FileMaker Server 13 Server Shutdown/Reboot DocumentEvery company is looking for the best ways to access important data, even if the source is something they did not create.
For example, according to several news outlets in Europe, Prozone's has reached a partnership with Sports Interactive. The latter is the design company behind the popular computer game Football Manager, where individuals can live out their fantasies of running a real soccer team in Europe. The game features a deep database of over 550,000 real players, managers and staff, that contains 250 pieces of biographical information, contract status and positional details. The data is collected by 1,300 scouts across six continents.
With the new deal, these databases will not be accessed by Prozone, which is responsible for the video and performance analysis software called RECRUITER. It is used by Premier League clubs to better recruit new players and staff.
"For years we've heard stories of real-life managers and scouts using our data to help with the recruitment process," Sports Interactive Studio Director Miles Jacobson told the Mirror. "From now on, it's official…real managers around the world will be finding and comparing players using data and a search system that will be very familiar to players of Football Manager."
This partnership between a major sporting league and a video game company shows how important it is to have the right database of critical information. With the help of custom database software, any business will be able to create the best possible collection of data and analyze it in the most effective way.
There is a moment in some action movies when the hero, who is framed for a crime, gets pulled over by a police officer and a tense moment follows where they nervously wait for the database to be accessed that shows a warrant out for their arrest. While it makes for a memorable cinematic moment, it is something that happens on a much smaller scale many times a day in real life.
According to a recent article from KHOU — a Houston, Texas news outlet — officers in Dallas have computer systems in their cars that access two-important databases – National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the Texas Crime Information Center (TCIC) – to look up a person's criminal history, outstanding warrants and stolen vehicles. These databases are critical to not only stopping crime but also keeping officers safe. It is always dangerous to walk into a situation without knowing all the facts.
However, recently an issue arose where 123 officers, 62 of which are out in patrol, were locked out of these databases. Some of these officers found out when they were on the field and attempted to login.
This happened because the Dallas Police Department failed to keep up with regulations. Officers are required to take a training course for two years to get or remain certified to access these databases. Any officer that is not certified or allows it to lapse, is considered unauthorized. The officers that lost access were the victim of a slow training process that caused them to fall behind and an issue plagued deployment that cost $4 million.
"The training team has been assigned the last two months almost on a full-time basis to RMS," Maj. Scott Bratcher told the news source.
Several officers who lost access spoke off the record about the fact that they have not been able to enroll in new classes to get certified. One went as far as saying that because of this, there is an increased level of danger for not only the officers but also the citizens because these standard criminal background checks can no longer be run.
Most businesses do not have potential life and death circumstances attached to their databases, but that does not make them any less important to handling daily operations for the company. With the help of custom database software, any organization can create a personalized solution and ensure that all employees are trained on it.
When it comes to business intelligence software solutions, there is a growing list of potential options on the marketplace. Despite this, there are still a high number of company decision makers that rely on traditional solutions, like Microsoft Excel, as a key business tool.
According to a recent article from ITWeb, spreadsheets are used by a majority of senior executives to manage projects. The site conducted a survey over the course of 14 days in May and June of this year. It found that 76 percent of top executives in the United States are using spreadsheets internally. This is the same in markets outside the U.S. as well, as 75 percent of decision makers in South Africa rely primarily on spreadsheets.
While spreadsheets do have a place, some experts believe that it has become an outdated technology. Diederik Jordaan, an MD at Gen2 Enterprise Software, a company that helped with the report, said that 57.1 percent of the companies relying on spreadsheets have more than 500 employees.
"Given the size of these organizations, this can easily lead to project management or project portfolio management, data integrity issues and agonizingly inefficient feedback loops," the article reads. "Today's organizations need the agility to see and trust information as it develops, to make informed decisions and maintain a competitive edge."
With the help of a custom web application development firm that specializes in more complex systems like FileMaker, any company can start taking deploying more current solutions. This provides a simple way to step out of the comfort zone and implement something new.
It is easy to see how technology has changed over the last few years. If you look at how nearly any business operation was handled a decade ago, you can see how traditional solutions like telecommunications or brand new concepts like virtual data management have evolved. Something like a database, for example, has transformed from a niche concept to a "must-have" system that has been incorporated into core decision making, is needed to push innovation and improve operations.
A recent Experian Data Quality article examined this trend for closely and points out that despite a growing importance of quality data, more companies are struggling to actually master how they manage it.
The piece cites a study by Dynamic Markets that found 94 percent of companies still suffer from common data errors. One of the main reasons for this is that companies have poor or ineffective data management practices. The problem here is that in many cases data management is fragmented or has become stagnant because of poor practices.
This is where having a proper data management strategy and software solution can come into play. The article points to three specific themes — detection, analysis and resolution — which can be used to unlock the most effective benefits. These include:
More organizations are relying on databases and data management to accomplish a number of best practices. With the help of a custom database software and a quality solution provider, any company will be able to tap into this potential.
For every organization, there is a growing need to collect and organize information in a timely manner. Many companies turn toward spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel or Apple's Numbers, and while these work for basic data, it is not enough for more complex solutions.
A recent article from the Worthing Herald features an in-depth interview with Heather Godfrey, a software developer at CM Databases. In the course of the conversation, the biggest takeaway is that every company needs to have a database and not rely solely on spreadsheets.
According to Godfrey, spreadsheets can be useful, but they are also limited. For instance, a spreadsheet is not the right tool for handling contact-management. While it will provide a way to get the task done, it is by no means the most effective tool for the job. In this example, exporting this information from a spreadsheet requires human interaction with the data, which opens the door for mistakes.
"Spreadsheets are bad news for business management, because inconsistency equals mess, and mess equals inefficiency," Godfrey said. "A good CRM system will allow the entry of a name only once, and then feed this through to wherever else it is needed."
