Tag: netezza

Towards better analytical software

Here are some thoughts on using existing statistical software for better analytics and/or business intelligence (reporting)-

1) User Interface Design Matters- Most stats software have a legacy approach to user interface design. While the Graphical User Interfaces need to more business friendly and user friendly- example you can call a button T Test or You can call it Compare > Means of Samples (with a highlight called T Test). You can call a button Chi Square Test or Call it Compare> Counts Data. Also excessive reliance on drop down ignores the next generation advances in OS- namely touchscreen instead of mouse click and point.

Given the fact that base statistical procedures are the same across softwares, a more thoughtfully designed user interface (or revamped interface) can give softwares an edge over legacy designs.

2) Branding of Software Matters- One notable whine against SAS Institite products is a premier price. But really that software is actually inexpensive if you see other reporting software. What separates a Cognos from a Crystal Reports to a SAS BI is often branding (and user interface design). This plays a role in branding events – social media is often the least expensive branding and marketing channel. Same for WPS and Revolution Analytics.

3) Alliances matter- The alliances of parent companies are reflected in the sales of bundled software. For a complete solution , you need a database plus reporting plus analytical software. If you are not making all three of the above, you need to partner and cross sell. Technically this means that software (either DB, or Reporting or Analytics) needs to talk to as many different kinds of other softwares and formats. This is why ODBC in R is important, and alliances for small companies like Revolution Analytics, WPS and Netezza are just as important as bigger companies like IBM SPSS, SAS Institute or SAP. Also tie-ins with Hadoop (like R and Netezza appliance)  or  Teradata and SAS help create better usage.

4) Cloud Computing Interfaces could be the edge- Maybe cloud computing is all hot air. Prudent business planing demands that any software maker in analytics or business intelligence have an extremely easy to load interface ( whether it is a dedicated on demand website) or an Amazon EC2 image. Easier interfaces win and with the cloud still in early stages can help create an early lead. For R software makers this is critical since R is bad in PC usage for larger sets of data in comparison to counterparts. On the cloud that disadvantage vanishes. An easy to understand cloud interface framework is here ( its 2 years old but still should be okay) http://knol.google.com/k/data-mining-through-cloud-computing#

5) Platforms matter- Softwares should either natively embrace all possible platforms or bundle in middle ware themselves.

Here is a case study SAS stopped supporting Apple OS after Base SAS 7. Today Apple OS is strong  ( 3.47 million Macs during the most recent quarter ) and the only way to use SAS on a Mac is to do either

http://goo.gl/QAs2

or do a install of Ubuntu on the Mac ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook ) and do this

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1494027

Why does this matter? Well SAS is free to academics and students  from this year, but Mac is a preferred computer there. Well WPS can be run straight away on the Mac (though they are curiously not been able to provide academics or discounted student copies 😉 ) as per

http://goo.gl/aVKu

Does this give a disadvantage based on platform. Yes. However JMP continues to be supported on Mac. This is also noteworthy given the upcoming Chromium OS by Google, Windows Azure platform for cloud computing.

R Modeling with huge data

Here is a training course by BI Vendor, Netezza which uses R analytical capabilties. Its using R in the customized appliances of Netezza.

Source-

http://www.netezza.com/userconference/pce.html#rmftfic

R Modeling for TwinFin i-Class

Objective
Learn how to use TwinFin i-Class for scaling up the R language.

Description
In this class, you’ll learn how to use R to create models using huge data and how to create R algorithms that exploit our asymmetric massively parallel (AMPP®) architecture. Netezza has seamlessly integrated with R to offload the heavy lifting of the computational processing on TwinFin i-Class. This results in higher performance and increased scalability for R. Sign up for this class to learn how to take advantage of TwinFin i-Class for your R modeling. Topics include:

  1. R CRAN package installation on TwinFin i-Class
  2. Creating models using R on TwinFin i-Class
  3. Creating R algorithms for TwinFin i-Class

Format
Hands-on classroom lecture, lab exercises, tour

Audience
Knowledgeable R users – modelers, analytic developers, data miners

Course Length
0.5 day: 12pm-4pm Wednesday, June 23 OR 8am-12pm Thursday, June 24 OR 1pm-5pm Thursday, June 24, 2010

Delivery
Enzee Universe 2010, Boston, MA

Student Prerequisites

  • Working knowledge of R and parallel computing
  • Have analytic, compute-intensive challenges
  • Understanding of data mining and analytics

CommeRcial R- Integration in software

Some updates to R on the commercial side.

Revolution Computing is apparently now renamed Revolution Analytics. Hopefully this and the GUI development will help pay more focused attention on working in R in a mainstream office situation. I am still waiting for David Smith’s cheery hey-guys-we-changed-again blog post though at a new site called inside-r.org/ or his old blog site at blog.revolution-computing.com

They probably need to hire more people now – Curt Monash, noted all-things-data software guru has the inside dope here

Techworld writes more here at http://www.techworld.com.au/article/345288/startup_wants_r_alternative_ibm_sas

The company’s software is priced “aggressively” versus IBM and SAS. A single supported workstation costs $2,000 for an annual subscription. Pricing for server-based licenses varies depending on the implementation.

