Andrey Rozanov: The need for BI is felt today by all industries

Andrey Rozanov: BI systems are at the moment very demanded, the tendency to stable demand growth is observed in recent years, and if earlier first of all commercial banks were the main consumers of BI systems, then now a clear understanding of need of a business intelligence comes also to other industries, such as, for example, retail. Steadily demand for analytics at representatives of medium business grows. Along with demand growth also the competition grows: the company developing and implementing the analytical systems should have not only serious experience and technology competences, but also and deep knowledge of a broad spectrum of business areas, understanding of their specifics and nuances. A set of the ready-made standard solutions reducing time and cost of implementations is also important. On this way RDTECH also moves the last years: we expand the competences on data domains, we integrate our project experience in standard models, without forgetting about increase in level of technical specialists.

TAdviser: What large-scale projects were implemented RDTECH in the field of a business intelligence in the last two years?

Andrey Rozanov: In the last two years we had several large interesting projects. there is a separate wish to note the project in Life Financial Group, in fact, unprecedented for the bank industry of Russia and the CIS as the uniform data warehouse covering activity at once of seven banks was for the first time built. As a result of the large-scale project on implementation of corporate storage the system of the management reporting containing operational and reliable information on all banks of Group was created. Also projects in the leading commercial banks, such as Prominvestbank (Ukraine),VTB within which huge work on implementation of corporate data warehouses, creation on their basis of modules of management and financial statements was done deserve attention. It is necessary to pay attention to the project in ER-Telecom, a chief operator of telecommunication services in regions of Russia. Work with this customer was not as large-scale as in the projects read above, generally we executed consulting services and assisted in design of data marts for a BI system. However this project allowed us to put into practice our competences in the field of telecommunications, understanding of nuances and basic analytical needs of this business area.

TAdviser: Who after all needs the system of a business intelligence today? With large business everything is more or less clear, but whether the analytics is necessary to rather small companies. What can you offer them?

Andrey Rozanov: The systems of a business intelligence are necessary practically to all serious companies ready and interested in development, gain of the positions concerning competitors now, often in time the made correct management decision can play a key role in increase in efficiency of the company. The analysis of up-to-date reliable information helps with adoption of such solutions, and it does not depend on business scales. Here it is already worth speaking about the choice of the suitable analytical tool.

About large business you are right, here everything is clear, in a case with SMB the situation is more difficult, not all companies of the average level are able to afford to invest serious money in the powerful difficult decisions, long and difficult process of implementation suits not all. Such customers can be interested in semi-boxed solutions which at the moment in the market there is a lot of, or to use light versions of analytical platforms from world leaders. Now practically all BI systems which once were a prerogative of large enterprises have the "younger brothers" representing the full-fledged tools intended for the small organizations. It is rather simple to implement a similar system, and its cost is acceptable for any budget. Anyway, during the work with the customer what level would not be its business, we aim to understand his individual requirements and opportunities and depending on it to offer tools, suitable for the solution of its tasks.

TAdviser: You work with several vendors of BI at once – Oracle, QlikTech, SAP. In what the main difference between the products offered by them and how to select the most suitable from a specific case?

Andrey Rozanov: As for functionality and features of BI platforms from the leading world vendors, such as Oracle and SAP, it is a question very difficult, it is difficult to compare objectively and impartially. The more you work with a specific product, the better you feel nuances of model of use and convenience of these or those a component. You begin to see real pluses in comparison with competitors, but also and real minuses. If to generalize all this, then it is possible to tell that tools from recognized leaders, similar in the scale and power, are similar and it is functional - with small discrepancies on existence, but is more often on convenience of using of these or those opportunities. Often the question of the choice passes at the level of marketing, a big name of vendor or if to speak about the organizations with the developed IT infrastructure, entirely depends on the single platform which is already once selected by the organization.

As for solutions less popular, they can be not less interesting in the functional plan, and concerning simplicity of implementation, "compete" with leaders. But they often are less demanded as lose just in a marketing plan. Quite often the customer having an opportunity to carry out long and expensive product introduction from the world leader of BI platforms prefers not to experiment and selects the checked stable solution.

