Data mining, data warehousing, decision support and knowledge discovery make up the universe of D S * ( dsstar ), the only executive business newsletter supporting strategic employment of these technologies.

The On-Line Executive Journal for Data-Intensive Decision Support
*** February 23, 1999: Vol. 3, No. 8 ***
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IN THIS ISSUE:

BRINGING DATA MINING HOME
BY ED COLET
NEW DW INITIATIVE FOR DRUG DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT
SHOULD YOUR FIRM USE MASSIVELY PARALLEL PROCESSING?

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

BRINGING DATA MINING HOME
by Ed Colet, Virtual Gold, Inc

Ed Colet is the Acting Director of Research at Virtual Gold Inc., responsible for developing analytical methods for data mining and for investigating human factors and usability issues of business intelligence systems. At present, he is in the final stage of completing a doctoral dissertation in the Cognition and Perception program at New York University's Department of Psychology. Ed has also worked for IBM Research at the T.J. Watson Research Center. At IBM, Ed was a member of the group that developed Advanced Scout, the data mining application for NBA teams. His research interests focus on statistical methods and human factors.

Colet observes: "Having gone through the process of purchasing a home, I was reflecting upon my use of technology in general and data mining in particular in support of this effort. To buy or not to buy, that was only part of the question - the what and how also had to be decided. I realized that technology (the Web in particular), played a significant role, and that data mining could also be extremely useful. The lessons learned here pertain to a home purchase, but they also generalize beyond this domain."

SIMULATIONS PLUS, INC. AND ABSORPTION SYSTEMS LP TO FORM JOINT VENTURE TO CREATE UNPARALLELED DATA WAREHOUSE AND PREDICTIVE SOFTWARE FOR PHARMACEUTICAL DISCOVERY

Simulations Plus, Inc., a premier developer of new drug discovery and development simulation software for the pharmaceutical industry, and Absorption Systems LP, Exton, PA, a contract research facility, have announced that they have signed a Letter of Intent to form a joint venture to create an unparalleled data warehouse and predictive computer capability for key compound ADME characteristics for new drug discovery and development. The acronym "ADME" stands for "Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism and Elimination" and is commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry to refer to how these processes affect a drug compound after it is taken orally.

MASSIVELY PARALLEL PROCESSING
by Laura Hunt

If your company is looking for a high-speed, high-performance system that can execute complex analysis on huge amounts of data, then massively parallel processing (MPP) may be just the technology you need.

UP A CREEK? HERE'S A PADDLE

Year 2000 crunch time has arrived. If your critical business applications aren't fixed and being put through the testing process by now, you're heading for problems. Managers hoping to win the year 2000-compliance game at the buzzer are bound to be disappointed. Even the most promising crunch-time tools and tactics are problematic at best -- not the sort of thing on which anybody wants to bet their business or career.

NCR EXTENDS ITS LEAD IN DATA WAREHOUSING SOLUTIONS; UNVEILS PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING NEXT-GENERATION PLATFORMS

The new platforms -- the WorldMark 4800 and 5200 -- are designed to allow businesses to move their critical decision support systems seamlessly from entry-level to large-scale data warehousing, always benefiting from NCR's Teradata Warehouse solutions.

SPECTRUM OFFERS NET UPGRADE ADVICE

Cabletron this week will bolster its Spectrum network management system by shipping a data warehouse add-on that gives companies the historical network trend information they need to make better-educated net upgrade decisions.

SAND IMPLEMENTS NUCLEUS PRACTICE PARTNERS PROGRAM

Sand Technology Systems International Inc. has announced the inception of The Nucleus Practice Partners Program. The Program will provide Global 2000 organizations, commercial entities and federal, state and local government agencies a means by which to engage some of the premier data warehousing, business intelligence and knowledge management consulting organizations for Nucleus-specific product and implementation expertise.

ACTION ITEMS

Sybase Acquires Data Warehouse Network to Provide Comprehensive Line Of Business Intelligence for Key Vertical Markets; Solutions Provide Turn-Key Benefits
Sybase, Inc. has announced that it has acquired Data Warehouse Network, an Ireland-based, privately held provider of packaged, industry-specific business intelligence applications.

