Transitioning to a New World – An Analytical Perspective

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at the Silicon India Business Intelligence Conference. The topic I chose for the discussion was focused on providing the BI & Analytics perspective for companies transitioning to a new world. 

The gist of my presentation is given below:

1)      First, established the fact that the world indeed is changing by showing some statistics:

• Data Deluge: Amount of digital data created in the world right now stands at 7 Zettabytes per annum (1 Zettabyte = 1 Trillion Terabytes)
• Social Media: Facebook has touched 1 Billion users which makes it the 3^rd largest country in the world
• Cloud: Tremendous amount of cloud infrastructure is being created
• Mobility: There are 4.7 billion mobile subscribers which covers 65% of world population

2)      Enterprises face a very different marketplace due to the profound changes taking place in the way people buy, sell, interact with one another, spend their leisure time etc.

3)      To ensure that BI can help business navigate the new normal, there are 3 key focus areas.

• Remove Bottlenecks – Give business what they want
• Enhance Intelligence
• End to End Visibility by strengthening the fundamentals

For each of the 3 areas mentioned above, I gave some specific examples of the trends in the BI space.

1)      For Removing Bottlenecks, the impact of in-memory and columnar databases were elaborated.

2)      For enhancing intelligence, working with unstructured data and using big data techniques were discussed.

3)      For the 3^rd point, the focus was on strengthening the fundamentals in the BI landscape.

Please do check out my complete presentation at http://bit.ly/VLDDfF and let me know your views.

Thanks for reading.

 

Job: Peoplesoft Tester In Chennai

Title	Peoplesoft Tester
Categories	India
Grade	G4
Skill	Peoplesoft, HRMS Testing, Payroll
Start Date	21-08-2012
Location	Chennai
Job Information	3-5 years of experience in ERP Related Product Testing.
	Knowledge of complete testing life-cycle and different testing methodologies.
	Min. 2 – 3 years of hands on experience on PeopleSoft – HRMS.
	Min. 1 year of experience on writing Test Scripts on PS Payroll Module.
	Good knowledge on HP QC.
	Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills.
Unit	10
	Apply Now

EMC Storage - Hexaware Job In Chennai

Job: EMC Storage
Title	EMC Storage
Categories	India
Grade	G4-G5
Skill	Storage Netapps
Start Date	21-08-2012
Location	Chennai
Job Information	5 + Years of Experience in any of the following Storage Devices
	NetApps
	Hitachi
Unit	2
	Apply Now

Big Data and the Goldilocks Principle

I was inspired to write this post (I can hear all of you sighing ‘Yet Another on Big Data’) due to another ‘Big’ reason. I listened to a TED (www.ted.com) talk by David Christian titled ‘The History of the World in 18 minutes’ in which he narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is “Big History”: an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline. Check out his website – www.bighistoryproject.com , and I promise you that this ‘Big’ has nothing to do with Big Data, as we know it. But what got me interested in his talk is his reference to the ‘Goldilocks moment’ – a moment so precisely right for certain thresholds to be reached to enable higher forms of complexity (life) in the universe.

That got me thinking – Is Big Data the ‘Goldilocks moment’ for organizations with respect to analytics helping them towards achieving better business outcomes?

I think the answer is ‘Yes’ and this stems from the following hypothesis – An organization can utilize analytics for better business outcomes if:

a)      they have more data points to be analyzed (volume)

b)      have the ability to perform sophisticated analysis on large and diverse datasets (variety)

c)       and can do it at a much faster rate than before (velocity)

In that context, I really liked the picture (given below) from one of the IBM articles, which illustrates how Big Data when synthesized  properly along with standard transactional data can help in better business decision making (in this case, it was Fraud Detection)

Source: IBM – Understanding Big Data by Paul Zikopoulos

On the other hand, the exponential increase in processing power of CPUs, the steep fall in memory prices and high bandwidth availability, have enabled the practical use of Big Data techniques. From the human angle, people are creating digital data, viz. social media chatter, video sharing, blogs, mobility etc. at a rapid pace that organizations (with help of Big Data techniques, of course) can potentially solve the ‘Innovators Dilemma’ by providing new products and services that the consumers did not ask for simply because they couldn’t figure out what they actually want.

