BI Insight

Editor's Note

Background

Nationwide Financial Services, Inc., (NFS) together with its subsidiaries, provides long-term savings and retirement products in the United States. The company operates in three segments: Individual Investments, Retirement Plans, and Individual Protection offering a variety of investment products including annuity products, income products, and investment advisory services and investment life insurance products. All three segments were run on the Teradata platform.

NFS seeked a solution that helped them compete in a shifting global market, and to ensure that the IT infrastructure was as cost effective and as operationally efficient as possible on a long run.

Systech was selected for the conversion project to migrate the Data Warehouse platform from the existing Teradata platform to the newly acquired Netezza Data Warehouse appliance, to leverage a proven, functionally rich technology. The project involved moving the data itself as well as “re-wiring” all Data integration, reporting, application interfaces and any other systems which touched the existing data warehouse.

Challenges

• The complexity of multiple data source systems and identifying all components of an alternate solution that require design change due to conversion and identifying the impact of those changes
• Incomplete documentation in existing processes such as data load, reporting and interface processes
• In-flight project management (Keeping development going on existing infrastructure while converting and managing the integration process)
• Database “re-modeling” and having to isolate and confirm data Model re-usability and potential issues
• Confirm Re-usability of existing approach and/or alternate strategy
• Ability to generate a balanced test plan that meets critical test criteria in allotted budget and service hours available
• Testing in this project represents a major and complex element as the end result of the project interconnects so many technologies, addresses a significant amount of data across the organization and impacts a wide group of end users

Solution

Systech executed a managed conversion scope of the entire Nationwide Financial Data Warehouse environment. The financial data is now stored in a staging area and in various data marts. The migration of “ETL” which constitutes the application code and processes moves the data on an ongoing basis into the data warehouse and various data marts. The migration of the connected reporting environments and applications interfaces to the data warehouse.

The change of database platform from Teradata and Netezza has impacts on the physical structures of the database schema, ranging from naming standards, column data types and object functionality such as writing into a table through a view. The design took into account all such factors in arriving at an alternate schema design that would be completely supported by Netezza and at the same time provide the exact same functionality as the current Teradata environment.

The processes that perform data movement across the systems use Teradata specific functionality to perform bulk loads, faster exports or some specific data transformations. A host of such functions and functionalities were identified as part of design phase and an alternate solution was designed to provide the exact same functionality in the new Netezza environment.

The reporting applications interact with the Teradata environment through a series of reporting tools and technology. The interaction of these tools with the Teradata environment happens in a number of ways, some tools offer semantic layers to mask the underlying database schema with a business definition, As far as reporting applications are concerned the two major design factors that were implemented are Netezza specific functions used and Connectivity mechanism.

Results & Benefits

Systech’s Success at NFS was implementing cost savings and performance improvement. Reporting performance improvement in Business Objects was substantially a 65% reduction in processing time. Systech completed a seamless database backup to the Netezza DR database. Systech went in with a very complete approach and methodology around conversion that managed a very complex scope. The attitude and teamwork displayed contributed to the team’s accomplishment to enhance the current reporting capabilities and greatly enhances NFS’s ability to achieve competitive advantage through actionable data analytics going forward.

Despite disruptions for many reasons, the Systech dedication and project management really was apparent. The teams worked incredible hours to make deadlines and complete the project. Systech’s assistance with organizing the numerous technical challenges and helping NFS keep track of backup copy of data for comparison. We accomplished an amazing amount of tedious testing through teamwork.

“This was a very challenging project which required an enormous amount of collaboration across business units, technical disciplines and our vendor partners. The attitude and teamwork displayed by Systech was awesome. Their accomplishment not only enhances our current reporting capabilities, but even more importantly, greatly enhances Nationwide Finance’s ability to achieve competitive advantage through actionable data analytics going forward.” -Tim Lyons, Vice President, NF – Business Solution Services, Nationwide Financial Services

Systech Corner cost efficient, database migration, insuarance, Netezza Migration, Performance improvement

Featured Article change management, controlled change, platform migration

Information Builders and Systech Announce

New York, NY – Month, Day, 2010 – Information Builders, an independent leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, today reiterated that it has partnered with Systech Solutions, Inc. to strengthen the ability to help customers extend their overall BI and Analytics capabilities on the Information Builders platform.

