The Teradata Partners Conference 2009 is over, and my impression is that I have met a lot of optimistic, and very determined, people. This is no time for enthusiasm, neither in the U.S. nor back home. But the people at this conference generally think they are seeing light at the end of tunnel and are preparing to be ready when more opportunities arise again. It was very inspiring, and shouldn’t I say thank you to our hosts?
The theme of this conference, in my view, was the discrepancy between the abundance and availability of data in many enterprises and government authorities. Knowledge you don’t know you have is wasted. Not putting the small bits together inevitably means you will be missing the big picture. In Washington we have seen enhancements for all the steps that are necessary for data analysis.
The first step is always data integration. And it’s never fully completed. Geospatial data is yet another data type that can be loaded into the data warehouse for analytical purposes. And no doubt there will be more to follow in the future. The second step is to decide what to do with these data. Thanks to the cloud versions introduced this week, business users and developers will have it far easier to make that decision. And they can collaborate via the cloud. The third step is to have the data at your hands when you need them. This is where the new platform, Extreme Performance Appliance 4555 comes in. Its SSD technology speeds it up tremendously, enabling companies, for example, to exploit opportunities even during the briefest interaction with the customer.
Data warehouse is a field that continues to develop fast. There will be Teradata User Group meetings across Europe over the next months and, next spring, our Teradata Universe Conference in Berlin, where we can continue discussing the latest trends. The next Teradata Partners Conference will take place in San Diego – a bit further to the West and very close to Rancho Bernardo with its developers’ centre. See you around, and goodbye from your man in Washington.
