http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/HowTo/FasterStartUp lists a number of mechanisms with which to help Tomcat startup faster and most of us do not have much leeway apart from removing all unnecessary modules and possibly cleaning up the server.xml file.

The format of Tomcat's server.xml in a non xml editor (notepad etc) is pretty terrible but I discovered a few benefits of installing the Admin module on Tomcat:

Most organisations will adopt a divide and conquer approach to all projects.

There are a number of more technical terms used to describe this: iterative, agile & scrum, RAD etc.

These are effective in their focus and delivery, but face some shortcomings for the organisation as a whole as most do not have a 'game plan' or roadmap in place that is realistic and adaptive enough to adapt along with new discoveries, changes in tactics, or shifting requirements and goal posts - not to mention departmental shifts and political impacts.

A new or even maturing BI environment must be adaptive enough to change in midstream re it's direction, and yet not lose sight of a greater plan that has to be amended in line with any possible influence on it (and that includes any departmental changes and project impacts from source / feeder systems).

 

Some interesing posts to this end:

 

 

 

I had some fun times trying to get some scripts going on XI 3.1 --

 

For the BIAR comand line scripts: http://meetthetaylors.com/files/Start_BOE.cmd.txt

To wrap these in a VBS shell:

 

Dim WshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WScript.Echo WshShell.CurrentDirectory
WshShell.CurrentDirectory = "C:\Program Files\Business Objects\common\4.0\java\lib\"
WScript.Echo WshShell.CurrentDirectory
WshShell.Run "java -jar biarengine.jar biar.properties"

 

For a really cool VBS editor packed with samples for just about anything: http://www.vbsedit.com/scripts/os/process/procthd/scr_992.asp
 

The critical component that links the business unit to the technical units re BI is the KPI. Proper identification and prioritisation of these metrics is key to ensuring that the focus stays where it should - on deivering usable information as opposed to gathering data and technology.

To this end there are many kpi's and metrics that are industry specific and standard to most organisations - as seen by most packaged applications these days - but there are also sites dedicated to sharing experiences and KPI's

 http://kpilibrary.com/

 

 

 

Sitting in the tech trenches we oft forget the c/overt influences of information on people and processes. We are creatures of habit, and the vastness of the web is constantly undermined by humans falling back into routine and visiting favourite sites.

Once in a while I throw a combination of unlikely terms together and do some random searching just to break the more obvious patterns of acquiring knowledge. "Business Intelligence and Empirical" soon led to

Business Intelligence meets Moral Intelligence Call for Papers for Vol. 10 (01/2009)

The paper can be accessed at the International Review of Information Ehics: http://www.i-r-i-e.net/current_issue.htm

 

Designing a dashboard is like chosing a surfboard - you want optimal performance, with the latest flow design and it must look good and be really effective.

Sometimes you don't really know what you want until you see it - so trolling online stores, visiting numerous retail shops and checking out the boards in use at your local break are par for the course until you narrow down the various choices into a suitable price range (and it must look radical! lol).

 

For dashboards the same rule applies - except most BI dpt's get tasked to emulate an excel spreadsheet that's packed with various tabs and charts etc as a starting point.

 

Look no further - this has to be the largest site of exmples - EVER http://dashboardspy.com/ - the top toolbar lists them in ranges of 1 - 250 etc until a 1000! 

It's oft said that an organization's DWH strategy either adopts Bill Inmon's Ralph Kimball's philosophy:

Bill Inmon's paradigm: Data warehouse is one part of the overall business intelligence system. An enterprise has one data warehouse, and data marts source their information from the data warehouse. In the data warehouse, information is stored in 3rd normal form.

Ralph Kimball's paradigm: Data warehouse is the conglomerate of all data marts within the enterprise. Information is always stored in the dimensional model.

There is no right or wrong between these two ideas, as they represent different data warehousing philosophies. In reality, the data warehouse in most enterprises are closer to Ralph Kimball's idea. This is because most data warehouses started out as a departmental effort, and hence they originated as a data mart. Only when more data marts are built later do they evolve into a data warehouse.

But - it is never a perfect world and the above are typically referred to as Classic Data Warehouse Architectures (CDWA) - and here is a very interesing discussion of the Data Delivery Platform (DDP) in trying to introduce versatility and reality with information delivery:

http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/9960

 

I have not had time to check out the Mondrian inclusion with the latest Pentaho suite, but there are a few additional enhacements in this area from an open source perspective:

http://freeanalysis.wordpress.com/ is an interesting concept, but I don't know of many sites that allow a myriad of technologies that would require having a generic meta data transfer mechanism. The side bar links highlight most of the more well known alternatives for OLAP technologies.

 

This space http://www.sqlsolutions.com/products/OLAPHeartbeat/index.html is always worth keeping an eye on as it offers some effective addon's to things SQL - so it's nice to see the OLAP offerings coming into play.

 

The founder of the Mondiran OLAP engine is busy running some presentations at the 2009 Pentaho Partner Summit this week - and he has a blog http://julianhyde.blogspot.com/2009/03/pentaho-partner-summit-2009.html

 

Cloud Tag: http://swik.net/OLAP

As developers and solution providers we oft forget to provide a more holistic approach to providing information in a consolidated environment.

Faced with a growing web farm of development, test and production installations - some shifting across virtual servers, I tried a number of open source collaboration installs to try and provide an information hub with updated links and documents for Business Objects XI 3.1.

