Chapter 4 Good Executive Advice

“In giving advice, seek to help, not please, your friend.”
- Solon (638 BC - 559 BC)

To Understand the Future Learn From the Past

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

- Sophia Bedford-Pierce

By keeping track of history, we can predict the future and create our own destiny. Historical data comes in a variety of flavors such as Snapshot in time, Most Current, Event Driven and even user clicks on your website. All possess the business benefits, and the associated costs. When you take a “snapshot” you’re taking a picture of the business at a certain point in time. You may take a weekly snapshot of your inventory so you know exactly what moves and when. This allows you see trends in your business. Cash in big on the opportunities and get in the trenches when times are tough. If you don’t know where you’ve been, you will repeat the past mistakes. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. Use the hindsight of the past to create a vision for the future!

Let the Business Users Decide on How Long to Keep Data

“I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.”

- Harry S. Truman

I have found the best way to give advice to your business users is to find out what they want and then advise them to put it on Teradata. If you want to guarantee the success of the data warehouse, let the business users decide the amount of detail data they need. The business users at a major retailer in Bentonville, Arkansas decided they needed to track 66 weeks of all products sold in their stores. They also decided they needed near real-time data loaded from stores every 15 minutes. The data warehouse didn’t start out that way, but as the business users grew their knowledge and experience they evolved and built one of the best data warehouses the world has ever known. The business users know what data they need to make decisions. Give them some ownership, and then don’t just meet their expectations, exceed them.

If You Want to Guarantee Success Involve the Business Users

“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”

- Chinese Proverb

A good friend of mine, Rolf Hanusa, built one of the greatest data warehouses of all time back in the early 1990’s at Southwestern Bell (SBC), which is now AT&T. He started it all by going to the business users and asking one simple question, “What questions can you not get answers to today that would thrill you if I could get them for you?” Of course most of the users said, “I’ve heard this before”. But Rolf not only got the answers, but took it further and gave them more. As Rolf told me, “If you find out what the users expectations are and then not only meet them, but exceed them, you can’t fail.” If you involve the business users and make it their warehouse, they will take responsibility for its success and success is imminent.

Invest in IT and the Leadership will Pay Big Dividends

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

- Lewis Carroll

I have been training top companies on Teradata for over 20 years. Great education teaches IT about the primary index, secondary indexes, partitioning capabilities, columnar options, In-memory enhancement, how to best collect statistics, compress data, and top ETL load strategies. IT needs to merely know how Teradata works, and all the fundamental options, so they can deliver the best performing warehouse to the users. Invest early in education for your entire IT staff and you will benefit greatly each and every quarter. If they know where they are going, and how to best get there, you will save millions.

Support Large Queries, but Monitor them Closely

“Not all who wander are lost.”

- J. R. R. Tolkien

2% of the bad queries can take up 50% of the machine time.
Some who wander are lost!

There are companies that make 10 million dollars on a single query. Sometimes those queries run for 40 hours. As an executive you need to promote this type of effort because not all who wander are lost. At the same time people make mistakes and some queries meant to be much shorter also run for 40 hours. With Viewpoint, your DBA’s will have the ability to monitor and abort queries or set up TASM rules that don’t allow long running queries. Find a way to support the monster query that is swinging for the fences, while also stopping the bad query from taking up time and money.

Experiment and Improve Loading Data Strategies

“Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.”

- Anonymous

Load most of your data nightly, but consider loading important and timely data much more often.

Twenty years ago companies loaded data once a month but this eventually sped up to once a week and now it is once a day. A major retailer loads data directly from every store in the world every 15 minutes. During the 9/11 attack on the twin towers, a DBA noticed that American flags were selling at 3000% of normal. Within two hours the decision was made to buy every American flag from every flag manufacturer in the world. Other retailers noticed the same thing the next day, but it was too late.

Compress Your Data with Multi-Value Compression

“Too much of a good thing is just right.”

