Hello and welcome to our latest blog post.
I am really pleased you have come back to see our latest news!
Today we are going to bring you a post from Bill Inmon, the father of data warehousing.
This is a direct quote and fully attributed to Bill.
We make no claim to having said this ourselves.
We are selling Bills “Textual ETL” here in Romania and we have trained a number of people on it’s use.
We believe “Textual ETL” will be a very valuable set of tools that will generate a great deal of new profits for large companies, especially retailers.
We are very pleased to represent Bills Textual ETL here in Romania.
We hope that we will make a number of sales.
So, on with the direct quote from Bill.
If you would like to read the blog post directly you can click on the button below:
WHO NEEDS A DATA MODEL ANYWAY?
By W H Inmon
There is much conversation about the necessity of the data model. The data model has been around for several decades now and can be classified as an artifact of an earlier day and age. But is the data model really out of date?
And exactly why do we need a data model, anyway?
There are actually several reasons why a data model is MORE important today than it has ever been. Todays world is really complex. We have AI. ML. ChatGPT. Transaction systems. Spreadsheets. Dashboards. KI’s. Siloed systems. Catalogs. The list of the different type of technologies just never ends. So how does the data analyst start to make sense of all of this?
The data model provides the blueprint for making all of these moving parts fit together.
Consider construction workers building a 50 story skyscraper. Would a construction worker even begin to build the skyscraper without a blueprint? The answer is – of course not. So why would a data analyst try to glue together the many pieces of technology without a similar blueprint? The answer is – the data analyst would not dream of building a complex and expensive structure without understanding what the blueprint – the data model – looks like.
But there are other very valid reasons why a data model is needed. Many organizations still have silos of data. In one place the customer is known as CUST and represents all customers over 21. In another system customers are known as ACCOUNT and represent all people who have made purchases from Texas. In yet another place the customer is represented as CUSTOMER and represents all people who have made purchases greater than $100. In short there is great confusion as to who a customer really is. The data model serves as a beacon to resolve the differences in naming and definition of data.
The third reason why a data model is invaluable is that the data model serves as a lighthouse for data. In many cases the data model represents the way data should be but currently is not. The data model in this case represents the goal of the way that data should look like in the future. Without a well defined goal, it is difficult to make any progress is bringing the data of the corporation in alignment.
These reasons for needing a data model are probably more relevant today than in the day and age when data models first started appearing.
Creating a stack of technologies does not abnegate the need for a data model. And building systems using an agile methodology hardly qualifies as an excuse for not building a data model.
And there are undoubtedly even more reasons why a data model is needed.
So if you want to beat your head against the brick wall of many systems in the corporation without a data model, be my guest. Just don’t complain when your 50 story skyscraper falls over.
Bill Inmon lives in Colorado with his wife and his two Scotty dogs – Jeb and Lena. Today is Jeb’s birthday. Today he gets a pawbender from the local ice cream shop. Once he gets started on his ice cream treat, he will be finished in less than 60 seconds. The ice cream will never have a chance to melt.
Why Would You Be Interested in Bills Opinion?
In 2004, two of our co-founders, Adrian Nagy and Dan Marina, had the good fortune to be involved in the first implementation of the Sean Kelly Data Models at Orange Romania.
By 2004 Sean Kelly had sold his data models to Sybase and Sybase was selling these data models all over the world.
The telco data models were the most sophisticated and evolved of the Sybase data models for the reason Sean Kelly got his start at the Irish government telco.
So, two of our co-founders have direct experience at implementing what many called the best data warehousing data models available on the marketplace in their space.
Later, in 2006, SAP bought Sybase. SAP gave Sean Kelly permission to bring another suite of data models to the marketplace so long as he did not compete with SAP BW or any other SAP related products.
Sean Kelly went right back to work to create a “next generation” of telco data models.
Both Adrian Nagy, and Dan Marina, were directly involved in the development of these new telco models.
In 2009 Sean Kelly and Associates implemented the first installation of this new version of models in Talk Talk in the UK. This implementation was on Netezza.
In 2010 Sean Kelly and Associates implemented the second installation of this new versions of the models in Sky Talk in the UK. This implementation was also on Netezza.
So, with two gold references, Sean Kelly was read to “take on the world” with the new generation of Telco data models.
Then some bad luck struck.
IBM bought Netezza.
IBM insisted that Netezza sell the IBM Telco models and use DataStage.
Not long after, in 2011, Sean Kelly became ill with cancer and he passed away in 2012.
His is very much missed by those who knew him.
The data models were “mothballed” for want of someone capable of selling them.
Today, we at BIDA still have copies of these data models.
We are not selling them as a product.
But we are using the ideas from these data models as the foundation for the products we are developing.
So we have deep knowledge and understanding of the Sean Kelly data models.
We agree that they are the best data models in their niche.
We do have blog posts about the models we are developing here on our site.
So we are firm believers in the idea that a data model is the starting point of building a large and complex data warehouse.
We are firm believers that you would not start the development of a data warehouse without such a suite of models to select from, any more than you would start building a 50 story building without exact blue prints of what you were going to do.
So our thanks to Bill Inmon for making this blog post.
Thank you Bill!
And with that?
I would like to say thank you very much for reading our blog post today.
I really appreciate your time and attention.
We hope you found this blog post interesting and informative.
We would love to hear your comments so please feel free to use the comments section below.
I wish you a good day.
Thank you.
Mihai Neacsu
Business Development Manager
BIDA