How Does IBM I Diversify Its Database Support?

This is an integrated database, which stores information on customers, products, sales, inventory, and finance from all divisions and geographies. Access can be gained to the database through a user-friendly website which requires a one-time registration and password for customers. Strong search and product recommendation engines characterize the site along with ten customer centers, which bring together related products and services from across the entire 3M organization. Employees and partners can access current information on product prices, availability, specifications and summaries of customer accounts. The profitability of customers and products and the performance of partners can now be analyzed across the entire company allowing better allocation of company resources. This allows 3M to take advantage of market opportunities and cross-selling opportunities and at the same time meet and customize the needs of customer segments. (Harvard Business Review) V. Software and Hardware Description In order to fix the problem of customer information retrieval taking a long time, 3M implemented new software and hardware from IBM, which allows accurate information to be provided in a timely manner. For software, 3M chose IBM 's EDMSuite OnDemand for Windows NT (now referred to as IBM Content Manager OnDemand for Windows NT). 3M chose OnDemand because it

IBM Global Services, the technology services and consulting division of International Business Machines (IBM), is the world’s largest provider of systems integration and technology consulting. It offers services in areas such as application development, data storage, infrastructure management, networking, and technical support (Datamonitor Plc., 2007, p.4). IBM Global Services is also among the world leaders in providing business consulting and outsourcing services. IBM Global Services’ headquarter locates in Armonk, New York. The company has more than 190,000 employees around the world.

Data is ever increasing. We need a system to represent, store and manipulate complex information, detect correlations and patterns, construct data models etc. Furthermore, being independently maintained, data can change in time or even change its base structure, making it difficult for modelling systems to accommodate these changes. Current representation and storage systems are not very flexible in dealing with structural changes and also they are not powered with the ability of performing complex data manipulations of the sort mentioned above.

* Collect and store data which may be converted into information at some later point in time

The two main methods of storage are manual and electronic, both methods having their own benefits. The data can be used for analysis to assist the organisation fulfil its future goals and overall vision. All data must be stored in such a way that it complies with the regulations put in place by the government. This not only protects the organisation, but each and every member of the public.

14. Business-to-business integration (B2Bi) is vital for efficient and accurate flow of data across internal ISs and external business partners. B2Bi and secure data exchange over the Internet is done through __________.

According to one database pioneer, the future development of databases and data warehouses will depend on _______________.

Databases allow us to easily store and retrieve data in a purely digital format. The strength of this is that large amounts of data can be stored and retrieved with minimal effort on the part of the user. Opposed to manually flipping through files, one can quickly pull up the requested data through a computer program. Many systems that were conventionally paper and file based have been converted to a digital format which are now stored in one or more databases.

This paper will compare and contrast five different database management systems on six criteria. The database management systems (DBMS) that will be discussed are SQL Server 2000, Access, MySQL, DB2, and Oracle. The criteria that will be compared are the systems’ functionality, the requirements that must be met to run the DBMS, the expansion capabilities – if it is able to expand to handle more data over time, the types of companies that typically use each one, the normal usage of the DBMS, and the costs associated with implementing the DBMS.

Many RDBMS programs also provide the tools you need to create end-user applications that interact with the data stored in the database. Of course, the quality of an RDBMS is a direct function of the extent to which it supports the relational database model. Even among “true” RDBMSs, support for the relational database varies among vendors, and there is yet to be a full implementation of the relational model’s potential. Despite this, all RDBMS programs continue to evolve and become more full-featured and powerful than ever

Prior to their cultural change that took place in the early 1990’s, many would have said that IBM was on a fatal downhill slide. At this point they were beginning to become obsolete. IBM at one point was among the leaders within the world for hardware/software development and information technology services, but all divisions within the organization were run independently from one another. They were not a unified enterprise. To solidify this even further, “rather than working together as a team, divisions competed against each other both internally and in the field” (DiCarlo, L., 2002).

IBM has weaknesses in the transformation of its business model. It is lack of flexibility in the transition because of its large company

In every long term strategic planning, many companies considered data collection and analysis as a fundamental activity. Big companies that strive to achieve a sustainable advantage over their competition made use of information management system to help them analyze their data. These activities have evolved to what is now known as business intelligence of BI.

Over the past five years, IBM has quietly transformed itself into a "software, solution and services" company. With the transformation from a hardware vendor to a solution provider, it has entered the area of consulting services.

Data has always been analyzed within companies and used to help benefit the future of businesses. However, the evolution of how the data stored, combined, analyzed and used to predict the pattern and tendencies of consumers has evolved as technology has seen numerous advancements throughout the past century. In the 1900s databases began as “computer hard disks” and in 1965, after many other discoveries including voice recognition, “the US Government plans the world’s first data center to store 742 million tax returns and 175 million sets of fingerprints on magnetic tape.” The evolution of data and how it evolved into forming large databases continues in 1991 when the internet began to pop up and “digital storage became more cost effective than paper. And with the constant increase of the data supplied digitally, Hadoop was created in 2005 and from that point forward there was “14.7 Exabytes of new information are produced this year" and this number is rapidly increasing with a lot of mobile devices the people in our society have today (Marr). The evolution of the internet and then the expansion of the number of mobile devices society has access to today led data to evolve and companies now need large central Database management systems in order to run an efficient and a successful business.