- Mae West

Teradata has block level compression which saves space, but this comes with a cost, so you may or may not want to utilize this. Teradata Multi-Value Compression is a no brainer. You will average a 35% spaces savings, queries will be faster, and there is absolutely no bad news. Teradata does not have a Multi-Value tool so buy one from an outside source. Compress your large tables first, but do not forget to compress your small tables also. This strategy can help enormously when tables are queried or joined.

Separate your Production System From Your Test System

“I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

- Sign on Pentagon office wall

The two things never fun to buy are test systems and spare tires! Buy both. Never ever test on a production system. It is a little like hitting a rattlesnake in the wilderness with a ten foot stick. You will only get bit once in a blue moon, but when you do, it dawns on you, “Why did I do that?” and then, “What is that helicopter sound?” Invest in a small test system and prototype everything that will be put into production. Your Teradata system is your weapon in battle, but turns to nothing if corrupted even a little.

Have A Multi-Vendor Data Warehouse

"The lost thing is discovered, hidden for many centuries. Pasteur will be celebrated almost as a God-like figure."

-Nostradamus

”The lost thing is discovered, hidden for many systems.”

-NostraTera-Thomas

Teradata is unique just like every other vendor. Implement your Teradata warehouse, but take advantage of In-memory vendors, Columnar vendors, Appliances, Amazon’s cloud technology, your existing OLTP and Mainframe systems and even your smaller databases such as MySQL and even Excel. And most importantly implement a Hadoop system in conjunction with all of your other systems. This industry has never moved faster than today and every vendor listed above is a serious contender to bringing their own unique technology into your enterprise. A distributed, multi-vendor environment is inevitable.

Give your Enterprise the Tools they Need

“To have everything is to possess nothing.”

- Buddha

“To have every system is to possess Nexus.”

- Tomma

When you possess a tool like Nexus, you have access to everything! The Nexus Query Chameleon is the only tool that works on all systems. Its Super Join Builder allows for the ERwin Logical Model to be loaded and then Nexus shows tables and views visually as well as guiding users to what joins to what. Then, Nexus builds the SQL perfectly with each click of the mouse. Nexus was designed for Teradata and Hadoop, but works on all platforms. Nexus even converts table structures between vendors so querying and managing multi-vendor platforms is transparent.

Model the Business with ERwin

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

- Socrates

“The only true wisdom is in knowing that your modelers know everything. Bottle that and share it with all users.”

- Socratom

The true wisdom of modeling your business is in knowing that your experts know everything. You build models for the same reasons that architects build designs. They can be inexpensively tested and altered. Use ERwin from Computer Associates to design your data models. ERwin allows you to model both your tables, views and the physical model. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but should be done in a normalized 3rd normal form manner. Allow your business and modeling experts to model everything, but as they say, “Model the business, but don’t make a business of modeling”.

Educate the Business on the Business by Sharing the Model

“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.”

- Isaac Newton

“If users see farther, it is because they see with the eyes of the modelers.”

- Ijust Toldyou

Great companies model the business, but don’t allow the masses to reap its rewards. Allow your business users to stand on the shoulders of giants and understand the business. Start first by allowing users to visually see what tables join to what tables.

Load Your Models and have the SQL Built Automatically

“Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.”

- Christopher Columbus

Don’t let Christopher Columbus follow the sun and navigate their SQL West because your profits will soon be going South. Some users like to build their SQL by hand, but this makes as much sense as an assembly line baker wanting to churn their own butter. Load the logical models for every system in your enterprise, show the tables and views visually, allow users to click on the columns they want and then let the tool build the SQL perfectly every time. You can save magnitudes of order in development costs.

Allow the Users to See the Physical Indexes in Their Views

“Look at life through the windshield, not the rearview mirror.”

- Byrd Baggett

Nothing kills a data warehouse system faster than users who have to drive blind. Allow users to see the underlying indexes of the base tables so they know how to retrieve data utilizing the fastest path. This saves time, effort and enormous costs. Remember that 2% of the bad queries take up 50% of the machine resources.