All in all, I think we are at a precise moment in history (the Goldilocks moment) where organizations can greatly increase their ability to provide better products & services for their consumers using Big Data techniques.

Source: http://blogs.hexaware.com/business-intelligence/big-data-and-the-goldilocks-principle/

Short-term contracts give mid-cap IT cos new lease of life

With the duration of outsourcing deals getting shorter, deals worth nearly USD 85 billion are up for renegotiations this year, reports CNBC-TV18’s Shreya Roy.

Midcap IT players may get a new lease of life. With the duration of outsourcing deals getting shorter, deals worth nearly USD 85 billion are up for renegotiations this year, reports CNBC-TV18’s Shreya Roy.

Over the last few years, uncertain times have forced IT companies to go in for more short-term contracts. For mid-cap IT companies, this may have been a blessing in disguise.

Data from outsourcing advisory firm TPI says that around 700 contracts will be up for renegotiations this fiscal year, compared to 530 last year.

“There is a significant reduction in the tenure of contracts as they were originally signed. Compared to 10 years ago, when 500 of these were being done, there are 1000 a year. The tenure has gone down to five years instead of seven, so a lot of deals are naturally coming back to the market as renewals. In itself, this is a very large opportunity,” said Siddharth Pai, partner and MD at TPI India.

For many IT players, this may be just what the doctor ordered. After all, renewals account for almost 65% of the outsourcing market. Advisory firm Everest estimates that by October 2013, deals worth nearly USD 85 billion will be up for renewal.

These include a contract between HP and Bank of America, a mega deal from Shell group which is currently with AT&T, HP, and T-Systems, a blue cross blue shield deal with Dell and Manu Life's deal with IBM.

Many of these contracts are expected to be broken up into smaller chunks, as outsourcers are looking increasingly towards multi-sourcing. Analysts say this could work in the favour of the smaller players, especially those like Mindtree and Hexaware, which have been focusing on developing niche capabilities to help differentiate from larger players.

 

Watch Video

Excerpts from India Business Hour on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show »

Netezza Unix Technical Lead - Hexaware

Job Description

Experience in Data analysis, data mapping, dataloading, and data validation

 

 

Understanding business requirements, creating design, and developing ETL using NZ SQL, performing code reviews

 

 

Must be able to work with multipleprojects/tasks and the ability to prioritize on the fly

 

 

Strong written and oral communication skills,with the ability to work with the client.

 

 

Experience in leading and mentoring development team is required.

Desired Skills & Experience

8+ years of Experience in DataWarehouse, ETL and Netezza experience.

 3+ years of experience in hands-on involvement in the design, development, implementation and maintenance of design artifactssuch as conceptual/logical data architectures and their respective physicaldata models.

 4+ years of extensive experience in Unix environment and Shell scripts

Company Description

Hexaware is a global provider of IT and Process outsourcing services. We focus exclusively on maximizing client returns from outsourcing and off-shoring. We have extensive experience in managing large IT applications in real time as well as in providing high value services around packaged enterprise applications such as SAP, Oracle eBusiness Solutions and PeopleSoft.

Our experience in the business process outsourcing arena fully complements and strengthens our service spectrum and allows us to operate as an enterprise-class solution delivery company. Our solutions aim to provide high value by optimising cost of ownership of technology investments for customers.

Hexaware has a client base comprising several Global 1000 organizations. Our commitment is to provide solutions that translate into tangible business outcomes for our customers. Our ‘partner-in-business’ approach generates high business value for customers and rich dividends to Hexaware in the form of a continual stream of repeat business. Hexaware’s domain capability expertise and reduced learning curves enables significant compression in time-to-value deliverables. Our customer-centric philosophy is further strengthened by a robust Key Account Management process to find more ways to delight our key customers and grow market share.

The company's onsite/offshore delivery model provides significant cost savings. Our development centers are assessed at SEI CMMI-Level 5, and are also ISO 9001:2000 and TickIT certified. These help us to continually provide high value, high quality deliverables to our clients. We have consistently delivered to client expectations and have established long lasting relationships with them.

Hexaware's global operations are located in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Additional Information

Posted:

August 6, 2012

Type:

Full-time

Experience:

Mid-Senior level

Functions:

Information Technology 

Industries:

Information Technology and Services 

Compensation:

Very competitive

Job ID:

3507995

Configuring Oracle Unified Directory (OUD) 11g as a Directory Server

I used Oracle Unified Directory (OUD) Version 11.1.1.5.0 during my test deployment locally here. I tried to collect as much information possible in this post for configuration.

