Data Warehousing

Why is a unique Telecommunications Data Warehousing Expertise Required?

Many organizations have tried in the past to apply the "tried and true" techniques of conventional data warehousing to the telecommunication industry and found that their solutions were far from adequate to meet the special needs that telco providers have. The failure (or at the very least, the lackluster results delivered by these systems) can be credited to several factors that make Telco Data Warehousing unique. These factors include:

1. Incredibly High Data Volumes - Telecommunications companies capture and process thousands of times more data than any other industry. The Telco industry far surpasses any other industry in the sheer volume of data managed. ( A typical telecommunications company can generate dozens of tracking records for each phone call placed. When you multiply that number by the total number of phone calls that happen in a day, you begin to realized the scope of the problem.) Typical Telco Call Detail Record Warehouses are measured in the multiple-Terabyte range , and hold only a very small percentage of the total amount of data being processed.

2. Highly Specialized Operational Environment - Data Warehousing for Telecommunications companies is a process that requires special knowledge to telecommunications company source systems. You need to know the idiosyncrasies of switches, billing systems and the provisioning process if you are going to have any chance of building data warehouse systems that can support them.

3. Volatile and Chaotic Business Environment - No industry has quite the high level of ongoing chaos, confusion and quickly changing requirements than telecommunications. Telecommunications company org-charts are radically changed on a monthly and often a weekly basis, and business priorities can come and go in the matter of a few hours. It takes a special breed of "on the fly" thinkers, planners and strategists to successfully deliver telco data warehousing in this kind of environment.

4. Unique Reporting Needs - As with all industries, the telecommunications data warehouse needs to support a unique set of special types of reports. Reports that cannot be purchased "off the shelf".

eXcellence in Telecommunication (TTA) and Telco Data Warehousing!

Robert Mattison and TTA have had experience with all of the different facets of the Telco Data Warehouse development including:

1. Building enthusiasm within the organization for the things that the data warehouse can deliver.

2. Conceptualizing and defining how the data warehouse environment should be staffed, budgeted and tasked.

3. Setting up budgets, Key Performance Indicators, roles, responsibilities, organization charts, deliverables and evaluation of Telco Data Warehouse group performance.

4. The design and construction of some of the largest and most productive Telco Data Warehouses in the world.

5. Specialized expertise in Telecommunications Extract, Transformation and Loading (Telco ETL), understanding the unique constraints, possibilities and requirements to get the information you need out of your switching, mediation, billing and other operational systems.

6. Telecommunications Data Model - has been the author of over 2 dozen different enterprise and subject area specific Telco Data Models, including several Enterprise Telco Data Models and many Telco Subject Area Data Models.

7. Telecommunications Database Administration (Telco DBA) - Working with Oracle, DB2 and dozens of other database management systems, and the TTA Team can help review and tune your existing databases, or audit and revamp your existing systems.

8. Telecommunications Data Warehouse Business Analysis and Reporting - Nowhere is the lack of telecommunications industry expertise more noticeable, then when it comes time to start working with telecommunications users (executives, line managers and staff). Telecommunications end-users are finicky, flighty, fast-moving and impatient. If you cannot get in, figure out what they need and deliver the reports quickly, then you are lost before you begin. We have spent many, many years learning about the way that each and every telecommunications function is done, and we use that knowledge to help guide end-users in the selection of their solutions.