise architecture and data strategy topics, such as data integration, data modeling, data quality, and metadata. Larissa is a senior consultant of the Cutter Consortium and a member of Friends of NCR-Teradata and the IBM Gold Group. Her present and past associations also include membership in DAMA, part-time faculty member at the Extended University of California Polytechnic University Pomona, associate of the Relational Institute and the Codd & Date Consulting Group, and lecturer for TDWI, DCI, MIS Training Institute, and PESG.

Larissa has authored and co-authored numerous books, white papers, and articles on business intelligence, project management, information asset management, development methodologies, data quality, and organizational realignments. She can be reached at [e-mail]. Her web-site is http://www.methodfocus.com.

Majid Abai is President of Seena Technologies, a Santa Monica, California consultancy dedicated to delivery of holistic data and enterprise solutions to various organizations. Majid's two decades of IT experience have been primarily focused on solution architecture, data strategies, and business intelligence systems for organizations facing challenges with the management of massive amounts of data. Majid has developed and teaches a class in Business Intelligence at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and several other seminars and lectures for national and international corporations. He can be reached at [e-mail]. Seena Technologies website is http://www.seenatech.com.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (June 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321240995
• ISBN-13: 978-0321240996
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important subject in today's business world..., July 24, 2005

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Data Strategy (Paperback)

With the recent spate of data privacy lapses, the subject of data within the organization is getting more visibility. One book that addresses the overall role of data is Data Strategy by Sid Adelman, Larissa Moss, and Majid Abai.

Content: Introduction; Data Integration; Data Quality; Metadata; Data Modeling; Organizational Roles and Responsibilities; Performance; Security and Privacy of Data; DBMS Selection; Business Intelligence; Strategies for Managing Unstructured Data; Business Value of Data and ROI; ROI Calculation Process, Cost Template, and Intangible Benefits Template; Resources; Index

The authors strike a nice balance between presenting solid information and keeping it readable. It's easy to get so wrapped in the subject of "data" that you lose the ability to make the concepts practical and realistic for today's organization. This book doesn't seem to fall prey to that tendency. They also cover the whole gamut of how data needs to be handled in an organization. A reader just starting out in IT would learn why integration is important, why data quality/consistency is paramount, and how to design a data model that can be used by multiple applications. A person who holds the title of "data analyst" or equivalent will probably know most of this information, but it might be a good refresher in some areas (like on how to manage unstructured data).

The only issue I have with books like this is that they ignore the element of time and demand for application development. In every company I've worked at, there's always less time than required to do a "correct" job on the application design. There's also far more demand for applications than there are resources. If you're not careful, the demands of the data analysis group can paralyze an organization while they try to get everything "perfect". Meanwhile, nothing gets built. That's not to say that you can ignore all the information in this book. It's just that sometimes there are trade-offs you need to make in order to get things done in the real world.

Even with that caveat, this is still a book I'd recommend to someone asking why they have to be concerned with the enterprise view of their data...

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars useful, a bit 'light' on the content, August 9, 2005

By 

A. F. Breur "Tom Breur, www.xlntconsulting.com" (Tilburg, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Data Strategy (Paperback)

Data Strategy doesn't really deliver what it promises. The book starts out hopeful, but then you keep wondering when the 'data-strategy part' is going to materialze. It doesn't.

What DOES the book offer? In various disciplines surrounding database management, data warehousing, data quality, etc. the authors have loads of experience and truly valuable advice. The book comes packed with all sorts of checklists which some may find useful (I didn't care for them so much). These people have clearly been around, and share quite some of their experience with the reader.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, a must read, August 8, 2005

By 

David Cohanoff (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Data Strategy (Paperback)

Sid Adelman, Larissa Moss, and Majid Abai have written an excellent book, one of the first that addresses the subject of data strategy in an organization.

The authors discuss various subjects within data that should be addressed by each and every organization. I was specially intrigued by the chapter on unstructured data as they are one of the first set of authors who have addressed unstructured data as part of the overall data within the organization. In addition, the chapters on business intelligence, data quality, and metadata address issues long needed in various size organizations.

A number of suggestions in the book apply mostly to medium-size and larger organizations, but the smaller companies could also take advantage of a lot of information contained in the book as they could sidestep some issues that exist within larger organizations.

I think authors have done an outstanding job in this book and I will certainly recommend it as a must read for all data professionals as well as CIOs, CTOs, and Enterprise Architects who are planning to create an information-centric organization.