Ideally, there are three possible configuration options for OUD:

• as a Directory Server
• as a Replication Server
• as a Proxy Server

Directory Server provides the main LDAP functionality in OUD. Proxy server can be used for proxying LDAP requests. And Replication Server is used for replication from one OUD to another OUD or even to another ODSEE (earlier Sun Java Directory) server. You can my previous posts on OUD here and here.

In this post, we will talk about configuring OUD after installation as a Directory Server. You can read about OUD installation in my previous post here.

Once installation is completed, you will find following files in $ORACLE_HOME Directory.

-rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle 1152 May 17 11:16 oud-proxy-setup  -rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle 1482 May 17 11:16 oud-proxy-setup.bat  -rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle 1180 May 17 11:16 oud-replication-gateway-setup  -rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle 1510 May 17 11:16 oud-replication-gateway-setup.bat  -rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle 1141 Aug 10 16:50 oud-setup  -rwxr-x---  1 oracle oracle 1538 May 17 11:15 oud-setup.bat

In this listing, .bat files are used in windows. So, In Linux (that is what I am using), we will be using following files.

• oud-setup – To configure Directory Server
• oud-replication-gateway-setup – To configure Directory Replication Server
• oud-proxy-setup – To Setup Proxy Server

You can run the script shown below.

$ ./oud-setup OUD Instance location successfully created - /u01/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_OUD1/../asinst_2 Launching graphical setup...  The graphical setup launch failed.  Check file /tmp/oud-setup-8836874387532698932.log for more details.  Launching command line setup...  Oracle Unified Directory 11.1.1.5.0 Please wait while the setup program initializes...  What would you like to use as the initial root user DN for the Directory Server? [cn=Directory Manager]: Please provide the password to use for the initial root user: Please re-enter the password for confirmation:  On which port would you like the Directory Server to accept connections from LDAP clients? [1389]: 389  ERROR:  Unable to bind to port 389.  This port may already be in use, or you may not have permission to bind to it.  On UNIX-based operating systems, non-root users may not be allowed to bind to ports 1 through 1024 On which port would you like the Directory Server to accept connections from LDAP clients? [1389]:  On which port would you like the Administration Connector to accept connections? [4444]: Do you want to create base DNs in the server? (yes / no) [yes]:  Provide the base DN for the directory data: [dc=example,dc=com]: Options for populating the database:  1)  Only create the base entry 2)  Leave the database empty 3)  Import data from an LDIF file 4)  Load automatically-generated sample data  Enter choice [1]: 1  Do you want to enable SSL? (yes / no) [no]: yes On which port would you like the Directory Server to accept connections from LDAPS clients? [1636]:  Do you want to enable Start TLS? (yes / no) [no]: yes Certificate server options:  1)  Generate self-signed certificate (recommended for testing purposes only) 2)  Use an existing certificate located on a Java Key Store (JKS) 3)  Use an existing certificate located on a JCEKS key store 4)  Use an existing certificate located on a PKCS#12 key store 5)  Use an existing certificate on a PKCS#11 token  Enter choice [1]: Provide the fully-qualified host name or IP address that will be used to generate the self-signed certificate [ut1ef1]:  Do you want to start the server when the configuration is completed? (yes / no) [yes]:  Setup Summary ============= LDAP Listener Port:            1389 Administration Connector Port: 4444 LDAP Secure Access:            Enable StartTLS Enable SSL on LDAP Port 1636 Create a new Self-Signed Certificate Root User DN:                  cn=Directory Manager Directory Data:                Create New Base DN dc=example,dc=com. Base DN Data: Only Create Base Entry (dc=example,dc=com)  Start Server when the configuration is completed  What would you like to do?  1)  Set up the server with the parameters above 2)  Provide the setup parameters again 3)  Print equivalent non-interactive command-line 4)  Cancel and exit  Enter choice [1]: 3  Equivalent non-interactive command-line to setup server:  oud-setup \ --cli \ --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \ --addBaseEntry \ --ldapPort 1389 \ --adminConnectorPort 4444 \ --rootUserDN cn=Directory\ Manager \ --rootUserPassword ****** \ --enableStartTLS \ --ldapsPort 1636 \ --generateSelfSignedCertificate \ --hostName ut1ef1 \ --no-prompt \ --noPropertiesFile  What would you like to do?  1)  Set up the server with the parameters above 2)  Provide the setup parameters again 3)  Print equivalent non-interactive command-line 4)  Cancel and exit  Enter choice [1]: 4 No configuration performed. OUD Instance directory deleted. $

Then you need to run the oud-setup with the options provided for creating the directory server.

