Modern Enterprise Business Intelligence and Data Management

Nearly every large corporation and governmental agency is taking a fresh look at their current enterprise-scale business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing implementations at the dawn of the "Big Data Era".and most see a critical need to revitalize their current capabilities. Whether they find the frustrating and business-impeding continuation of a long-standing "silos of data" problem, or an over-reliance on static production reports at the expense of predictive analytics and other true business intelligence capabilities, or a lack of progress in achieving the long-sought-after enterprise-wide "single version of the truth" - or all of the above - IT Directors, strategists, and architects find that they need to go back to the drawing board and produce a brand new BI/data warehousing roadmap to help move their enterprises from their current state to one where the promises of emerging technologies and a generation's worth of best practices can finally deliver high-impact, architecturally evolvable enterprise-scale business intelligence and data warehousing.

Author Alan Simon, whose BI and data warehousing experience dates back to the late 1970s and who has personally delivered or led more than thirty enterprise-wide BI/data warehousing roadmap engagements since the mid-1990s, details a comprehensive step-by-step approach to building a best practices-driven, multi-year roadmap in the quest for architecturally evolvable BI and data warehousing at the enterprise scale. Simon addresses the triad of technology, work processes, and organizational/human factors considerations in a manner that blends the visionary and the pragmatic.

• Takes a fresh look at true enterprise-scale BI/DW in the "Dawn of the Big Data Era"
• Details a checklist-based approach to surveying one's current state and identifying which components are enterprise-ready and which ones are impeding the key objectives of enterprise-scale BI/DW
• Provides an approach for how to analyze and test-bed emerging technologies and architectures and then figure out how to include the relevant ones in the roadmaps that will be developed
• Presents a tried-and-true methodology for building a phased, incremental, and iterative enterprise BI/DW roadmap that is closely aligned with an organization's business imperatives, organizational culture, and other considerations

About the Author

Alan Simon is a Senior Lecturer in the Information Systems Department at Arizona State University's WP Carey School of Business. He is also the Managing Principal of Thinking Helmet, Inc., a boutique consultancy specializing in enterprise business intelligence and data management architecture. Alan has authored or co-authored 29 technology and business books dating back to 1985. He has previously led national or global BI and data warehousing practices at several consultancies, and has provided enterprise data management architecture and roadmap services to more than 40 clients dating back to the early 1990s.

From 1987-1992 Alan was a software developer and product manager with Digital Equipment Corporation's Database Systems Group, and earlier he was a United States Air Force Computer Systems Officer stationed at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

Alan received his Bachelor's Degree from Arizona State University and his Master's Degree from the University of Arizona, and is a native of Pittsburgh.