Database Reference
In-Depth Information
7
If Data Is the New Oil—You
Need Data Exploration and
Discovery
Vivisimo!
Say
it with us—use an Italian inflection while waving your
hands for emphasis—as though you just ate the best-tasting piece of authentic
pizza in your life! In April, 2012, we were saying this with gusto when IBM
announced the acquisition of Vivisimo, a software company specializing in
the indexing, searching, and navigation of data from multiple data sources.
One of the biggest challenges in business analytics today is that organiza-
tions store their data in distinct silos. We do this because it makes sense: for
example, we keep our transactional data in online transaction processing
(OLTP) databases, our email in Lotus Domino or Microsoft Exchange
servers, and our call center engagement logs in customer relationship manage-
ment (CRM) repositories such as SugarCRM. Each repository has specific
availability requirements, security settings, service-level agreements (SLAs),
and associated applications. But when it comes to building a complete view
of all the relevant data for a particular customer from every data source in
your organization, you're out of luck. The infrastructure that makes your
silos effective tools for their designed purposes also makes them difficult to
integrate. After all, you don't look at a picture by zooming in to 250 percent
and examining one spot—unless, of course, you are editing it. There's huge
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