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The IBM InfoSphere Information Server and the IBM Blade/GRID offering is a revolutionary new software/hardware platform (leveraging Linux on Intel) that helps organizations derive more value from the complex heterogeneous information spread across their systems. It enables organizations to integrate disparate data and deliver trusted information wherever and whenever needed, in line and in context, to specific people, applications, and processes. This IBM Redbooks publication describes a scenario for migrating an existing InfoSphere Information Server parallel framework implementation on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4 platform to a high availability grid environment involving four machines comprising one conductor node and three compute nodes. The high availability environment involves one of the three compute nodes serving as a standby conductor node that takes over the conductor role when the original conductor fails. The steps involved in migrating the existing infrastructure to the high availability grid infrastructure and enabling existing IBM WebSphere DataStage, IBM WebSphere QualityStage, and IBM WebSphere Information Analyzer jobs to exploit the grid environment are described here.

In this IBM Redbook we describe and demonstrate dimensional data modeling techniques and technology, specifically focused on business intelligence and data warehousing. It is to help the reader understand how to design, maintain, and use a dimensional model for data warehousing that can provide the data access and performance required for business intelligence. Business intelligence is comprised of a data warehousing infrastructure, and a query, analysis, and reporting environment. Here we focus on the data warehousing infrastructure. But only a specific element of it, the data model - which we consider the base building block of the data warehouse. Or, more precisely, the topic of data modeling and its impact on the business and business applications. The objective is not to provide a treatise on dimensional modeling techniques, but to focus at a more practical level. There is technical content for designing and maintaining such an environment, but also business content. For example, we use case studies to demonstrate how dimensional modeling can impact the business intelligence requirements for your business initiatives. In addition, we provide a detailed discussion on the query aspects of BI and data modeling. For example, we discuss query optimization and how you can determine performance of the data model prior to implementation. You need a solid base for your data warehousing infrastructure . . . . a solid data model.

Having more, and more current, information is fast becoming a requirement for business survival. The need permeates the enterprise because it enables proactive decision-making for problem avoidance, rather than reactive problem impact minimization. And that is the key. Thus the need for, and focus on, is real-time. Companies no longer have the long strategic time-frames in which to plan, design, and manage their business processes. Yearly revenue goals and measurements are fast becoming quarterly goals and measurements. Investors and share-holders are more demanding. They are more critical, and less forgiving, of missed performance goals. And these demands are coming at a time when the volume of data is growing, there is an increase in business mergers and acquisitions, the use of strategic outsourcing is growing, and there is an increasing requirement for faster and faster turnaround on information requests. This has put an enormous burden on the information technology (IT) organizations. And most of this change is centered around business intelligence, because that is the environment responsible for providing information for management decision-making. This IBM Redbook explores the techniques and capabilities for evolving to a real-time enterprise. It also demonstrates approaches for that evolution and provides examples to help guide you in developing your strategy and implementation methodology to become a real-time enterprise.