The partnership will allow small-to-medium and mid-market businesses (SMB) in the West, Southwest and Mid west regions gain a competitive edge while getting the most value out of IT investments.

“Over the last few years, we have seen significant shifts in the expectations of end users and their relationship with enterprise software,” said Gerald Cohen, CEO, Information Builders. “We provide an integrated solution that allows customers a completely integrated solution for gaining timely and trusted information to achieve positive business outcomes.  Systech Solutions, Inc. allows the use of unified business intelligence to help companies address their biggest challenges, and make use of business opportunities.

The best-of-breed combination of Information Builders software and Systech’s expertise in custom solutions for the media and entertainment, CPG & retail, gaming, hospitality, and financial services is expected to make a powerful offering in the SMB market.

Working with Systech will not only help provide millions of Information Builders users around the world an ideal BI fit for unique business models, but will also help leverage Systech’s offshore development center for cost effective and speedy implementations.

As an Information Builders’ partner, Systech will be the go-to partner in offering consulting and implementation teams. Information Builders will train and certify technical and sales staff at Systech and provide ongoing technical support to ensure an ideal customer experience. In addition, the two companies will engage in targeted marketing activities to drive greater awareness of Information Builders in Systech’s core markets.

About Information Builders

Information Builders’ award-winning combination of business intelligence and enterprise integration software has been providing innovative solutions to more than 16,000 customers for the past 35 years. WebFOCUS is the world’s most widely utilized business intelligence platform. It provides the security, scalability, and flexibility needed at every level of global extended enterprises. Its simplicity helps create executive, analytical, and operational applications that reach dozens to millions of users. Information Builders’ iWay Software suite provides state of the art, multi-purpose, pre-built integration components that address all SOA, application, data and information management requirements. Its integration adapters have been adopted by the leading software platform providers. Information Builders also offers solutions in the performance management, business activity monitoring, and enterprise search markets. The company’s comprehensive enterprise product offerings give Information Builders’ customers the ability to grow and innovate according to their needs.
Information Builders’ customers include most of the Fortune 100 and U.S. federal government agencies. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,350 people and has more than 250 business partners.

About Systech Solutions, Inc.

Systech Solutions, Inc. a leading Business Intelligence Services provider, delivering complete and custom solutions/implementations. Systech leverages the power of data and information to eliminate sources of inefficiency in your business process, reducing time and increasing revenue.

Founded in 1993, Los Angeles-based Systech Solutions has grown internationally with bases in the United States and in India. This incredible growth story has resulted in Systech being named one of the Fastest Growing Companies in America for two consecutive years by Inc. Magazine. To offer its clients cost-effective solutions, Systech established an Offshore Technology Center as well as Systech Academy in Chennai, India – specializing in Data Warehousing, Data Integration and Business Intelligence.

This BI Insight news item contains information from a recent press release by the company mentioned.

Wall Street steps up analytics spending

Over 90% of Wall Street firms expect to increase spending on analytics over the next year, with risk and compliance the areas most likely to see greater investment, according to a survey from IBM and Sifma.

The poll of nearly 250 business and IT Wall Street professionals shows firms are increasing their focus on systemic risk strategies as they prepare to meet the government’s increased transparency demands.

Of all regulatory activities, systemic risk was chosen by 55% of respondents to be the largest driver of IT investments. Building on that trend, risk analytics for compliance was ranked as the top analytics investment opportunity, at 37%, beating out categories such as analytics for client segmentation, on 21% and external fraud, 13%.

IBM says concerns about the economy are beginning to wane as for the first time since the 2008 financial collapse, prompting firms to revisit the use of IT to promote organisational sustainability.

Key priorities include innovating processes around trading, portfolio management and risk management but, surprisingly, client relationship management ranked last out of 17 categories with backing from only two per cent. Almost half of respondents expect 20% to 30% of their technology budget to be allocated for ‘transformational initiatives’ in 2010 and 2011.

Meanwhile, 90% of participants expect to outsource one or more of their processes this year with compliance reporting and analytics for risk the most likely fields.

