Moving Forward with the On Demand Real-time Enterprise

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2006. All rights reserved. 29

Chapter 2. The real-time enterprise

In this chapter we take a closer look at a description of the real-time enterprise,

address some of the technical challenges for implementing such an environment,

and then consider the solution capabilities that IBM has to offer.

From one perspective, part of a real-time enterprise is related to information

technology and part to the business itself. For example, in a real-time enterprise,

transactions and data, in many cases, are flowing in more of a continuous

manner rather than only being processed in batches. And, where required, the

direction is to design and manage the business processes to be flexible and

capable of supporting such a continuous flow environment.

The flow of data from the process steps should tend towards continuous. Where

required, and justifiable, the data should flow from the process step reporting

system to the data warehousing environment (EDW), where it will be available

for analysis and decision-making. An alternative approach that will also be

covered in this redbook is the use of the operational data store (ODS). With this

approach, the data first flows into the ODS, and then, at the appropriate time, into

the EDW.

Continuous flow means that the time delay from completion of each process step

to storage of the data in the EDW, should tend towards a zero latency - where

required and justifiable. This real-time data flow enables the most current data to

be available for analysis and decision-making. With this more current data,

management can more proactively manage the business processes, to meet the

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