KiZAN Creates Data Warehouse Course for Microsoft
Does your business have a mountain of data from multiple sources that you can't analyze? Do you want to build a Data Warehouse that will allow you to analyze and report on this data? Then, KiZAN can show you how to do it in the KiZAN-developed, Microsoft-curriculum course, Designing and Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0.

Walklett Group and Arrow International Increase Arrow`s Competitive Edge Through Data Warehousing
Walklett Group, a leading Information Technology (IT) solutions company in the Mid-Atlantic region, has announced that they are working with Arrow International, Inc. to build a Sales and Marketing Data Mart.

BASE Consulting Group Launches New Data Warehousing Campaign
With its recent incorporation, and in anticipation of continued growth, BASE Consulting Group, Inc. (BASE) has unveiled its new marketing campaign, Empowering Business Decisions through Information Technology.

Human Side Key to Data Warehousing
At the Data Warehousing Institute Implementation conference in Anaheim, Calif., this week, there will be plenty of technical talk about Web interfaces, repositories, packaged analytical applications and architectures. But the human side of data warehousing will share the spotlight.

Data Warehousing Made Easy
Building a mission-critical data warehouse is at the top of the list of things to do for many IT professionals. To help these executives get a better handle on the design, building and management of a data warehouse, FileTek Inc. has published a pocket-size guide that presents information on data warehouses in an understandable form.

TimesTen Speeds I-commerce
Typical relational databases that use hard disks for storage and retrieval meet the needs of most corporate applications. However, as these applications move increasingly toward the Web, data-related performance becomes crucial and more difficult to manage -- especially in Internet- commerce applications.

Brio Bundles Analysis
An upgrade to Brio Technology Inc.'s namesake software promises one-stop business intelligence while allowing construction of custom analytic applications.

SAS Furthers Open-Door Policy
The SAS Institute will deepen its resolve to open its architecture by embracing Microsoft's Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) in order to reach out to other data analysis tools, including the Plato online analytical analysis processing server that Microsoft bundles with SQL Server 7.0.

Silicon Graphics Extends the Power of MineSet to Windows Users
Extending the power of its highly acclaimed visual data mining software to the broad base of Windows users, Silicon Graphics, Inc. has unveiled MineSet 3.0 Enterprise Edition.

Carleton Introduces Pure.Extract for High-Performance Data Extraction
Carleton has introduced Pure.Extract, a high-performance native database solution that changes the paradigm for legacy customer data extraction.

PLATINUM Unveils Microsoft Repository Running on Non-Microsoft Platforms and Databases
Microsoft Repository is now generally available from PLATINUM on Windows NT for Oracle, Sybase, and DB2 and on Solaris for Oracle and Sybase. The solution running on HP/UX and IBM AIX for Oracle and Sybase is in Beta availability.

3Com Selects PLATINUM Repository as Foundation for Global Warehouse, Improves Data Consistency and Executive Decision Making
PLATINUM's Repository will improve the availability and accuracy of 3Com's financial and manufacturing data by enforcing consistent business rules across its global enterprise.

SPEX Evaluates Data Warehouse OLAP Packages; OLAP Solutions Offer Greater Functionality and Ease of Use
SPEX has announced the availability of its new evaluation kit for data warehouse OLAP server software.

ICL Helps Nationwide Building Society Cut Mortgage Reporting Times from 5 Days to 1 Day
ICL, the IT services company, announced the completion of a mortgage data warehousing project at Nationwide Building Society.

Sterling Software Extends Business Intelligence Database Support
Sterling Software Inc.'s Information Management Division, a leading provider of business intelligence and data warehousing software, has announced VISION:Webaccess 3.0 with added support for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 database system for Windows NT.

Sybase Introduces New Generation of Adaptive Server IQ: Full-Function SQL Database with IQ Multiplex Technology for Maximum Scalability
Sybase, Inc. has announced Adaptive Server IQ12, a high-performance database server engineered specifically for decision support environments.

Number of NCR Terabyte-size Data Warehouses Jumps 90 Percent in 6 Months; Growth Underscores Data Warehouses' Critical Business Role
50 of NCR's "Hall of Fame" warehouses - the "Fabulous 50" - now have one terabyte or more of business data in their Teradata Warehouses.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"SAS was a product-focused company. In the last four years, we've decided to step it up a notch and move toward solutions." for business intelligence

• Mark Moorman, SAS program manager

CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 02.23.99

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