Appliances to the
Rescue
Managers who need to perform ad hoc queries—and need
the results now—are generally out of luck. Notes Dan Vesset, a
research manager at technology consultancy IDC: "Speed of
decision-making, whether we're talking about real time or
nearreal time, is still only a goal for most organizations."
This may be changing, however. A new device, called a data
appliance, could radically alter the time it takes to analyze data.
Built from the ground up as a dedicated storage, retrieval, and
analytics system, a data appliance is an all-in-one machine. Since
server, storage, and software are integrated at the lowest level,
there's less movement of data. The result? A 10-to-50-times
improvement in performance for products from data-appliance maker
Netezza Corp., claims Jit Saxena, CEO of the Framingham,
Massachusetts-based company.
Netezza sells five data-appliance models, ranging in price from
under $1 million to $2.5 million. The basic unit, a rack, can store
up to 6.75 terabytes of data. To increase capacity, customers simply
buy additional racks. As for the vendor's performance claims,
Wakefield, Massachusetts-based Epsilon, which hosts data for
financial-services companies and others, recently installed a
Netezza data appliance. Mike Coakley, Epsilon vice president of
marketing technology, recalls the benchmarking the company performed
on the device before making a purchase. "We tested load times,
queries, summarizations," he says. "The results were
astronomical—borderline ridiculous."
Coakley claims the data appliance has cut load times at Epsilon
from 11 hours to 3. Complex SAS queries on an Oracle database, he
notes, used to take 2 hours; now they take 15 minutes. Says Coakley:
"This is a real shift." —J.G.
Six Degrees of Automation
Costs and benefits of IT
probrams for Sarbox compliance.
| Technology
Option |
Costs and Efforts
Required |
Potential
Benefits |
% of Public
Companies Considering This Option |
| ERP instance
consolidation |
Projects cost about
$10M per $1B in annual revenue; often requires implementation
of system; projects can take 12 to 24 months |
Consistent processes
across all units; much better visibility across the company;
additional 25 percent decrease in IT maintenance
costs |
65% |
| Turning on controls
within current systems |
One of the least-costly
options; may require help from a systems integrator to
reconfigure the existing system |
Takes advantage of
existing technology investments; increases auditing
capabilities and ability of govern every action |
39% |
| Adding an EPM system to
current infrastructure |
Varies widely; can
include BI, analytics, planning, budgeting, ETL, and/or data
warehousing products |
Improves goal
alignment; manages accountability; identifies risks in
near-real time; standardizes external reporting
processes |
32% |
| Upgrading of current
ERP/financial system |
Costs average 18
percent of the initial ERP project; projects take about seven
months |
Provides a chance to
add new functions and features and consolidate separate
instances |
13% |
| Changing ERP/financials
vendor |
One of the most-costly
options; costs can range up to tens of millions of
dollars |
Can get off of
antiquated systems and take advantage of new features and
functions; ability to consolidate separate instances |
3% |
| Do nothing |
No upfront costs, but
the risks are high if the company does not come to
compliance |
No disruption to
current systems or processes |
7% |
| 
