The Importance of Knowing What Information Governance and Leveraging

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1 January 2014 Newsletter Could Information Governance be Your Weak Link? Corporate product knowledge often exists in many different forms across disparate systems. What happens when silos of fragmented information, stored in multiple places, with varying degrees of accuracy, currency or completeness must be accessed by customer care or product service representatives? How do they confidently address service questions about the company's equipment and products? Is there a way to develop a knowledge management system and workflow without relocating the data and recreating security structures? The answer is YES - and Information Governance is the key. Leveraging Technology recently worked with a client to design and implement a process framework for master data management that would ensure a single, trusted view of product data. It allowed the company to utilize existing data sources and security models while overlaying content governance. The system utilized IBM Infosphere Data Explorer software so that customer service and product support specialists could readily search and locate the most current and accurate data about the company's medical equipment generated from manufacturing, service engineering, repair parts catalogs and other sources. Please read the case study to learn how effective governance strengthened this client's knowledge base so that it became the trusted, central source of product information - or contact Mark Haeger, Practice Lead, Information Architecture at Leveraging. Must Read: Information Management Strategy for Today's Business Critical steps to harness, control and transform your biggest asset In today's high velocity markets, information is your most significant asset and risk. How to control, manage and govern it is not always an easy task. This whitepaper from Information Age considers why development and governance of an information strategy is an important investment for every business today. Virtual Bench Update It is no surprise that the outlook for technology jobs is predicted to be on the rise again in Our clients and most likely your company, is faced with the challenge of balancing strategic project needs with "business-as-usual" support. At Leveraging we are addressing these challenges with a virtual bench of resources available to support existing and new clients. Our outlook has

2 Back to Basics in Information Management By Jim Cantin, President, Leveraging Technology LLC Leveraging's Analytics/Big Data lab experiment with log file data allowed us to cut through the hype -- and confirmed that basic architecture and information management practices are needed to capitalize on the potential of all that data. Applications, middleware, and the platforms on which they run naturally produce large volumes of data. Much of this data is created behind the scenes in the form of system or application log files. For the most part this data is treated like some type of digital exhaust-- an almost worthless waste by-product of running business solutions. Log files are only occasionally referenced for purposes of problem determination. Could that same information, if viewed and treated differently, be the source of valuable insight? Could it be used to predict significant events and prescribe preventive actions? More... Leveraging's Business Architect-in-Residence Speaks to International Institute of Business Analysts in Buffalo Sandy Kleinberg, Business Architecture Practice Lead at Leveraging, presented "Translating Strategy Into Execution" to the Buffalo chapter of the International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) on Dec. 3rd. "Enterprise analysis is a topic that several members have interest in so thank you for agreeing to share an overview of your methodologies and process" said Cathy O'Sheehan, IIBA VP of Events Management and Sr. IT Business Analyst, VP at First Niagara Financial Group. "IIBA members wish to expand their knowledge and advance their career in that direction so it was very helpful and exactly what they were looking for! You are a very engaging speaker and the historical spin was quite interesting! I can tell you that I certainly learned a few things about D-day that I did not know before last night. Thank you!" Contact Sandy Kleinberg to learn more about the Strategy-to- Initiative methodology or to speak with your group. focused on the identification of resources available to provide staff augmentation in the roles of integration, application development, data management and business analysis. If you have not considered temporary staffing in the past, now may be the time. Changes in healthcare as well as government regulations, necessitates a time for employers to consider the most efficient and effective way to staff. We would welcome a chance to discuss how recruiting and contracting decisions can have a positive impact on your budgetary considerations. Contact Bonnie Cywinski to talk about your staffing needs. Trends in Information Management Technologies Mark Haeger and Nate Byrnes from Leveraging's Information Architecture practice attended IBM's Information on Demand conference in November, along with Jim Cantin and had these insights about the spotlight technologies: Product: Pure Data for Analytics (Netezza) Adoption timing: Now -The next step in Data Warehouse evolution -Performance gains right out of the box -Conversions are not difficult -Testimonials confirm significant reductions in administration and total costs. Product: Data Explorer Adoption timing: Make it part your plan for addressing Data Governance issues -Start by discovering and

