The Life Saved By a Database May Be Your Own! Dot-Connecting Is Serious Business

By now, we’re all aware of the Detroit bombing attempt and President Obama’s comment that US security organizations need to “connect the dots” of intelligence. We at Teradata couldn’t agree more. “Dot-connecting” data integration technology has been around for years, and there is no bigger advocate than Teradata. We’ve been helping companies integrate and centralize valuable data assets for more accurate, complete and timely intelligence. It’s one reason why Teradata is so successful: nobody does it better.

In any conversation about integrating data from many different databases – and moving multiple riptide…

By now, we’re all aware of the Detroit bombing attempt and President Obama’s comment that US security organizations need to “connect the dots” of intelligence. We at Teradata couldn’t agree more. “Dot-connecting” data integration technology has been around for years, and there is no bigger advocate than Teradata. We’ve been helping companies integrate and centralize valuable data assets for more accurate, complete and timely intelligence. It’s one reason why Teradata is so successful: nobody does it better.

In any conversation about integrating data from many different databases – and moving multiple riptide streams of complex data in real time, Teradata is trump. Here’s why:

Every day, our customers use Teradata databases to integrate data and extend their visibility: to see more of their organizational world, and see it faster.
With Teradata systems, companies serve customers better, detect fraud faster, and track materials across broad supply chains. Companies integrate data to form a comprehensive understanding of their business, their environment and their customers. They collect, integrate and interpret activity across their multiple operational systems, from hundreds of data sources including the global Web. They seek and find patterns, spot affinities, identify shifts in shopping behavior, and learn fast which insights are more relevant than others and deserve priority. The resulting knowledge is distributed to those who can use the insight and take quick, positive action.

The technology – the systems – used in the commercial sector can handle the size that government would need. Teradata already has customers with data environments that are multiple petabytes in size and many customers with dynamic data warehouses that manage a hundred terabytes or more. These systems support not only simple questions, but also reveal relevant trends through the most complex of queries.

Take just one of our large customers as an example. Today, this leading ebusiness processes 50 petabytes of information each day while adding 40 terabytes of data each day as millions buy and sell items across 50,000 categories. Over 5,000 business users and analysts turn over a terabyte of data every eight seconds – and then use this information to make intelligent business decisions.

To put that in perspective: A petabyte holds 1,024 times as much data as a terabyte. Ten terabytes is the equivalent of the entire U.S. Library of Congress. If every PC had a 50-gigabyte hard drive, storing a petabyte would take 20,000 PCs.

We’re the Swiss army knife of data management. To illustrate the enormous processing power required of Teradata systems, note that in some cases, Teradata customer data warehouses manage:

• Database tables with up to one hundred billion rows of data
• Daily data loads of over 3 billion records
• Capture of 30 million customer transactions a day
• 1.5 million personalized consumer web offers per day
• A million database queries an hour
• 10,000 concurrent data warehouse users per day
• Operational query response times of 40-50 milliseconds

Finally, just as we say to commercial sector customers, there needs to be a culture change. You’ve got to decide to share your data for best total advantage. Knowledge is power, yet peak power is derived from collective knowledge. Terrorism has taught us that ‘connecting the dots’ is serious business. Integrating, analyzing, socializing ideas and hunches, collaborating, and ultimately growing our visibility – these are tactics for fighting tomorrow’s asymmetrical threats, whether from a competitor or an enemy.

Here’s a message for Washington’s intelligence community: Change your culture. Start cooperating. Share information. Integrate data. You know the technology exists. You’ve known it all along. We’re here. Let’s get together and do it. The lives we save may be our own.

Darryl