After numerous attempts in trying to add a simple portal to the same Tomcat instance running on Windows 2003 for XI, I eventually settled for http://www.emforge.org/

with a link to a mindmap of all the sites links.

I included the Eclipse module for Online Business Objects Documents and am using the News tab for release announcements. 

The current state of the global economy should prove to be a catalyst for more aceptance and adoption of Open Source technologies - but experience tells me that cost reductions typically drives a shift to short term thinking with respect to all projects and new endeavors.

Most simply batten down the hatches and pause or cancel al projects that were slated to add to the existing solution spectrums.

Conversely we know and hear that if there ever was a time that BI and Analytical systems and processes were required, it should be now, but most regard this as simply closing the door on the barn after the bull has left and short term thinking becomes the de facto driver for new projects - including solution expansions.

Those that are already on a 3 or 5 year strategy might see cost reductions affecting either architecture expansions or additional software purchases - but I doubt that this will cause a shift to re-evaluating tool purchases for leverage of open source or cheaper alternatives.

 

Having said that - the current situation should see many new comers to BI and Analytics look elsewhere for solutions - and hopefully this will be the impetus that open source could do with re gaining a further foothold into acknowledgement and enterprise usage.

 

On an enterprise level it might be worth keeping a b eye on http://www.infobright.com/ and http://www.kickfire.com/ - the latter being an interesting option when considering the leaps MYSql is making in scaling itself up.

 

 

 

 

 

OLAP is always under or over rated due to the prebuild and load factors - interesting to see a real time Olap endeavor http://www.aleri.com/cep/aleri-streaming-platform/aleri-live-olap

 

The XI 3.0 Scoraecard is available at http://www.biscorecard.com/ - sure you have to purchase it, but well worth the value if faced with the migration decision from previous releases versus a shift to another Enteprise tool set.

I receive many questions re the decision making process of adopting Business Objects, and cannot believe that most miss the non technical rakings of local support and vendor coverage.

 

On the subject of visualizing - here's an old link that has some interesting coverage of social and network visualization tools:

Conceptually - everyone has an idea as to how to present data - or how to sell a concept - but fall short in understanding the dynamics involved .....

 

Most vendors are adding more flash to their toolsets - so it's up to reality driven project managers to know what and how to pursue these additional offerings - and when!

 

All the best in the Year of the Ox .....

Quantum Fortune Cookie http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/fortune.html

Tim sums it up pretty well at http://www.timoelliott.com/blog/2009/01/the_complete_list_of_2009_bi_p.html and I keep hoping that someone retains these lists and then runs a year end reality check so as to mark the actual hit rates - kinda along the lines of the feedback loops that we advize the business to do to constantly improve their prediction intelligentsia ?!

 

I just keep this 1st post in a while short - and wish everyone a kick ass new year with hopefully less mergers and wars than last year ...... !!!! 

 

 

 

This space is having jscript issues - blogging will resume once Bill's Boyz get their act together.

I'm also busy surfing in Africa and head back to the Middle East in two weeks .. till then take it easy over Xmas and lets hope the new year brings more interesting tech !! 

I don't see many companies running comparative exercises as to which toolset would best suite their organisation these days - must be a reflection of industry maturity and/or the intricate vendor relationships that currently exist along with some consolidation of software accounts.

I have stated previously that there are the Forrester, TDWI and Gartner sites that offer product comparions - for a price - but the one that has always stood out has been http://www.biscorecard.com/evaluations.asp#BO.

Cindy deserves some recognition, not only for her consistant net presence and posts, but for providing a Blank Scorecard for those unable to purchase a pre-loaded comparative scorecard!

 

Fractals for the pure Maths and Stats beings http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ 

 

Entries Close on 10th October  http://www.project10tothe100.com/index.html

 

 

 

       

 

Gemini seems to be the topic of the day and it raises ye age olde debate of the so called 'runaway power user' - Chris has a pretty good overview http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/  

I have never been one for trying to diminish the possiblities of the desktop analyst, and/or trying to herd everyone into a DWH enclosure as the most analytical people in an organisation should be enabled in every way possible. The only focus should be on ensuring that there be some governance and expanded insight into what they're doing so as to ensure continuity and correctness.

Not sure what the Gemini and MS 2010 implications are for the likes of http://www.jedox.com/en/enterprise-spreadsheet-server/excel-olap-server/palo-server.html and the enterprise excel server endeavors. 

 

Take a break: http://www.alientiles.com/

 

Most generic BI tools are not very statistical orientated, and rightly so as statistical calculations rely on a tight integration with the RDBMS. Now that the RDBMS vendors such as Oracle and MS are heavily investing in DWH, BI, Reporting components of their own, it will be interesting to see if they stick to traditional / generic information delivery options, provide a stat's stack or focus more on industry specific solutions that require statistical formulae of a more complex level. 

There are a few companies that tend to specialise more on the stats front - SAS being the most known - but there's an interesting discussion as to leveraging stats AND soa http://boulderbibraintrust.org/brain_trust_blog/2008/10/spotfile-does-data-viz.php - the key comment being the interaction with the big vendors such as Cognos and BO etc.

 

Intro to the S language http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/slanguage.html

Comparison of SAS, SPSS, R packages and functions http://rforsasandspssusers.com/

 

Open Source Stats http://circa.europa.eu/irc/dsis/oss/info/data/en/statistical.html

 

Aside - supported MS components with virtual servers http://bisqlserver.blogspot.com/