When Air Products and Chemicals Inc. opened for business, it had a single product line and a data center with one IBM mainframe. Over the years, the complexity of its operations has transformed the data center into an intricate installation of multiple platforms supporting a multitude of operations. Such complexity prompted the company to seek a method to implement a solution that encompassed all platforms.
The enabling technologies of business intelligence and data warehousing are playing a vital role in facilitating strategic corporate and organizational initiatives, such as customer relationship management and e-commerce worldwide.
By combining organizational and technical solutions, companies hope to create a streamlined, Web-enabled organization running on integrated information and powered by super information engines along the fast track to 21st century success. Will it work?
Language Environment Callable Services can enable a COBOL program to perform tasks that are otherwise outside the scope of the language, such as dynamically acquire and free storage, determining whether a date is valid, generating a snap dump, and more.
The "Father of the Data Warehouse" discusses what's in store for the industry.
Over the past year, thin-client computing has taken center stage in the world of information systems technology. Despite predictions to the contrary, thin-client computing technology is not in trouble today: All indications point to server-based network architectures remaining a hot IT trend.