Data Science and machine learning have generated a lot of discussion surrounding them in the past few years. Between them, they are poised to take over and transform the ways that we do many things in our everyday lives: how we drive our cars, manage our money, and make smart decisions. If we asked you…
USAJOBS: Using Analytics to Improve Testing Strategies
The USAJOBS Program Management Office understands that better testing leads to a better product for their customers. The team wondered how to collect the most practical data on customer behavior to perform the most effective testing. Excellian and OPM PMO Team Member Cory Benavente and OPM Testing Coordinator Dywane Boyd weigh in how the USAJOBS’…
Reviewing AWS Data Integration with Matillion
This month, we extended our overview of ETL tools from Open Source to include Matillion, an ETL/ELT software available from the AWS Marketplace that has been optimized for Amazon Redshift and the AWS ecosystem. Matillion pushes down all the data transformations to Redshift which is unique to Matillion and gives a tremendous performance for both the…
Open Source ETL Tools
Imagine that you have been charged with getting data from multiple sources – a flat file, a query from your data warehouse – and you need to bring it together so that it can be used to feed a report or a dashboard. What are your options? You’re not a developer who writes scripts and…
Self-Service or IT Managed BI Tools – What You Need to Know
My non-techie spouse just built his own small business website for a fledgling custom guitar-making business. All by himself. It did not take him long – some dragging and dropping, a little typing and a picture upload later – and it looks good. Ten years ago he would not have even attempted it and instead…
Enabling Hadoop in the Amazon Cloud
At Excella, we wanted a Big Data sandbox area for our research and prototyping efforts. We frequently work in the Amazon Cloud and chose Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) – a “use what you need when you need it” virtual computing environment that allows subscribers to launch computing instances with different configurations. Here are five…
Agile Data Conversion: 5 Keys to Success
Imagine that you are a Product Owner on the replacement of a legacy operations system using an Agile approach. You may have experienced a mad scramble to complete the conversion of the data from one system to the other. This scramble may have been the culmination of all the design changes between the original design…
Data Worlds Collide – Seeking the 21st Century EDW?
When I’m talking with clients about how they are using their Big Data environments, the common response is “we’ve given our Data Science Team access”. These statistical boffins are well prepared for the challenges of analyzing unstructured, semi-structured and structured data at volume. In contrast, I see a plethora of roles from finance, marketing, sales…
Our Top Three Takeaways from DCBADD 2015
Who expected DC Business Analyst Development Day (DCBADD) to begin with David Bowie lyrics and Flintstones references? The International Institute of Business Analysis – DC Chapter knows how to throw a great event! DCBADD began on a high note, literally, and continued throughout the day. The event featured a number of presentations from speakers in…
Can I Create Powerful Data Visualizations Using Open Source Tools?
Data visualization is a great way to help customers understand important information by telling a compelling visual story. It can be a powerful business intelligence tool for your team or project. But you probably need fancy, expensive tools to do it well, right? Maybe not!