I generally don't make resolutions, especially at the end of a year. I'm more of a "make small changes, every day, that will make a big difference over a year" type person.  For blogs and communities, resolution making is a tradition and we all know that the holiday season is about traditions. So, dear data modelers, here are the resolutions I'd hope we'd all make for 2016. You wouldn't need to do all of them.  Just pick the ones you need to do. Make some of your own, then a plan to ma...

Just in case you've been head-down into your data models for too long, in the US the Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. Traditionally this is a day for massive sales and steep discounts to ensure that Americans start their holiday shopping with gusto.  Over the years, Black Friday has been creeping earlier and earlier in the week and now starts on Thursday for some of the most desperate shoppers. These originally were brick and mortar store sales, but these days Black Friday ...

  Recently, the Competence Center Corporate Data Quality (CC CDQ, a European consortium research program) engaged with Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics to produce a new Market Study report called METADATA MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR ENTERPRISE DATA MANAGEMENT. This extensive market study describes the role of data management in today’s enterprise and provides a broad overview of over 30 software solutions available, including Embarcadero’s ER/Studio XE7. Embarcadero is honore...

ER/Studio Enterprise Team edition provides the fastest, easiest, and most collaborative way for data management professionals to build and maintain enterprise-scale data models and metadata repositories. Built-in facilities automate routine modeling tasks so users can analyze and optimize database and data warehouse designs faster than ever. Model change management provides the ability to create and track tasks associated with data models in order to enable data architects to ensure their model...

Anthem Inc. – 80,000,000 records stolen; Sony Pictures – 100 terabytes of data stolen; JP Morgan Chase – 70,000,000 records stolen; and EBay – 145,000,000 records stolen. This short list is the “tip of the iceberg” of organizations across all industries that have had significant amounts of their customer, employee, and other important organization data stolen. With the increased reliance of digital information by organizations and their customers, these trends will likely continue and be fueled ...

Sometimes you need to face the inevitable: the tool selected years ago is not the one you need for the future. Have you been struggling with complicated modeling tasks or outdated tools? Are your data models getting too big to handle? We’ve heard from a lot of customers recently who have been frustrated with their old data modeling tools, for multiple reasons such as: Lack of functionality Lack of support Lack of a future roadmap Embarcadero is committed to enabling our users to adapt to...

I spoke about agile methods, including Scrum, and data modeling in my Heart of Data Modeling webinar this month. One of the topics I touched upon was the concept of conflict and hostility between Data Modelers and Agile Developers.  We modelers have always experienced a bit of conflict with development teams due to the fact that our roles are measured and rewarded for conflicting outcomes.  Modelers are typically rewarded for ensuring data quality, for building models that are highly r...

One of the key issues in a Data Warehouse, Master Data Management or BI project is the lack of a centralized and easily accessible Data Definition or Metadata Repository.  Mostly, business users are using word and excel documents placed on a shared folder. Everybody is aware that the maintenance, stewardship and accessibility of metadata in a project not to mention in an enterprise are daunting tasks. Embarcadero TEAM SERVER provides the best data modeling tool I know on the market to bridg...