| Data Architecture |
A data architecture describes the data structures used by a business and its applications. This includes descriptions of data in storage and data in motion; descriptions of data stores, data groups and data items and mappings of those data artifacts to data qualities, applications and locations.
Data Architecture describes how data is processed, stored, and utilized in a given system. It provides criteria for data processing operations that make it possible to design data flows and control the flow of data in the system.
The Data Architect breaks the subject down by three traditional architectural processes:
- Conceptual - Represents all business entities
- Logical - Represents the logic of how entities are related
- Physical – Represents the data mechanisms for a specific type of functionality
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| Information Lifecycle Management |
Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is the practice of applying certain policies to the effective management of information throughout its useful life. ILM comprises the policies, processes, practices and tools used to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost effective IT infrastructure from the time information is conceived through its final disposition. Information is aligned with business processes through management policies and service levels associated with applications, metadata, information and data.
ILM includes every phase of a "record" from its beginning to its end. And while it is generally applied to information that rises to the classic definition of a record, it applies to any and all informational assets. During its existence, information can become a record by being identified as documenting a business transaction or as satisfying a business need.
Alpha’s ILM services include:
- Archiving
- Oracle Archiving Tools
- Storage Base Archival Techniques/Multi-tiered Archiving
- Securing Archived Data |
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| Capacity Planning |
Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products. Capacity is defined as the maximum amount of work that an organization is capable of completing in a given period of time.
A discrepancy between the capacity of an organization and the demands of its customers results in inefficiency. Therefore, the goal of capacity planning is to minimize this discrepancy. Better utilization of existing capacity can be accomplished through improvements in overall equipment effectiveness. Moreover, capacity can be increased through introducing new techniques, equipment and materials, increasing the number of workers or machines, increasing the number of shifts or acquiring additional production facilities.
Alpha’s capacity planning services include:
- System Resource Utilization, Analysis & Projection
- Benchmarking and Testing
- Platform Specific Templates
- Planning Disk Layout |
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| Database Upgrade & Consolidation |
Databases are crucial decision-making enablers for every organization irrespective of its size. The availability of accurate data plays a key role in an organization's ability to make critical decisions. Therefore, databases need to be optimized to provide the required information within the shortest time frame. Moreover, with the huge influx of data, these databases need to be evaluated and monitored continuously to ensure a high quality of performance.
Alpha’s comprehensive DBA service offerings include:
- Backup Strategy
- Data Archival & Purging
- Data load & Refresh
- Database Health Check
- Database Maintenance & Support
- Database Migration
- Database Upgrade
- DBA Training
- Disaster Recovery Solutions & High Availability
- Installation & Database Set-up
- Performance Tuning
- Periodic Recovery Testing
- Pro-Active Monitoring
- Remote & Onsite Database Support
- Server Consolidation |
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| Data Management |
Data management encompasses the development, execution and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that control, protect, deliver and enhance the value of data and information assets.
Alpha’s Data Management services include:
- Data Management Tools
- Enterprise Data Architecture
- Establishing Data Stewardship Best Practices
- Master Data Management |
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| High Availability & Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity |
High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR) is a database replication feature that provides a high availability solution for both partial and complete site failures. HADR protects against data loss by replicating data changes from a source database, (the primary), to a target database, (the standby). A database that does not use HADR is referred to as a standard database.
Without HADR, a partial site failure requires the database management system server to be rebooted. The length of time it takes to restart the database and the machine where it resides is unpredictable. It can take several minutes before the database is brought back to a consistent state and made available. With HADR, the standby database can take over in seconds. Further, one can redirect the clients that were using the original database to the standby database by using automatic client reroute.
Alpha’s High Availability & Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Services include:
- Clustering Architecture
- Database Partitioning
- Dynamic Re-Mastering & Extended RAC
- Implementation of Database Clusters (MySQL, Oracle RAC)
- Load Balancing
- Storage Management Techniques
- Switchover and Failover Techniques |
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| Performance Tuning |
Performance tuning is the improvement of system performance. Most systems will respond to increased load with some degree of decreasing performance.
Systematic tuning includes:
- Assessing the problem and establish numeric values that categorize acceptable behavior;
- Measuring the performance of the system before modification;
- Identifying the part of the system that is critical for improving the performance. (This is called the bottleneck.);
- Modifying that part of the system to remove the bottleneck;
- Measuring the performance of the system after modification.
Alpha’s Performance Tuning Services include:
- Database Performance Tuning
- I/O Rationalization
- Instance Configuration & System Optimization
- Platform Specific Best Practices
- SQL Tuning
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