Critical business information for decision makers
Most organizations use various hardware and software products to store a large amount of data. Db2 can assist in providing essential information to key decision makers that helps them to make critical business decisions.
Consider a multi-campus university system. A group of educational experts manages the system from day to day. These people make decisions that affect all the university campuses. The decision makers use a data warehouse so that they can "mine" data from system databases and make the best organizational decisions.
You can think of a data warehouse as a system that provides critical business information to an organization. Data mining is the act of collecting critical business information from that data warehouse, correlating it, and uncovering associations, patterns, and trends. The data warehouse system cleanses the data for accuracy and currency. The data warehouse system also presents the data to the decision makers so that they can interpret and use it effectively and efficiently.
Data warehousing and data mining are related terms that are encompassed by the more global term, business intelligence.
Most organizations use various hardware and software products to store a large amount of data. However, many key decision makers do not have timely access to the information that they need to make critical business decisions. If they had the information, they could make more intelligent decisions for their businesses—thus, the term business intelligence.
The university's data warehouse system, which relies on Db2, transforms the vast amount of data from being operational to being informational. An example of operational data in a university is the identities of people who enroll in various classes. Clearly, the university needs this information to operate. This operational data becomes informational when, for example, decision makers discover that most students who enroll in Advanced Calculus also enroll in Music Appreciation. The university does not require this information to operate, but decision makers can run a more effective institution if they have informational data. As a result of having access to this informational data, university personnel can make better decisions. Individuals who plan class schedules can ensure that these classes do not meet at the same time, enabling students to enroll in both classes. Using Db2 as your enterprise data warehouse ensures that you are making key business decisions based on data that is correct.
The university also uses the power of the Internet. Each campus has a website, which supplies relevant information to university decision makers, students, parents, and members of the communities that surround each campus.
Using Db2 for z/OS® as its enterprise server, the university can act as follows:
- Evaluate the effectiveness of curriculum, expenditures, professors, and professional development
- Identify emerging trends early enough for effective action
- Complete grant applications more quickly and effectively
- Compile a complete summary report on any individual student
- Enable authorized users to use the web to perform any of these actions, plus others