Virgin Media is trialling a datawarehouse
appliance that performs queries several times faster
than its previous database system in a bid to enable business
efficiencies.
Virgin Media, the largest business in the Virgin group, plans to
deploy the
Netezza Performance Server datawarehouse
appliance to query and analyse customer data from the merged
and rebranded companies of NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile.
Virgin Media previously outsourced the data analysis process,
but the Netezza appliance has in-built business intelligence
software, allowing Virgin Media to analyse data in-house. It is
expecting to make a rapid return on investment.
Howard Watson, chief technology officer at Virgin Media, said,
"The project started at Telewest, where we had a datawarehouse to
capture call detail records for regulatory compliance, network
routing and telephony high usage analysis.
"But owing to the performance issues with the older
architecture, we were restricted to querying data specific to
international, mobile and premium rate calls for high usage
analysis.
With Netezza, we are able to analyse all call types
and run historical reports. It is a huge step forward to be
able to interrogate customer data in real time."
Paul Froggatt, a manager in IT application support at Virgin
Media, said the firm had so far migrated two of its largest
telephony datawarehouses to the Netezza appliance.
Virgin Media carried out a four-week trial in November, moving
6Tbytes of data from an Oracle 9 database onto Netezza. It recorded
a 252% performance improvement on data queries, using dashboard
software from Business Objects and Informatica to mine the
data.
In mid-February it migrated the second database, a similar IBM
pSeries server running Oracle 9 on Unix, which was used by the
revenue assurance department. "We have almost recouped the costs of
the system by saving money on calls and margins," said
Froggatt.
The Netezza appliance is a single piece of hardware that
combines a database, server and storage. It can perform detailed
queries and analyses on large volumes of stored data because of its
dedicated computing resources. Others users of Netezza include
Debenhams, Amazon and Carphone Warehouse.
John Enck, research vice-president at Gartner, said, "IT
managers will soon be able to choose from a new wave of server
appliances offering everything from simple single-function
operations to completely integrated hardware systems."
Netezza joins
Business Objects' gang >>
Virgin Media press office >>
http://www.netezza.com/products/data-warehouse-appliance-products.cfm
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