Despite the positive technology investment outlook, Wall Street professionals cite lack of IT staff and high implementation costs as the biggest inhibitors for technology implementation, consistent with findings for last year. To overcome some of these challenges, the industry is showing a larger appetite for disruptive technologies such as cloud computing – 61% – to force business model change.

Shanker Ramamurthy, GM, IBM Financial Services Sector, says: “Coming out of the largest financial crisis in modern day history, there has never been a more important time for firms to capitalise on technology investments to make sense of the data and gain a more sophisticated understanding of risks. The road to recovery is built on infusing intelligence across operations, streamlining costs and getting back to basics so that firms once again focus on innovation and growth.”

Tom Price, MD, Sifma, adds: “Having the right technology in place is more essential than ever in efforts to monitor risk across firms and ensure regulators can identify and address potential problems before they escalate.”

This BI Insight news item contains information from a recent press release by the company mentioned.

MicroStrategy to Initiate High Performance Testing on Netezza Data Warehouse Appliance

McLean, Va., June 21, 2010 – MicroStrategy® Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence (BI) software, and Netezza Corporation (NYSE: NZ), a global leader in data warehouse, analytic, and monitoring appliances, today announced the delivery of a state-of-the-art Netezza data warehouse appliance to MicroStrategy. MicroStrategy will conduct high-volume, high-scale tests on the Netezza appliance as part of its High Performance initiative launched earlier this year.
Netezza has provided a TwinFin data warehouse and analytics appliance with more than 100 terabytes of user data capacity to MicroStrategy’s High Performance and Scalability Lab. MicroStrategy’s Performance Engineering team will use the Netezza appliance to run hundreds of large-scale tests to research, identify, and resolve potential performance obstacles for customers.

MicroStrategy’s High Performance initiative includes the formation of its High Performance and Scalability Lab, the creation of a dedicated Performance Engineering team, and specific R&D efforts solely focused on providing MicroStrategy customers with the highest levels of performance for BI applications of all sizes. With its high performance initiative, MicroStrategy plans to deliver up to 10x faster BI applications, provide faster than 3-second response times for most predictable queries and analyses, and provide faster than 5-second response times for the majority of ad hoc queries.

The combination of MicroStrategy and Netezza enables joint customers to perform advanced analytics on large volumes of data with maximum performance. Approximately one-third of Netezza’s customers use MicroStrategy for their business intelligence requirements. Mutual customers of MicroStrategy and Netezza include: Ahold, AutoTrader.com, Burlington Coat Factory, Con-way Freight, LoanPerformance, Pacific Sunwear, Ryder System, and Thomas Cook.

“Netezza is delighted to provide MicroStrategy with the TwinFin data warehouse appliance, which is designed for rapid analysis of extremely high data volumes,” said Matt Rollender, Director of Strategic and Technology Partnerships at Netezza. “The complementary technologies of MicroStrategy and Netezza provide leading enterprises with the power to analyze expanding data warehouses and distribute actionable information to thousands of diverse users.”

“MicroStrategy and Netezza have a strong business and technology relationship focused on providing customers with high performance and scalability at a low total cost of ownership,” said Sanju Bansal, MicroStrategy’s COO. “The new TwinFin appliance from Netezza represents a significant addition to our High Performance and Scalability Lab and to our major initiative to deliver even greater enhancements in performance and scalability for our customers’ enterprise-wide BI deployments.”

About Netezza Corporation

Netezza Corporation (NYSE: NZ) is the global leader in data warehouse, analytic and monitoring appliances that dramatically simplify high-performance analytics across an extended enterprise. Netezza’s technology enables organizations to process enormous amounts of captured data at exceptional speed, providing a significant competitive and operational advantage in today’s data-intensive industries, including digital media, energy, financial services, government, health and life sciences, retail and telecommunications. Netezza is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts and has offices in Northern Virginia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Korea, Australia and Singapore.

About MicroStrategy

Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a global leader in business intelligence (BI) technology. MicroStrategy provides integrated reporting, analysis, and monitoring software that helps leading organizations worldwide make better business decisions every day. Companies choose MicroStrategy for its ease-of-use, sophisticated analytics, and superior data and user scalability.

This BI Insight news item contains information from a recent press release by the company mentioned.

Industry News analytics, BI partnership, Information Builders, MicroStrategy, netezza, systech