Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Bible

Discover grid computing-how to successfully build, implement, and manage widely distributed computing architecture With technology budgets under increasing scrutiny and system architecture becoming more and more complex, many organizations are rethinking how they manage and use technology. Keeping a strong business focus, this publication clearly demonstrates that the current ways of tying applications to dedicated hardware are no longer viable in today's competitive, bottom line-oriented environment. This evolution in distributed computing is leading a paradigm shift in leveraging widely distributed architectures to get the most processing power per IT dollar. Presenting a solid foundation of data management issues and techniques, this practical book delves into grid architecture, services, practices, and much more, including: * Why businesses should adopt grid computing * How to master the fundamental concepts and programming techniques and apply them successfully to reach objectives * How to maximize the value of existing IT investments The author has tailored this publication for two distinct audiences. Business professionals will gain a better understanding of how grid computing improves productivity and performance, what impact it can have on their organization's bottom line, and the technical foundations necessary to discuss grid computing with their IT colleagues. Following the author's expert guidance and practical examples, IT professionals, architects, and developers will be equipped to initiate and carry out successful grid computing projects within their own organizations.

Harness the power of social media to predict customer behavior and improve sales Social media is the biggest source of Big Data. Because of this, 90% of Fortune 500 companies are investing in Big Data initiatives that will help them predict consumer behavior to produce better sales results. Written by Dr. Gabor Szabo, a Senior Data Scientist at Twitter, and Dr. Oscar Boykin, a Software Engineer at Twitter, Social Media Data Mining and Analytics shows analysts how to use sophisticated techniques to mine social media data, obtaining the information they need to generate amazing results for their businesses. Social Media Data Mining and Analytics isn't just another book on the business case for social media. Rather, this book provides hands-on examples for applying state-of-the-art tools and technologies to mine social media – examples include Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr, Web hyperlinks, and other rich data sources. In it, you will learn: The four key characteristics of online services-users, social networks, actions, and content The full data discovery lifecycle-data extraction, storage, analysis, and visualization How to work with code and extract data to create solutions How to use Big Data to make accurate customer predictions Szabo and Boykin wrote this book to provide businesses with the competitive advantage they need to harness the rich data that is available from social media platforms.

Increase profits and reduce costs by utilizing this collection of models of the most commonly asked data mining questions In order to find new ways to improve customer sales and support, and as well as manage risk, business managers must be able to mine company databases. This book provides a step-by-step guide to creating and implementing models of the most commonly asked data mining questions. Readers will learn how to prepare data to mine, and develop accurate data mining questions. The author, who has over ten years of data mining experience, also provides actual tested models of specific data mining questions for marketing, sales, customer service and retention, and risk management. A CD-ROM, sold separately, provides these models for reader use.

Collecting, analyzing, and extracting valuable information from a large amount of data requires easily accessible, robust, computational and analytical tools. Data Mining and Business Analytics with R utilizes the open source software R for the analysis, exploration, and simplification of large high-dimensional data sets. As a result, readers are provided with the needed guidance to model and interpret complicated data and become adept at building powerful models for prediction and classification. Highlighting both underlying concepts and practical computational skills, Data Mining and Business Analytics with R begins with coverage of standard linear regression and the importance of parsimony in statistical modeling. The book includes important topics such as penalty-based variable selection (LASSO); logistic regression; regression and classification trees; clustering; principal components and partial least squares; and the analysis of text and network data. In addition, the book presents: • A thorough discussion and extensive demonstration of the theory behind the most useful data mining tools • Illustrations of how to use the outlined concepts in real-world situations • Readily available additional data sets and related R code allowing readers to apply their own analyses to the discussed materials • Numerous exercises to help readers with computing skills and deepen their understanding of the material Data Mining and Business Analytics with R is an excellent graduate-level textbook for courses on data mining and business analytics. The book is also a valuable reference for practitioners who collect and analyze data in the fields of finance, operations management, marketing, and the information sciences.

A thorough update to the industry standard for designing, developing, and deploying data warehouse and business intelligence systems The world of data warehousing has changed remarkably since the first edition of The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit was published in 1998. In that time, the data warehouse industry has reached full maturity and acceptance, hardware and software have made staggering advances, and the techniques promoted in the premiere edition of this book have been adopted by nearly all data warehouse vendors and practitioners. In addition, the term «business intelligence» emerged to reflect the mission of the data warehouse: wrangling the data out of source systems, cleaning it, and delivering it to add value to the business. Ralph Kimball and his colleagues have refined the original set of Lifecycle methods and techniques based on their consulting and training experience. The authors understand first-hand that a data warehousing/business intelligence (DW/BI) system needs to change as fast as its surrounding organization evolves. To that end, they walk you through the detailed steps of designing, developing, and deploying a DW/BI system. You'll learn to create adaptable systems that deliver data and analyses to business users so they can make better business decisions.