While geospatial analysis is a relatively new concept in business intelligence, its essential concepts are really not novel at all. It is simply analysis of data which has a geographical aspect. The data itself can vary spatially and vary over time. It is simply taking this geographic aspect and putting it on a map to more easily analyze its relation to other sometimes disparate data sets. And this simple idea can be applied to almost any business to improve decision making.

The lack of demonstrable measurement keeps most IT departments from being seen as anything other than a cost center. But IT reporting is both an art and a science. The science is in working out how information chains connect at the micro level and can be cascaded up to deliver through various interconnecting layers, with each layer corresponding to, and delivering to, each layer of the organization’s management structure.

Over the last five or ten years it seems like everywhere I turn innovations in technology and a desire by corporations to manage the bottom line have conspired to “empower” me to serve myself. In most cases, I’m okay with this and view it as a step forward. On the professional front, as a 20-year veteran of decision support, data warehousing, data marts, and reporting and analysis solutions, I’ve been trying to enable business users so that they could serve themselves (versus total dependency on their corporate IT brethren) when it comes to getting the information they need to monitor and analyze the performance of their business. At the risk of oversimplification, I would say there are two key elements that must be in place to enable self-service for business users. . . .

Recently the Database Services team upgraded a client from Oracle 8i to 11g via the import/export method. A few months later, we found that the system tablespace was filling up, and that 70%+ of the space was used by the sys.aud$ table. Digging in, we discovered that when you create a new Oracle 11g database using the Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) tool, auditing is enabled for a lot of events—which is a problem. So, what’s the fix?

It is a common discussion topic I have had for years with colleagues, customers, and even family members. That is, how to describe IT Service Management so that a layperson can understand the concept. The first and most obvious stumbling block is all of the acronyms associated with the topic. The main culprits—ITSM, ITBM, and ITIL—share the abbreviation for Information Technology (IT). And that is where the general confusion about IT Service Management originates. People see IT and immediately think of it as a purely technical discipline. Not so.