Datawarehousing: This is an OLAP database in star schema.
ETL: Extract-Transform-Load - This is the process of converting an OLTP database into an OLAP datawarehouse. There are tools available like Informatica, Ascential etc. At times, its done using manual SQL scripts too.
Business Intelligence: This is a tool that sits on top of your datawarehouse. The attributes are mapped to datawarehouse attributes enabling you to create reports on the fly just by dragging attributes. The SQL is generated automatically and optimized as well. Supports operations like drilling, pivoting, page by, grids, graphs and a *lot* of other features. Examples are MicroStrategy, Cognos, Hyperion and Business Objects. Check out their websites for smalls demos of what the tools can do.
A person who does all of this is called a Business Intelligence Consultant. Cool, ain't it !
Originally posted by Pradip Bhat: What about Ruby on Rails? :roll:
I doubt if ror is being used extensively in US/Europe either. I doubt if searching for ror on job sites would return considerable results. In India, a typical manager probably w'd'nt have even heard about it [ November 17, 2005: Message edited by: Karthik Guru ]
I doubt if ror is being used extensively in US/Europe either. I doubt if searching for ror on job sites would return considerable results. In India, a typical manager probably w'd'nt have even heard about it
[ November 17, 2005: Message edited by: Karthik Guru ]
Ruby on Rails will be hot in the future for developing small web applications in a short time. Bruce Tate has listed Ruby on Rails as promising. :roll:
Originally posted by Amit Saini: I think Datawarehousing/ETL/Business Intelligence is hot and promising!
Yup I did it for some time (informatica) and it would also mean a serious career shift if pursued seriously. What w'd happen to the java/j2ee investment considering that it still sells?. Its so easy to lose touch with tech when doing something else.
Yup I did it for some time (informatica) and it would also mean a serious career shift if pursued seriously. What w'd happen to the java/j2ee investment considering that it still sells?. Its so easy to lose touch with tech when doing something else
Maybe couple years after coding some people don't want to sit in a cube all day. So its a good option to switch. Your Java skills won' be wasted because to customize the product for client requirements, one needs a fair amount of knowledge of Java. Ofcourse, this is just one of the things. Plus, this career brings you closer to the business-side of things as opposed to coding in a cube all day with minimum client interaction. So it might be good for someone seeking to pursue a MBA degree eventually.
Having said that, its a significant investment to make to get trained in one of the B.I tools if your company doesn;t sponsor the training. I don't know what the market is like in India for this. Deloitte USA hires a *lot* of people for their B.I business and ERP business and trains them.
Your Java skills won' be wasted because to customize the product for client requirements, one needs a fair amount of knowledge of Java.
Uhhm unfortunately in my case, (I was doing informatica , which btw does BI too in addition to ETL), for 7/8 months I hardly had to look at java other than bringing up the UI on weblogic. It was all oracle/SQLs/Informatica transforms all the time and ofcourse a thorough understanding of the business and schema. So may be basic java yes. But there was never a need for advanced java and stuff.
Plus, this career brings you closer to the business-side of things
Yup. I ended up developing so many customized reports for the customer and was talking to them all the time!
I don't know what the market is like in India for this.
There is terrific demand. But as for training, am not so sure. Our company sells SCM products so BI tools make a lot of sense anyways and we were trained on them. My experience has been that its a different career path. I mean some of the best BI guys in our team hardly know java/j2ee. They can get the stuff (UI) running on weblogic though So if somebody wants to get into it, my advice would be to get into it earlier. Its rare to be doing hardcore java/j2ee and writing Informatica transforms at the same time.
Originally posted by Dharam Singh: IT means continuous learning.You can't get away from that fact.Learn some Microsoft technologies like .NET.Did you like Mustang?
Originally posted by Pradip Bhat: Frameworks like Spring,Hibernate is yet to pick up in India. I know many have started using Hibernate but not Spring. What about Ruby on Rails? :roll:
Because ultimately we have to work on it, for that, again learning...then new one then again......
Well, we love doing it, learning and trying new technologies. Your career should be your hobby and passion. This is the only way you can be very good at it.
There is a trend to become more productive and that means reduce the length and costs of the project. From a business point of view, return of investment is what matters, regardless of what technology you use. Off-shore outsourcing is putting in jeopardy american programming jobs, they have to be more productive and efficient to be able to compete.
I would say choose a target market. Enterprises will stick with NET and JEE; medium and smaller companies will pick less expensive platforms (PHP, Rails).
Ruby, Groovy and PHP will not replace Java/C#, but will gain some market in small projects and prototyping. I work using AJAX and ColdFusion and there is still a lot limitations of what you can do. No matter what, users still like desktop applications.
Avalon looks promising, it is from the NET camp though, but they rule in the desktop. Web Services might do a comeback and I will also try EJB3.