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This IBM® Redbooks® publication is a comprehensive service-oriented architecture (SOA) offering that is designed to extend the IBM Business Process Management platform to deliver flexible composite business applications. In these Redbooks publications, we provide a complete overview of the chemical and petroleum industry and solutions provided through C&P IIF that can help overcome the business challenges through value identification. This Redbooks publication is the second of two books and covers the information technology and system architecture, installation guide, and step-by-step scenarios that describe how to model, assemble, deploy, and manage a composite business application. This book is for an audience that include solutions and technical architects, IT service providers who seek faster and quality implementations, maintenance, and upgrades of enterprise solutions. The first book covers the business and functional architecture of the chemical and petroleum industry. In particular, this book provides a market segmentation of the petroleum industry and how IBM C&P IIF can lead to better productivity and profitability. This book is for an audience that include chemical and petroleum industry professionals, business and functional architects who are looking for ways of improving efficiencies and operating margins. IBM C&P IIF provides a strategic advantage to the chemicals and petroleum industry by reducing costs and increasing revenues.

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.

In this IBM Redbook we describe and discuss DB2 Data Warehouse Edition (DWE) Version 9.1, a comprehensive platform offering with functionality to build a business intelligence infrastructure for analytics and Web-based applications, and best practices for deployment. DB2 DWE integrates core components for data warehouse construction and administration, data mining, OLAP, and InLine Analytics and reporting. It extends the DB2 data warehouse with design-side tooling and runtime infrastructure for OLAP, data mining, InLine Analytics, and intra-warehouse data movement and transformation, on a common platform based on DB2 and WebSphere. The platform pillars are based on the technology of DB2, Rational Data Architect (for physical data modeling only), the SQL Warehousing Tool, Intelligent Miner, DB2 Cube Views, and Alphablox. DWE includes an Eclipse-based design environment, DWE Design Studio, that integrates the DWE products (with the exception of Alphablox and Query Patroller) with a common framework and user interface. The new SQL Warehousing Tool enables visual design of intra-warehouse, table-to-table data flows and control flows using generated SQL. DB2 Alphablox is the tool for developing custom applications with embedded analytics-based visual components. DWE enables faster time-to-value for enterprise analytics, while limiting the number of vendors, tools, skill sets and licenses required.

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.

This IBM Redbook provides an overview of IBM's event publishing solution delivered via its WebSphere Information Integrator Classic Event Publisher and WebSphere Information Integrator Event Publisher products, and documents the procedure for implementing a replication and event publishing solution using these products. The book is aimed at an audience of IT architects and database administrators (DBA) responsible for leveraging the WebSphere Information Integrator event publishing capabilities in a variety of business solutions involving replication and event alert systems. Using an insurance industry acquisition scenario involving auto insurance and home insurance companies, this book documents a step-by-step approach to implementing an integrating Customer Information Facility (CIF) application, and an Event Alert System application using WebSphere Information Integrator Classic Event Publisher and WebSphere Information Integrator Event Publisher.

This IBM Redbook provides an overview of WebSphere Information Integrator and documents the procedures for implementing WebSphere Information Integrator Content Edition in a heterogeneous AIX and Windows distributed environment for an insurance industry call center scenario. Supported data sources include DB2 Content Manager, Documentum, FileNet Imaging Services, and WebSphere MQ Workflow. It is aimed at an audience of IT architects and database administrators (DBA) responsible for managing WebSphere Information Integrator Content Edition in a heterogeneous distributed environment involving the AIX and Windows 2000 platforms. This book documents a step-by-step approach to implementing a heterogeneous distributed WebSphere Information Integrator Content Edition environment.

This IBM Redbook documents and prototypes the role of DB2 Information Integrator technologies and architecture in IBM's Patterns for e-business using a typical customer insight e-business scenario. It is aimed at an audience of IT architects and data integration professionals responsible for developing e-business solutions that integrate processes and data from multiple distributed heterogeneous systems. This publication provides an overview of IBM's Patterns for e-business, and the DB2 Information Integration architecture. It also describes the various application and runtime patterns identified to date for Information Aggregation and Data Integration, as defined in "Patterns for e-business". Using a typical customer insight e-business scenario, this publication documents the step-by-step patterns approach to implementing the e-business solution. At each level in the hierarchy, each available pattern is evaluated and chosen before drilling down to the next lower layer where the pattern evaluation and selection process is repeated. The final drill down leads to product selection and implementation information.

This IBM Redbook is primarily intended for use by IBM Clients and IBM Business Partners. The current direction in the Business Intelligence marketplace is towards data mart consolidation. Originally data marts were built for many different reasons, such as departmental or organizational control, faster query response times, easier and faster to design and build, and fast payback. However, data marts did not always provide the best solution when it came to viewing the business enterprise as a whole. They provide benefits to the department or organization to whom they belong, but typically do not give management the information they need to efficiently and effectively run the business. In many cases the data marts led to the creation of departmental or organizational data silos (non-integrated sources of data). That is, information was available to the particular department or organization, but was not integrated across all the department's or organizations. Worse yet, many data marts were built without concern for the others. This led to inconsistent definitions of the data, inconsistent collection of data, inconsistent collection times for the data, and so on. The result was an inconsistent picture of the business for management, and an inability for good business performance management. The solution is to consolidate those data silos to provide management the information they need.

In this IBM Redbook, we discuss business performance management (BPM) and its integration with business intelligence. BPM is all about taking a holistic approach for managing business performance and achieving the business goals. Businesses align strategic and operational objectives, and business activities, to fully manage performance through more informed and proactive decision making. This holistic approach enables the integration and use of business intelligence, process management, business service management, activity monitoring, and corporate performance management to achieve a single view of their enterprise. Businesses are evolving to an environment capable of supporting continuous data flow, which enables the support of business intelligence environments with more current data. This is referred to as real-time business intelligence, and represents a significant competitive advantage. In this redbook, we demonstrate how BPM can be enabled, using DB2 for data warehousing and WebSphere Business Integration for monitoring and managing the business processes. The result is proactive business performance management and problem avoidance, in addition to the more typical reactive problem impact minimization. We also discuss techniques, architectures, and approaches for implementing BPM as a proactive means of managing the attainment of business measurements and business goals.

This IBM Redbook provides an overview of DB2 Information Integrator V8.2 key performance drivers; best practices to achieve optimal performance; and guidelines for monitoring a DB2 Information Integrator environment for capacity planning, problem diagnosis, and problem resolution. This publication documents procedures for monitoring existing DB2 II implementations for the purposes of capacity planning. It also documents a methodology for routine and exception monitoring of a DB2 II environment for performance problem determination; and describes some commonly encountered performance problem scenarios and the step-by-step approach used in problem determination and resolution.