InfoDynamics provides decision support, Data Warehousing, and strategic information access consulting designed to deliver bottom-line results. We combine database, reporting and analysis technologies with an end-user focus to bring critical information to business professionals’ desktops.
The service offerings described below are indicative of our most frequent engagements, but can be combined or customized to meet your specific needs.
Contents:
¨ Data Design
¨ Information Access Architecture
¨ Strategic Positioning
¨ Warehouse implementation
InfoDynamics’ data designs are maintainable, scaleable data models that deliver value and usability to our clients’ business users. As described in our methodology overview, InfoDynamics strongly recommends the development of a multi-tier data architecture, with source system extracts feeding a set of detailed base tables, which in turn drive the development of specific data collections. The increased complexity of a multi-tier structure pays off rapidly in increased maintainability and scalability. The business-oriented data collections are typically star-schema, dimensional designs.
Our engagements are designed to deliver value rapidly to you, and we take an incremental or "subject area" approach to building even an enterprise data warehouse.
Subject area design: 5-8 weeks
A Subject Area Design engagement is appropriate for clients with established Information Systems organizations, architecture, and infrastructure, who require high level design expertise to jumpstart their data warehousing project. These engagements can produce a pilot warehouse that delivers measurable value to the user community in 90 days, if InfoDynamics supplements your internal staff who are dedicated to the warehouse project.
InfoDynamics interviews your business users and IS staff to analyze information requirements and data availability within a defined subject area. As part of a subject area design, we’ll deliver to you:
¨ Warehouse Data Design defining tables and columns for the base (normalized detail) warehouse and the application-specific collections, which are usually star schema fact and dimension tables.
Design review: 3-5 days
InfoDynamics offers a brief design review engagement to clients who have completed the first draft of a subject area design, and wish an external analysis of their system’s usability and maintainability.
InfoDynamics delivers a 6-10 page Design Review Summary, that evaluates your project’s approach, highlights areas of potential risk or concern, and broadly recommends alternative strategies if they are necessary.
Information Access Architecture
A corporate – even global – information access architecture is required for a data warehouse pilot to grow into a sustainable, scalable data warehouse project. A data warehouse architecture is a formal specification of how the warehouse system will be organized: a blueprint or plan for the system, describing what the major functions are and how they work together to meet the business requirements. A good architecture "loosely couples" encapsulated components, allowing for easy replacement of one part without major disruption of other connected parts.
Architecture design: 6-12 weeks
InfoDynamics takes a four-step approach to developing a warehouse architecture: describe the business context and the business systems environment; define the basic architecture; develop standards that address that architecture; and choose products that support the architecture and standards.
Our experience tells us that a successful architecture must be developed in-house rather than imposed externally. InfoDynamics’ architectural engagements therefore typically combine architectural expertise with project facilitation to guide your Information Systems professionals and business stakeholders into agreement on an information access architecture. Our engagements deliver the following documents:
¨ Basic architecture definition
¨ Standards recommendation
¨ Product evaluation guide
Architecture review: 2-3 weeks
InfoDynamics offers a brief architecture review engagement to clients who have an information access architecture in place and wish to extend, tune, or modernize that architecture to meet new needs.
InfoDynamics’ focus during architectural reviews is tactical and practical, and the deliverable – the Architecture Review Summary – highlights the current architecture’s most important shortcomings and delivers practical advice on quickly overcoming those problems.
Business case development: 1-4 weeks
InfoDynamics will leverage our marketplace and business experience to assist our clients in developing the business case for a data warehousing pilot or project. The commitment for such an engagement varies widely, depending on how innovative and complex is your proposed warehouse application.
Executive information sessions
InfoDynamics will tailor an executive data warehousing presentation to your senior management. Topics include:
¨ Data Warehouse: An asset today, a necessity tomorrow
¨ The business case for a Data Warehouse
¨ Sorting through the jargon
¨ Data Warehouse success factors
¨ Setting reasonable expectations
You can leverage our marketplace visibility and experience in educating senior management about data warehousing.
Implementation project management: 2-6 months
InfoDynamics will play a range of roles in a warehouse implementation, depending on the requirements and resources of the client. Because a successful warehouse is by its nature growing and changing, we encourage our clients to develop the expertise in-house to manage and expand their data warehouse. Thus, our typical implementation role is as project manager and technical advisor. We bring in resources to educate technical staff and troubleshoot the most difficult problems.
Application development: 2-6 weeks
In a data warehousing environment, an application is a set of queries and reports delivered within an end user access tool. InfoDynamics will develop pilot applications for existing clients who have chosen an access tool with which we are experienced.
Rollout, documentation, and support system development
We will help you develop:
¨ Technical documentation
¨ End-user documentation
¨ Plans for ongoing user support and training.
