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January 21, 2020
From Talend: Rick Sherman is an author, educator, and a managing partner of Athena IT Solutions. His book, Business Intelligence Guidebook: From Data Integration to Analytics, was published by Morgan […]
September 18, 2018
Tableau, Power BI and Qlik Sense offer similar self-service BI functionality, consultant Rick Sherman says. But he points to some of their strengths and weaknesses. Purchasing […]
July 25, 2017
Rick Sherman is quoted extensively in this new TechTarget article: Azure SQL Data Warehouse turns up the heat, expands processing power Abstract: Spirited competition is under way among […]
April 12, 2016
The 20th annual Enterprise Data World (EDW) Conference is recognized as the most comprehensive educational conference on data management in the world. Rick Sherman will be conducing […]
September 30, 2015
Your data warehouse is only as good as the data you load into it. But the data-loading process can be tricky, and there are ample opportunities […]
January 11, 2012
One of the debates one hears when designing a data warehouse is that it should be normalized. Specifically, they say to use a third normal form […]
December 27, 2011
Enterprises are awash with data from customers, suppliers, employees and their operational systems. Most enterprises have data warehousing (DW) or business intelligence (BI) programs, which sometimes […]
January 26, 2011
It’s time for another business intelligence and data warehousing “hype” list. What industry trends are being hyped by pundits, analysts, columnists and vendors as though they […]
January 10, 2011
Demand from business users for actionable information is ever-expanding. And with business managers and workers seemingly connected 24/7 via their iPhones, BlackBerrys, iPads and other devices, […]
January 5, 2011
What industry trends will affect our industry this year and beyond? See my predictions below. Please note that my predictions are not product pitches nor are […]
March 23, 2010
ETL Architect (Informatica PowerCenter 9) – Consulting Assignment, Boston MA area Athena IT Solutions is looking for an ETL architect. Please feel free to forward this […]
January 26, 2010
As we begin both a New Year and new decade in 2010 it is a great time to discuss the significant trends impacting the data integration […]
January 6, 2010
Athena IT Solutions is looking for data warehousing and business intelligence consultants for contract jobs in Massachusetts. Senior Data Warehouse Architect Senior Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Program/Project […]
December 22, 2009
In addition to the natural tendency to assume that you do not to ask for directions, i.e. training or knowledge transfer from experienced people, with today’s […]
December 18, 2009
A common problem from an IT perspective is the perception that BI is just about learning how to use the tools such as databases, ETL, reporting […]
December 16, 2009
My undergraduate degree is in engineering. So that’s my excuse for not reading instructions. In addition, I am a guy and I don’t ask for directions […]
December 9, 2009
It’s a vicious battle. No, I am not talking about the partisan wars between the Democrats and Republicans, but this battle also impedes progress. Nor am […]
November 17, 2009
I’m not only concerned about hand-coding versus ETL tools; I’m also concerned that potential buyers of ETL tools and the market in general are only looking […]
November 6, 2009
This is a continuation of an earlier post that discussed the problems of hand-coding using ETL tools. What Went Wrong? There are two aspects of effectively […]
November 4, 2009
We are creatures of habit. It’s not easy to stop doing something the way we’ve always done it. Especially when we think we are right (but […]
November 2, 2009
My new DW and BI Data Modeling course is now available on ELearningCurve. This is a great bargain compared to traveling to a conference. From now […]
September 30, 2009
In our post Enterprise Software: Is there any one left to buy? we listed the best candidates to be acquired within the lucrative Business Intelligence (BI) […]
September 24, 2009
The high tech Titans – IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), SAP (SAP) and EMC (EMC) – have been buying software firms at an […]
September 18, 2009
A recent flurry of news articles in the database industry has reinforced my perceptions that the software titans have lost touch with current market needs. The PR […]
December 9, 2008
Data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) have been evolving and getting more sophisticated over the years. As IT folks, consultants and analysts gain more experience, […]
November 19, 2008
People involved in business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) projects are very familiar with terms such as facts, dimensions, attributes, surrogate keys and slowly changing […]
November 13, 2008
Recently I bought a Maxtor OneTouch™ 1TB backup drive for my son’s PC. We had been using a 320 Gb hard drive for backups, but to […]
October 30, 2008
A research note from the 451 Group “Open source is not a business model” discussed that selling open source is a tactic rather than a business […]
September 25, 2008
There is a lot of worry on Wall Street and Main Street these days. Are we in a mild or severe recession? Is it the next […]
June 11, 2008
What’s the process for evaluating data warehouse software? 1. Establish what data warehouse software you need. The core set of tools: database; extract, transform and load […]
May 12, 2008
People involved in business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) projects are very familiar with terms such as facts, dimensions, attributes, surrogate keys and slowly changing […]
December 18, 2007
I’ve written letters to Santa before, requesting gifts that only a data management type would appreciate. Maybe that’s why a data warehousing manager gave me a letter this […]
August 14, 2007
I already had my say about the term "users." Let me vent on other tech terms have always bothered me: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – there […]
August 9, 2007
The Wall Street Journal’s Business Technology Blog had an excellent post by Ben Worthen Tech Terms We Hate. The post discusses terms used in technology that […]
June 30, 2007
Business demand for information is insatiable, driven by performance management, competitive pressures, industry regulations and the exchange of data with suppliers, partners and customers. Likewise, data […]