Paying Respect to The Data Architect

Mathematical Solutions

Regarding Seth Grimes' recent column in Intelligent Enterprise ("Simultaneous Equation Models," Decision Support, February 16, 2001) let me simply say more, more, more!

I'm a practicing engineer who has a great interest in this subject, and this column is very helpful. I have a keen

interest in Mathematica, so any information relative to that package would be great.

Also, from my experience, the biggest difficulty is not setting up or even solving the equations, but rather finding them (or finding the best ones) in the first place. I wonder if you know of a book, Web site, or other resource that has compiled sets of equations that can be used for the solution of business or technical problems. These formulas may be completely theoretical, completely empirical, or a mixture of the two. Better yet would be a series of formulas where the output of one is used as input to the next that solves a larger (perhaps multidisciplinary) problem. If such a "recipe book" does not exist, perhaps an example or two of sufficient complexity could be used in the next column to illustrate the points that Grimes made.

Steve McCormack

Johnson City, N.Y.

---

Seth Grimes responds:

I'm planning to cover modeling and similar topics in subsequent columns. My column in this issue is on OLAP tools and time series, and I plan to do further columns on topics that may interest you, such as forecasting and tools and techniques for managing time-varying data.

From EDI to XML

I enjoyed Michael Hudson and Craig Miller's article focusing on XML technologies in Intelligent Enterprise ("IT and the Now Economy," January 30, 2001). It was very relevant to me because I am working in the area of integration between traditional EDI systems and XML-based marketplaces and exchanges. I visited their company's Web site (www.blueprinttech.com) and was very impressed.

I wonder if they would share any "best practices" and experiences they have with upgrading traditional "EDI" to "XML" business-to-business (B2B) integration. For example, do they recommend any tools to help in the design and implementation of XML schemas and integration of XML into traditional business systems? Do they know of any specific training programs or conferences?

Mark Yader

Rockville, Md.

---

Hudson responds:

In terms of XML to EDI integration, a number of things are out there that you might want to look at. First, you need to define how your XML documents should look. A standard that seems to be gaining ground is ebXML (www.ebxml.org). Also, a couple of initiatives are actually expressing EDI in an XML format, including the architectural frameworks needed for implementation (see www.xmledi.com).

In terms of good, plain XML tools, I'd recommend XML Spy from Altova (www.xmlspy.com) for most of your general XML needs, like viewing and creating files and schemas. However, I really like Tibco Software's Extensibility XML Authority, which has a good GUI for creating XML schemas without needing to really know XML schema (www.extensibility.com/tibco/solutions/xml_authority/index.htm).

In general, you need a framework that can translate your business partners' schemas to your specific XML schema.

If all the parties involved can decide on the same standard, then no conversion is needed. However, this agreement is hard to do if you're dealing with many business partners. So, you need to have an XML schema-to-XML schema mapping tool and get your business analysts to figure out how all the elements in their documents map to each other. Then you need either a way to ingest the XML document's information into an internal database or a system that invokes some back-end code based on the XML document. Again, a number of tools are out there that support all these actions.

Data Integration

Thomas Richebacher's article, "The Model Customer" (January 30, 2001), really caught my attention. A little more than a year ago, the company I work for entered into a design partnership to build just what he describes: a tremendously scalable solution that would transform and cleanse clickstream data, integrate it with customer data from the warehouse, and prepare the integrated data for mining. The goal was to walk away with a fully scalable solution that would allow our customers to move Web data into the warehouse where it could be analyzed alongside existing demographic and transactional information.

Coming back to his article, what prompted me to write this email was the perspective he took toward Web data. Over the past year, I've read a lot of articles about what's required for Web site (and customer) analysis, but his article is the first I've seen that shares our perspective on the need and challenges of moving huge volumes of Web data into the data warehouse and integrating that information with existing customer data.

Jamus Driscoll
Torrent Systems
Cambridge, Mass.

From Data to Knowledge

I just read "The Model Customer," and I found it to be excellent.

Really what it all comes down to is epistemology (forgive me, I was a philosophy major). More data is available than anybody can fathom. But when does data turn into facts, and when do facts turn into information? Finally, when does information turn into knowledge? The problem is that people constructing Web sites or databases seem to be fixated on data when they should be thinking about what information or knowledge they're trying to get.

Frank Tonge

Longmont, Colo.

A Whole New Era

Thank you for Justin Kestelyn's editorial entitled "The New Tyranny" (December 5, 2000). I have quoted two parts on many occasions since. The first is Jack Kilby solving the Tyranny of Numbers, and the second is Kestelyn's expression of "replacing mass production with mass customization."

In my estimation, the full potential of today's global networks will not be realized until the application software changes. Such software will enable new e-business models both in terms of productivity and simplicity. We simply have to have a new application software architecture.

The old one is proving to be too big, too costly, and too complex to represent viable long-term solutions. This may represent a whole new area of coverage for Intelligent Enterprise.

Bill Hinkle
President & Executive Manager
N_gine LLC

Survey Wrap-Ups

>According to a study released by Jupiter Media Metrix, 33 percent of online retailers plan to outsource fulfillment over the next year, driving growth in the market similar to that of private trading networks. The research company also anticipates infrastructure spending on private trading networks to grow, from $465 million in 2001 to $37.4 billion in 2005.

---

>EMarketer's newly released "E-Commerce: B2B Report" forecasts that worldwide B2B will grow to $2.7 trillion by 2004, an increase from the $226 billion reported at year-end 2000.

---

>EMarketer also reports that the number of active Internet users in the Asian-Pacific Region will increase dramatically by 2004, accounting for more than 27 percent of the world's total online population. "The E-Asia Report" reveals that the active Internet population in the region will grow from 49 million users in 2000 to 173 million Internet users in 2004, a 38 percent compound annual growth rate.

---

>Fuld & Co. has just completed a study on 40 competitive intelligence software packages, concluding that even the best 12 packages cannot do 74 percent of the job. Fuld contends that corporations are not getting what they paid for in the $148 billion market for intelligence and data storage software and related devices. The average for the 12 packages profiled in-depth was only 13 points out of a possible 50.