3 IBM's InfoSphere Data Explorer Leveraging's client above used this software as part of their overall knowledge management solution because it allowed the company to extract value from legacy systems while also giving customer care staff accurate information at their fingertips. These empowered employees could quickly identify issues, make informed decisions and provide the data customers needed. InfoSphere Data Explorer's agile navigation, collaboration techniques, and search comment capabilities are appropriate for a wide range of business uses that require real-time decisions and a 360-degree view: Call center applications Compliance activities and audits New hire training Enterprise Knowledge Portal Customer 360-degree Dashboard Locate and understand information for big data initiatives. Please read the white paper or contact Ed Castine to discuss whether Data Explorer could be the right solution to help your business harness the power of information. Integration Architecture Framework Leveraging Technology has an Integration Architecture Framework to guide companies in the development of best-in-class integration services. Nearly 70% of all IT development is integration so this is a critical competency for today's IT organizations. The Leveraging approach can be used to assess existing capabilities and/or build a competency from the ground up. assessing data across the enterprise (an early step in any Governance process) -Strong enterprise search capabilities -Avoid centralizing data and information - leave it in place -Strong content management and knowledge management access and display -Foundation for self-serve information - ex. portal-like 360- degree dashboards Product: InfoSphere Streams Adoption timing: Put it on your roadmap or perform a pilot -High-performance complement to an Enterprise Service Bus strategy -Tremendous scalability -Real-time analytics engine - includes unstructured data -Pattern detection capabilities included -Broad range of adapters included -Analyze data on-the-fly from the original source. Contact Mark Haeger or Ed Castine to talk about your company's information management needs. Certifications Steve Vaughn: IBM Certified Database Administrator - DB2 9.7 for Linux, UNIX and Windows (12/09/13) IBM Certified Database Associate - DB Fundamentals (11/22/13) In the Next Issue: The Leveraging Integration Framework focuses on building an endto-end integration capability that is architecturally sound and aligned to business objectives. For most companies, a mature competency can lead to significant efficiencies and cost savings in project investments and on-going maintenance. We have the knowledge and experience to help you do this right. Managed Services: Learn how to get more focused and transparent IT operations at a fixed cost -- and fill the skills gap and resources required to keep 24x7 systems running optimally. Managed File Transfer: Update on IBM's Sterling File Gateway and Integration software. Send requests for topics of

4 The framework is used to work with your team to develop an integration roadmap. Our goals are to quickly establish the capabilities needed and then help build out your overall competency over time. We also use the roadmap tool to continually adjust based on your changing business needs and project landscape. Our engineers and architects continually focus on where you are going in order to ensure that your integration capabilities are well-aligned with your needs. The assets in the framework begin with a planning perspective and then gradually guide your team through the development of an integration architecture. This process The Leveraging Technology team holds over 130 technical certifications from a variety of vendors. Our highly trained team of experts supplements and complements that of our clients. will lead your team through conceptual, logical and physical design of your integration services. This makes the implementation of the ESB (enterprise service bus) and its associated services/capabilities much more effective. interest to: Info@LeveragingTechnology.com Stay Connected with Us! Are you using Gmail tabs? If this newsletter appeared in your Promotions tab, by moving it to the Primary tab you can train Gmail to put it there in the future. We also have assets that will help establish the necessary governance and decision-making processes as well. Our approach will ensure that you build and maintain best in class integration capabilities. Back to Basics in Information Management continued Recently, Leveraging's Big Data / Analytics lab took on the challenge and developed some interesting capabilities using real-time analytics and Big Data tools. The team explored the potential to automate monitoring and to identify key associations within the log file data, using statistical algorithms and machine-learning technology. Initial results indicate our goal of gleaning additional insight from this data is achievable; we expect to use it to provide even greater value to our Managed Services customers. Gartner's "2013 Hype Cycle for Big Data" shows when they expect key capabilities to become commercially viable. The diagram below shows many of the important aspects of Big Data still working their way over the "Peak of Inflated Expectations" and headed toward the "Trough of Disillusionment". The exercise we went through served a valuable purpose: it provided us with the opportunity to cut through the hype and prove that Big Data is not a panacea. We proved that just like other data related capabilities, it too needs Enterprise Architecture and Information Management processes to capitalize on its potential. What can you be doing to get ready? Start Now - Create Your Own Vision Hype is the result of early adopters telling their success stories, amplified with the marketing assistance of the vendors. Regardless of early or late adoption, real results come from having a vision of what's possible aligned with what's most important to the business. Leveraging's Enterprise Architecture process has helped a number of companies identify their key business and technology capabilities, and turn those into their vision and roadmap. While Gartner's predictions are playing out, the not-so-early adopters should be preparing for their own futures. A roadmap of important business and technical capabilities needed may point out foundation-building work that could be done now. A simple example is a business that

5 eventually wants to implement fraud detection capability. Complex Event Processing (CEP) is probably on their roadmap, but CEP may not be ready to implement...yet. Regardless, there's work that should be started now to develop the event-driven architecture design and application capabilities that eventually will be required. Emphasis on Fundamentals Our real-time log analytics project proved to us that basic blocking-and-tackling, in the form of data governance, is important to Big Data projects. Data awareness and associated governance processes are critical for delivering on a vision of Big Data / Analytics capabilities. Policies are needed to address privacy, security, and intellectual property concerns. Partner exchanges of data need to be worked out and incentives put in place that will enable cooperation. Workflows that support the use of the data are needed to ensure quality and credibility. Data that is well-understood and credible can produce tremendous value for your company; but only if your vision and the business strategy are aligned and the related information is properly managed through its full life-cycle. Our Enterprise Architecture and Information Management teams are ready to show you our approach to these challenges. BACK TO TOP