However this situation gradually changes. In the Russian market there are players proposing interesting, progressive solutions. With one of such vendors - Qlik (QlikTech) - we also work. The key feature of the QlikView platform is a storage of data marts directly in RAM that significantly affects performance of an analytical system in general. The similar systems attract the increasing interest from the customer, especially the SMB level, in such segments of business where processing of large volumes of data and quick response in the mode of fierce competition - retail, a telecom, the industry is required. Not always interest is limited to implementation - usually for the reasons described above, but the accurate trend is available.

TAdviser: From the technical point of view what BI tools are most demanded in Russia today? How often in projects does requirement of implementation of mobile functionality of the platform arise?

Andrey Rozanov: The main requirements to a BI system are first of all the completeness and relevance of data, high performance, flexible opportunities for data analysis, simplicity of development of reports, including, business users, personalisation of a working environment.

Global trends "fashionable" at the moment - application of mobile applications, transfer of systems in "clouds", analytics - in - memories are not so noticeable in Russia. Customers, being knowledgeable about functionality of the modern BI systems, of course, are interested and often to some extent try to use these innovations, but with a view to the future. Within full-scale projects on implementation of a BI system from scratch such requirements seldom are key. As for specifically mobile functionality is, certainly, very convenient, advanced system of delivery of information. Business needs for this direction will grow and gradually will also become the basic requirement.

TAdviser: In analytics data do not come from anywhere. Usually during projects you should use the data warehouses which are already available for the customer or to create them "from scratch"?

Andrey Rozanov: The customer, as a rule, has a cascade of separate production systems which are not the data warehouse in essence. During the project we usually implement filling and synchronization of the data warehouse, using production models of Data Warehousing of Oracle corporation: FSDW, OCDM, etc. In the course of integration there is an adaptation of a production model under the client's business requirements. Our experience shows considerable decrease in labor costs at implementation of production models in comparison with development own - "from scratch". Creation of an analytical system is final project stage.

TAdviser: Today in-memory-calculations are positioned as a new word in IT market as the most advanced and productive method of data processing. What advantages in practice does it give? Whether you had projects in this area?

Andrey Rozanov: Speaking about analytics - in - memories it is worth mentioning two products: in-memory QlikView and in-memory Oracle TimesTen DBMS BI system. On the first product I stopped a little earlier, now give in more detail about the second.

Oracle TimesTen is used for the applications needing the high performance of data processing. It can be exchange biddings, a part of a system of billing of mobile operators, a transaction processing system from payment terminals of services and so forth. Also Oracle TimesTen can be applied as the superfast cache for the Oracle database allowing to accelerate work with an operational part of data. In the context of our conversation on BI systems the present possibility is especially interesting.

Let's consider it on the example of the hardware and software system Oracle Exalytics which uses TimesTen for ensuring high-speed request processing of users, placing these analysts in RAM and executing SQL queries to the TimesTen database. At the expense of placement of data in memory - on the one hand, and supports of Oracle TimesTen of language of requests of SQL-with another, high-speed request processing of users without change of an interaction interface of the tool of a business intelligence with data is provided.

Certainly, there is a number of nuances: Oracle TimesTen has restriction for the database size, careful setup of the software product is necessary for a microsecond response of Oracle TimesTen to requests of users. Oracle TimesTen performance in comparison with a DB of Oracle appears quicker much, but it is necessary "to pay" for it with careful integration of the application into Oracle TimesTen, good study of architecture of future application. Quality requirements of the software products developed based on Oracle TimesTen are significantly higher - any lack of architecture of the application can nullify all advantages. Well and, of course, it is impossible to forget about the cost of similar solutions. As for practice RDTECH, we are engaged in technical support of Oracle TimesTen and also we provide training in work with this software product.

TAdviser: What plans RDTECH on development BI experts on the near future?

Andrey Rozanov: I already noted some trends of the last years: increase in demand for analytics at representatives of SMB, growth of requirements of the customer to industry expertize of developer company of an analytical system, the increasing interest of the companies new scopes of BI systems.

Taking it into account, RDTECH, first, aims to involve the specialists of the high level, business analysts having serious work experience in areas, key for us. Secondly, project experience integrates and analyzed, used at development of generic data models which development and implementation can bring afterwards to decrease in time and resource expenditure when implementing projects and consequently - and to reduction in cost of implementations. It will give the chance to seriously expand our customer base, to be engaged not only long, expensive implementations and further support of big customers, but also to propose to the SMB level inexpensive universal functional solutions on the basis of powerful analytical platforms.