$ ./oud-setup           –cli           –baseDN dc=example,dc=com           –addBaseEntry           –ldapPort 1389           –adminConnectorPort 4444           –rootUserDN cn=Directory\ Manager           –rootUserPassword ******           –enableStartTLS           –ldapsPort 1636           –generateSelfSignedCertificate           –hostName ut1ef1           –no-prompt           –noPropertiesFile

OUD Instance location successfully created – /u01/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_OUD1/../asinst_2

An error occurred while parsing the command-line arguments:  An unexpected error occurred while attempting to initialize the command-line arguments:  Argument “bat” does not start with one or two dashes and unnamed trailing arguments are not allowed

Here, the issue is with the rootUserPassword value. Since I put * here, it replaced with all the files in the local directory, so it failed. Replace it with the required password for the “cn=Directory Manager” as shown below.

$ ./oud-setup           --cli           --baseDN dc=example,dc=com           --addBaseEntry           --ldapPort 1389           --adminConnectorPort 4444           --rootUserDN cn=Directory\ Manager           --rootUserPassword pass_t3st           --enableStartTLS           --ldapsPort 1636           --generateSelfSignedCertificate           --hostName ut1ef1           --no-prompt           --noPropertiesFile OUD Instance location successfully created - /u01/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_OUD1/../asinst_2  Oracle Unified Directory 11.1.1.5.0 Please wait while the setup program initializes...  See /tmp/oud-setup-5822533240188214866.log for a detailed log of this operation.  Configuring Directory Server ..... Done. Configuring Certificates ..... Done. Creating Base Entry dc=example,dc=com ..... Done. Starting Directory Server ......... Done.  To see basic server configuration status and configuration you can launch /u01/oracle/Middleware/asinst_2/OUD/bin/status $  cd bin $ ./status

>>>> Specify Oracle Unified Directory LDAP connection parameters

How do you want to trust the server certificate?  1)  Automatically trust 2)  Use a truststore 3)  Manually validate  Enter choice [3]: 1  Administrator user bind DN [cn=Directory Manager]:  Password for user 'cn=Directory Manager':  --- Server Status --- Server Run Status:        Started Open Connections:         1  --- Server Details --- Host Name:                ut1ef1 Administrative Users:     cn=Directory Manager Installation Path:        /u01/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_OUD1 Instance Path:            /u01/oracle/Middleware/asinst_2/OUD Version:                  Oracle Unified Directory 11.1.1.5.0 Java Version:             1.6.0_26 Administration Connector: Port 4444 (LDAPS)  --- Connection Handlers --- Address:Port : Protocol               : State -------------:------------------------:--------- --           : LDIF                   : Disabled 0.0.0.0:161  : SNMP                   : Disabled 0.0.0.0:1389 : LDAP (allows StartTLS) : Enabled 0.0.0.0:1636 : LDAPS                  : Enabled 0.0.0.0:1689 : JMX                    : Disabled  --- Data Sources --- Base DN:     dc=example,dc=com Backend ID:  userRoot Entries:     1 Replication: Disabled  $

Now, your newly created OUD Directory Server is running in the machine. You can check this with the ldapsearch command.

$ ldapsearch -h localhost -p 1389 -D “cn=Directory Manager” -w ebs_t3st -s sub -b “dc=example,dc=com” “(objectclass=*)” cn
dn: dc=example,dc=com

$

LDAP Search command will return one entry as shown above.

Here are some of my Observations:

• If you want to use the port 389/636 for your Directory Server, then you need to run the setup using root user. Then you need to use start-ds and stop-ds commands using root user only.
• There are six scripts to setup OUD components (three for unix/linux and three for windows environments)
• You can setup a new TLS based certificate as part of configuring a new Directory Server.

 

Okay, thats all for now. We will meet in another post. Until then