COLIN WHITE UNVEILS DECISION PROCESSING BLUEPRINT FOR THE INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE

At the first annual Decision Processing '98 conference held in Redwood Shores, California, industry visionary, Colin White of Database Associates introduced a new architecture for managing the integration of data from ERP applications, data warehouses and data marts, and emerging analytic applications. Leading IT vendors applauded the new architecture -- called the Decision Processing Blueprint -- and voiced their support for easy access to integrated and up-to-date business information.

Decision processing applications play a pivotal role in helping to manage the flow of data along a corporate information value chain. An underlying decision processing hub acts as a middleman by transforming and analyzing raw operational data captured from transaction processing systems and delivering that transformed information in an understandable format to corporate decision makers.

Core to the decision processing infrastructure are data warehousing business solutions and technologies. Data warehousing technologies provide the common platform needed to integrate the disparate forms of data supplied by ERP, OLAP and analytic applications. The information delivered to the end user can then be used to track and analyze business trends and explore potential new business opportunities. Web technology factors into a decision processing system as a quick and efficient way to deliver information to decision makers.

"Decision processing represents the next generation of data warehousing where ERP systems, data warehousing, analytic applications, and Web technology work cohesively together to deliver business information to executives and managers," said Colin White in his opening keynote at Decision Processing '98. "The DataBase Associates decision processing blueprint enables an organization to implement a decision processing system in a planned and organized fashion. It identifies key integration points that vendors must support via open standards if information integration is to be achieved between the various products that make up a decision processing system."

"As a company that has implemented over 300 data warehousing projects for Fortune 1000 companies, we have seen an emerging need for more cross-application data integration," Diaz Nesamoney, president, Informatica Corporation noted. "We regard Colin Whites' decision processing blueprint as a timely and innovative way of addressing this important challenge. Our PowerCenter data integration server is the first enterprise software product to support many of the key elements of the decision processing hub identified in the blueprint, and we look forward to seeing these concepts actualized in customer implementations."

"The coming together of ERP systems, data warehousing, and analytic applications is an important industry trend that offers tremendous business opportunities for organizations," said Steve Selbst, Business Intelligence Solutions Manager, IBM. "This market direction will spawn a whole new generation of business intelligence solutions, and the DataBase Associates decision processing blueprint is a key industry framework that will help organizations plan and build integrated decision processing systems. Customers require this kind of standardization and common cross-vendor solutions to be successful in their enterprise information integration efforts."

Decision Processing '98 was co-sponsored by DataBase Associates International, a leading information technology consulting company, Informatica Corp., a leading provider of software for deploying enterprise analytic applications, and Intelligent Enterprise, a new publication from Miller-Freeman covering the integration and management of business-critical applications and corporate information infrastructures. The conference assembled leading vendors in enterprise computing -- Hyperion Solutions, IBM, Informatica, Microsoft, NCR, Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP -- for candid discussion of the challenges and benefits of integrating ERP, OLAP and data warehousing systems for enterprise-wide decision support.

Colin White is the Founder of DataBase Associates International, Inc., a leading information technology consulting company. As an analyst and consultant he specializes in database systems, data warehousing, and Web-based decision processing and information delivery. With over 28 years of IT experience, Colin has consulted for dozens of companies, written numerous articles, and co-authored books on data warehousing and database systems. For more information about DataBase Associates International, visit their Web site at http://www.dbaint.com For more information on decision processing visit http://www.decisionprocessing.com