Tool Vendors Guide

Hp Opens Russian R&d Facility
To focus on ways to manage and mine digital data ... More

Fast Offers Search Alternative To Data Warehouses
(InfoWorld) - Fast Search & Transferhas developed an enterprise search system that it says improves on the benefits of data warehouses while cutting down on implementation time, cost, and complexity. Called the AIW (adaptive information warehouse), the system includes a tool to "clean" data to put it into a uniform format and a tool to analyze the data and generate reports. The Data Cleansing Solution tool allows for the creation of a single master index of corporate data, regardless ofwhere it is located: databases, business applications, content management systems, CRM software, intranets, and the like. Meanwhile, the Radar software is a ROLAP (relational online analytical processing) tool to analyze data, generate reports, and create dashboards. Radar can work in tandem with other data analysis tools such as data mining software. For companies with a data warehouse, AIW can initially complement it and eventually replace it, while companies without a data warehouse won't have to build one if they implement AIW, said Davor Sutija, vice president of strategic market development at Fast. AIW is suitable for companies that don't have any Fast Search enterprise search products because it brings everything needed to index data. Companies that already have a Fast Search platform can simply add on the new tools in AIW, such as the data cleansing and analyzing tools, he said. The full AIW package, including the search platform, Radar and Data Cleansing, starts at $300,000 and goes up from there, depending on size of implementation. Setting up an AIW system will take significantly less time than building a data warehouse, cost less, and provide more agile access to corporate data, Sutija said. An AIW system can be set up in eight to 10 weeks, while a data warehouse can take 18 months or longer, he said. Meanwhile, AIW indexes data that is much more granular than is usually available in a data warehouse, where data is usually consolidated into weekly or monthly results, he said.... More

Oracle Debuts Systems Management And Monitoring
Oracle Wednesday introduced a number of new identity management and access tools to better secure customer data. ... More

Senators: Us Govt Data Mining Needs Oversight
(InfoWorld) - Dozens of U.S. government data-mining programs collect private data about U.S. residents with few civil liberties safeguards, and some violate U.S. law, Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday. Democratic senators pledged to provide more congressional scrutiny for data-mining programs authorized by President George Bush's administration. "All I want is the administrationto follow the law," Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said during the Judiciary Committee's first hearing since Democrats took over the majority in Congress this month. "They want us to follow the law -- they should follow the law." Leahy pointed to the Secure Flight program operated by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as one that violated U.S. privacy law. In December, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's privacy office issued a report saying the TSA failed to notify U.S. air travelers that their personal information was being collected. Other government data-mining programs, including the Department of Justice's ONE-DOJ database, allow U.S. agencies to share information "about thousands of individuals, including those who have never been charged with a crime," Leahy said. The agencies can share the information with each other, with local law enforcement agencies, and even with private employers, he said. "There's only one group they don't share it with -- the ordinary Americans they collect data on," he added. At least 52 U.S. agencies use data-mining technology, and at least 199 data-mining programs were operated or planned by U.S. agencies in May 2004, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report then. Leahy on Wednesday joined two other senators, one Republican and one Democrat, in introducing the Federal Data Mining Reporting Act, which would require federal agencies to report their data-mining activities to Congress. The DOJ and TSA have defended their use of data mining, saying the technology helps catch terrorists and criminals. "TSA is firmly committed to protecting the privacy and civil liberties of travelers," the agency says on its Web site. Joining Democratic senators in calling for more congressional oversight of data-mining programs were Republican Bob Barr, a former U.S. representative from Georgia, and Jim Harper, director of information policy studies for Libertarian think tank The Cato Institute. Barr, a long-time privacy advocate, said some government data-mining programs may violate several parts of the U.S. Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable searches and requiring that warrants be issued only after probable cause, and the Fifth Amendment, guaranteeing U.S. citizens due process in legal cases. "The data-mining practices of [the Bush] administration have meant that innocent people's personal information is collected, which places them under suspicion without reason," Barr said. No studies exist that say predictive data mining, which attempts to identify new suspects by looking at data trends, is an effective way to catch terrorists, Harper added. "The result will be that you'll get a lot of false positives," he said. "You'll waste a lot of time investigating innocent people." But James Jay Carafano, a foreign policy analyst at conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, said data mining can assist law enforcement investigations. Data-mining programs can coexist with civil liberties if agencies follow privacy guidelines and have approval from Congress, he said. Technology is "an important part of any set of courterterrorism tools," he said. Republican Senator Arlen Specter also questioned how many U.S. residents have been significantly harmed by data-mining programs. The U.S. government has stopped dangerous people from entering the country, he said. "We sit here and listen to a high level of generalization," he said. "How do we make that determination of what is an effective tool for counterterrorism?"... More

Security Advances Not Keeping Pace With Technology
Despite vendor claims to the contrary, security scanners and source-code analysis tools are generally speaking not up to the job of protecting your company's network, says one McAfee VP. ... More

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Data Mining With Microsoft Sql Server 2000 Technical Reference With its state-of-the-art capabilities for rapidly processing and retrieving huge quantities of data, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is quickly growing in popularity among large corporations. But learning how to take advantage of the powerful, built-in data-mining services in SQL Server to turn all that data into meaningful information takes time and effort. Data Mining with SQL Server 2000 Technical R...

Monarch Professional 8.0 - German - Package Version The world's leading report mining, data analysis and data transformation tool. Easily extract, analyze and export data from any existing computer-generated report and other data sources....

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