By using a system like FileMaker, it becomes much easier to not only compile this kind of data but also use it in an effective way like for automatic email lists, labels and data sharing. With the right database solution, any company can find a way to improve the working environment and run more smoothly.
According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, Bank of America has announced that it is using a custom software database that has been created by a top financial regulator. The goal is to flag any potential payday lenders that could violate New York state laws.
One of the challenges that Bank of America and other financial institutes run into is the possibility of working with a merchant customer that may be engaged in illegal lending. By using this database, the bank will be able to identify any lenders that have issued illegal loans to customers in New York and notify other financial institutes of this. This will prevent them from taking an unnecessary risk.
Andrew Plepler, the Global Corporate Social Responsibility and Consumer Policy executive for Bank of America, told the news source that this tool will help protect customers from "predatory lending practices."
"In the past, merchants have been responsible for their own compliance with laws and regulations specific to their industry," said Marsha Jones, president of the Third Party Payment Processors Association, which represents processing firms. "Recently there's been an expectation that banks and processors should know every law in every state for every industry, and that becomes problematic. It's impossible to keep track of all of that, and be able to process efficiently."
With the use of custom database software, any organization can find a better way to deploy information. While not every company is trying to stop crime, there are plenty of better practices that can be had by using this idea.
There are some members of the IT department that will tell you a good database can dramatically change a business. While some may think this is a bit of an exaggeration, nothing could be further from the truth – just ask Google and Autism Speaks.
According to an article from the Verge, these two groups have partnered to start creating the largest database of sequenced genomes in existence when it comes to people with autism and members of their families. It will include genomes from 10,000 people, 1,000 have already been mapped. The goal is that this "open source" database will be able to facilitate research into the causes of the autism spectrum and possible treatments and diagnosis.
"The [Autism Speaks Ten Thousand Genomes Program] holds the potential to radically transform our understanding of autism and redefine the future of medical care for those affected by the disorder," Rob Ring, Autism Speaks' chief science officer, said in a statement. "Working with Google is a game-changer in this story."
According to David Glazer, the director of Google Genomics' engineering, there are similar genetics databases in existence, but none of them are close to this scale with regard to information specifically about autism. He added that modern biology has become a data-limited science, but that is changing as the limits are being removed by modern computing.
It is clear that organizations will be able to do great things when information is brought together. With the use of custom database software, any organization will be able to take this idea to and start changing the world.
Over the last six months, there have been several high profile security breaches. These include Target, Michaels, Neiman Marcus and eBay. While the tactics used to breach the networks all vary slightly, it is believed that the use of constant database monitoring could have helped prevent this.
Recently, the Ponemon Institute released the results of a poll of 595 U.S. technology experts. Nearly two thirds of respondents ranked monitoring as the best form of database protection. Second on the list, being mentioned in 56 percent of responses, was advanced database activity monitoring. Database encryption rounded out the top three with 49 percent.
Using a database activity monitoring solution allows users to capture and record activity related to the use of Structured Query Language (SQL). It is used by administrators for several tasks and alerts can be set up that will trigger whenever an activity run with the data violates protocols. While there have been tools similar to this in the past, they are often expensive and unreliable, causing more harm than good. In recent years this has changed and the tools used to keep a database safe are more mature and will not break the bank.
These new tools can be used to locate active databases that the company may not be aware are being used and they are better at catching rogue software that could have been installed by a hacker to gather data and store it before sending off to a remote server where it is used for nefarious purposes.
"Continuous monitoring, looking for unusual or anomalous type of behavior, becomes very important," Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, said. "The more you monitor, the more things you can see and the more things you can stop."
According to a recent article from CSO, there are some that are questioning the conclusions that were reached.
Kevin Johnson, chief executive of Secure Ideas, said that database monitoring will not detect SQL attacks. The reason for this is that by the time a monitoring program sees it, it will look just like another query from any other application. This kind of solution is reactionary, but if you do not know that a problem is there, how will you be able to prevent it?
This is why the best practice in this situation is to have more security.
"I believe in a layered approach that perhaps should include a database firewall to mitigate the risk of SQL injection, combined with continuous monitoring of the database along with continuous monitoring of normalized network traffic flows," Paul Henry, a senior instructor at the SANS Institute,
This not only helps fight SQL attacks but also many other tools of the cyber criminal trade. This is needed because the study found that 60 percent of respondents believed SQL injection was only a component of an attack they suffered.
Businesses in every sector are building databases at an increasing rate. With more systems going digital, this is becoming easier than ever before. It also makes it more important that custom database software is secure and constantly checked to ensure that the tools used to keep the information safe are up-to-date.
While many organizations are looking for new ways to gather relevant company data, they need to make sure they have a productive way to analyze it. Failure to do this causes companies to not be as effective as they could be.
Recently, SAS Institute and BMI-TechKnowledge, released the results of a poll of 350 companies. The main takeaway is that smaller businesses need to improve their complex business models and analytics.
North-West University professor Machiel Kruger told the news source that with the increase in information flow, the inability of local organizations to make use of analytics will have an adverse impact on productivity, competitiveness and ultimately economic development and job creation.
He added that business intelligence deals with data cleaning to prepare reporting tools for managers, and business analytics uses data inputted into models to make meaningful predictive decisions.
"A proper analytics strategy drills down to various pockets of the organization by identifying problems that need attending to, either through cost minimization or increasing turnover by taking out suboptimal processes to drive profitability in the organization," Edcon business intelligence manager Brent Henegan told the news source.
The poll also found that 87 percent of companies are still using spreadsheets as their main analytical tools. This is leading to a lack of information sharing which hampers departments as they are not able to integrate and share full data.
With the help of a custom database software solution, any organization can find a better way to gather and analyze its data to make the decision making process easier.