Oracle Analytics: Business Intelligence and Analytic Applications - The CIO's Guide to Oracle Products and Solutions - page 67

data, providing insight and understanding. The advent of auto discovery
software changed the view of databases from a static repository of informa-
tion, which only provides answers when someone asks a specific question,
to a more active repository, which automatically poses queries to the data-
base, thereby uncovering useful and sometimes unexpected information.
This was the case for a well-known computer manufacturer who suf-
fered sporadic defect problems in their disk drive manufacturing process
that they just couldn't locate. Using automatic discovery software against
a database that consisted of audit logs of the manufacturing process, this
company was able to pinpoint a particular operator who was causing the
problem. The defect was then traced back to lack of proper training.
An even more interesting case study deals with lead-poisoning data
from the University of Southern California's Cancer Registry. Analysis of
this data uncovered a relationship between gender and the level of lead in
the blood leading to kidney damage. Before analysis, this relationship was
unknown and potentially deadly.
Oracle Endeca Information Discovery is an enterprise data-discov-
ery platform that combines information of any type, from any source,
empowering business-user independence in balance with IT governance,
as shown in Figure 2.3.
FIGURE 2.3
Oracle Endeca Information Discovery.