But Revolution Analytics faces a tough challenge from those larger vendors, as well as the likes of XLSolutions, which offers R training and a competing software package, R-Plus.

SPSS though continues to integrate R solidly and also march ahead with Python (which is likely to be the next gen in statistical programming if it keeps up) http://insideout.spss.com/–

With the release of Version 18 of IBM SPSS Statistics and the Developer product, easy-to-install versions of the Python and R materials are posted.  In particular, look for the R Essentials link on the main page or from the Plugins page.  It installs the R Plugin, the correct version of R, and a bunch of example R integrations as bundles.  It’s much easier to get going with this now.

Netezza , a business intelligence vendor promises more integration and even a training in R based analytics here

R Modeling for TwinFin i-Class

Objective
Learn how to use TwinFin i-Class for scaling up the R language.

Description
In this class, you’ll learn how to use R to create models using huge data and how to create R algorithms that exploit our asymmetric massively parallel (AMPP®) architecture. Netezza has seamlessly integrated with R to offload the heavy lifting of the computational processing on TwinFin i-Class. This results in higher performance and increased scalability for R. Sign up for this class to learn how to take advantage of TwinFin i-Class for your R modeling. Topics include:

  1. R CRAN package installation on TwinFin i-Class
  2. Creating models using R on TwinFin i-Class
  3. Creating R algorithms for TwinFin i-Class

Format
Hands-on classroom lecture, lab exercises, tour

Audience
Knowledgeable R users – modelers, analytic developers, data miners

Course Length
0.5 day: 12pm-4pm Wednesday, June 23 OR 8am-12pm Thursday, June 24 OR 1pm-5pm Thursday, June 24, 2010

Delivery
Enzee Universe 2010, Boston, MA

Student Prerequisites

  • Working knowledge of R and parallel computing
  • Have analytic, compute-intensive challenges
  • Understanding of data mining and analytics”

My favourite GUI in stats , JMP (also from SAS Institute) is going to deploy R integration as soon as this September – Read more here- http://www.sas.com/news/preleases/JMP-to-R-integrationSGF10.html

Also SAS-IML studio is not lagging behind

The next release of SAS/IML will extend R integration to the server environment – enabling users to deploy results in batch mode and access R from SAS on additional platforms, such as UNIX and Linux.

I am kind of happy at one of the best GUI’s integrating with one of the most innovative stats softwares. It’s like two of your best friends getting married. (see screenshots of the softwares)

All in all- R as a platform making good overall progress from all sides of the corporate software spectrum which can only be good for R developers as well as users/students.

SAS Scoring Accelerators

One of the most interesting SAS product launches of 2009. I am currently reading SAS Enterprise Miner and I am quite impressed – in fact we have a 1500 processor HPC cluster , besides access to Kraken, the 3 largest HPC in the world. It is interesting to see possible application uses for that. Of course I am currently fiddling with R based parallelized clustering on them.

SAS® Scoring Accelerator

Citation-

http://www.sas.com/technologies/analytics/datamining/scoring_acceleration/index.html

Quickly and accurately process and score analytic models built in SAS® Enterprise MinerTM

What is SAS® Scoring Accelerator?
SAS Scoring Accelerator translates and registers SAS Enterprise Miner models into database-specific functions to be deployed and then executed for scoring purposes directly within the database. SAS Scoring Accelerator is a separate product that works in conjunction with  SAS Enterprise Miner.

Why is SAS® Scoring Accelerator important?
SAS Scoring Accelerator automates the movement of the model scoring processes inside the database. Faster deployment of analytic models means more timely results, enabling business users to make important business decisions. Better-performing models help ensure the accuracy of the analytic results you’re using to make critical business decisions.

For whom is SAS® Scoring Accelerator?
SAS Scoring Accelerator is specifically for organizations that use SAS Enterprise Miner. It is designed for chief scoring officers and IT to score analytic models directly inside the database.

Key Benefits:

 

  • Achieve higher model-scoring performance and faster time to results.
  • Reduce data movement and latency.
  • Improve accuracy and effectiveness of analytic models.
  • Reduce labor costs and errors by eliminating model score code rewrite and model revalidation efforts.
  • Better manage, provision and govern data.

 

Key Features:

Export Utility:

  • Functions as a plug-in to SAS Enterprise Miner that exports the model scoring logic including metadata about the required input and output variables.

Publishing Client:

  • Automatically translates and publishes the model into C source code for creating the scoring function inside the database.
  • Generates a script of database commands for registering the scoring user-defined function (UDF) inside the database. Scoring UDFs are available to use in any SQL expression wherever database-specific built-in functions are typically used.
  • Supports a robust class of SAS Enterprise Miner predictive and descriptive models including the preliminary transformation layer.

SAS Scoring Accelerator interfaces with the following relational databases:

  • SAS® Scoring Accelerator for Teradata
  • SAS® Scoring Accelerator for Netezza
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