Blogging: Free or Moderated Comments?

I've just changed the settings of this blog, moving from free to moderated comments. It's impressive how many comments are coming from spammers and from people interested in optimizing their ranking in search engines (SEO). While this will imply a few more clicks from my side, I'll do all my best to approve each and every relevant comment as soon as possible.

To briefly extend the topic, I'd like to point to a few sites containing notable statistics on both legal an illicit use of communication channels:

• MessageLabs Intelligence - This website hosts the MessageLabs Intelligence report, which provides the latest threat trends to keep you informed regarding the ongoing fight against viruses, spam and other unwelcome content.
  
• Email Marketing Consumer Report - ContactLab presents the results of the latest research on the use of e-mail among Internet users. The study, in its European edition, describes and compares e-mail and newsletters habits and behaviour in Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, highlighting similarities and differences between the different markets.

Email, Blogs, Wikis, Twitter, etc.. are all good ways to improve brand awareness, generate leads and deliver marketing campaigns, but unfortunately sometimes they are used in a wrong manner. I hope that in the future there will be a way to counteract this phenomenon, but for now comments are moderated and spam filters on email accounts are in place! ;)

Luca

18/Nov/2009 - The Open Source Data Warehouse Revolution

On the 18th of November we've hold in Milan an event focused on Open Source Data Warehousing.

For many organizations, data warehouses are simply too costly to buy, too costly to implement and too costly to maintain. Data warehousing is still a luxury of deep-pocketed organizations, although the resulting benefits can be virtually reaped by companies of all sizes.
Open Source Software is changing the rules again, lowering the economic barriers to undertake Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing projects.

During the event we proved that MySQL can help organizations to achieve higher ROI on their projects. With the support of our partners, Infobright and Talend, we showed how to design, deploy and manage a multi-terabyte Data Warehouse with Open Source Software.

Participants have shown a lot of interest in MySQL, Infobright and Talend. More informations can be found here: http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/application-scenarios/data-warehouse.html

We hope to host similar events in the future. Thanks to all participants!
Luca

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010

Gartner has released a few days ago the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010 list. Here you can see the wordle cloud:

While I don't want to spend time talking about  the usual suspects (Cloud, Green, Mobile and Virtualization) I wish to share my thoughts on two topics: Advanced Analytics and Reshaping the Data Center.

Advanced Analytics  
I'm not surprised that a branch of Business Intelligence is still in the list after years of top priority amongst CIOs. Business Intelligence is one of the fields that I love and it's promise is to transform in gold everything it touches, like King Midas. Why is this still on the list? Has something changed in these years?
There are good news. Open Source Software is changing the competitive landscape allowing CIOs, BI Managers and End Users to gather deep insight into business data at a fraction of the cost. I'd like to mention some of the most interesting technologies in the Open Source ecosystem:

• MySQL - This is my favourite! ;) 
• Infobright - A leading columnar storage engine for MySQL;
• Pentaho - End to End Business Intelligence Suite;
• Jaspersoft - Open Source Business Intelligence Suite;
• Talend - Open Source ETL/Data Integration Suite;

This list is partial, but it witness the vitality of Open Source into this particular field. And with this I'll move to the next topic.

Reshaping the Data Center

Gartners is clearly saying: "Dear CIOs, IT Architects and CTOs: your datacenter has been designed twenty years ago... it's time to change."
As MySQL we've promoted a scale-out approach and reading through the lines of Gartner's research it seems that this has proved to be a sound strategy to reduce costs in time of economical crisis.

In conclusion I think that nowadays we cannot avoid to include an Open Source strategy in our plans for the future, whilst not excluding a mix of all the emerging technologies, like Cloud and Virtualization.

Regards,
Luca

Proven and Cost Effective BI Deployment Strategies with MySQL and Pentaho

What if you could evaluate, deploy and maintain a Data Warehouse (DW) and Business Intelligence (BI) solution for up to 90% less than the cost of proprietary software? What if you can find a solution that has been adopted by customers in all industries and is technically sound and scalable?

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Join this webcast to find out about real world BI/DW deployment strategies that that offer you robust capabilities, yet with a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

The MySQL and Pentaho solution has been proven in diverse deployments, from small companies to large enterprises. The subscription support model aligns customer and vendor interests, lowering both your costs and project risks. Join this webcast and learn how to be successful in your BI/DW projects. We will show you how MySQL and Pentaho can easily provide a complete end-to-end solution at a fraction of the cost of the proprietary products.

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