Financial firm shifts off Oracle, seeks out in-database analytics

Since 2008, America recorded its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression dragged on in 2010 for the nation, 322 banks, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the doors closed was a witness. In comparison, only FDIC-insured banks in 2007 and closed three.

Any message, even if a financial institution on shaky ground, plants some of the largest, was ignored. Dodd-Frank with a message to the new regulations which came into force was marked.

Zions Bancorporation, Salt Lake City, Utah-based company holding commercial bank, to the new reality, in part, on the various loan portfolios increased focus on modeling and risk management. That collects, stores, and more technology for data analysis in the past have called an update.

Previously, analysts Zions, for example, the pool ready to examine performance over time, monitoring and other aspects of the performance of the bank to compare with the data.

"Historically, we have used the tools to do the business simulation and regression analysis," Clint Johnson, Zions data warehousing, business intelligence and analysis, senior vice president.

However, Johnson said, eight commercial banks, which share the same technology company's service provider, to deepen and develop predictive models of individual customers, the failure may be less likely to determine who might help.

"We have more vehicles and more power to do this kind of analysis needs," he said.

, A data management environment to develop and create an intelligent data analyzer Zions analysis laboratory Oracle databases and software instead of the Alps, Greenplum data warehouse platform, has acquired a startup Greenplum been twisted. Greenplum later in 2010, Hopkinton, Massachusetts, was acquired by EMC.

New technologies, old culture

I wanted to access the needs of data management and information on the number of users needs to invest a database of additional servers, Zions higher - a cost-effective effort, said Johnson.

"The technology of traditional databases means that data have to work, users have had to endure, they had to adjust the size of the audio in a single database," he said.

Or the company could find an alternative. Late in 2008, Zions Greenplum massively parallel processing (MPP) data warehousing, established a unique system that uses multiple processors, so you can extend the package, and the base load of the server.

"Former Oracle Greenplum technology to make changes to data and analysis of pending almamıştım what does that interact with the new," said Johnson.

This alone was the target data storage. Johnson said he ran about 3 TB of data before moving on to Zions. Since the installation of MPP data warehouse, the number increased to approximately 12 TB, and in the next three years, is expected to more than four times.

Access to data on the number of users has increased by about 200 to about 600 employees.

Setting up a platform for new data storage technology, but does not mean a change in corporate culture.

Some people may be reluctant to adopt, knowing that Johnson, the organization was needed to provide support for technical training material and training for the time spent in transparency has been mindful of the transition and make an impact for company in line with the minimum necessary. Most business users to interact with the database using SAP, Johnson said.

"I like [for example] did not want to rewrite the reports," he said. "We carefully the implementation of the user perspective, it was as usual."

The next step, "big data"

However, new ways to diversify the financial services company has tried - Enter the intelligent analysis and data mining.

"We wanted to go to one aspect," Johnson said. "These strategies are not new. Even if the bench."

Johnson investigation before investing in the bank, while other providers are reluctant to share their names, as the details screen, describes some of the giants of industry professionals and open source.

At the end of Zions San Mateo, California, Alpine Labs data, elected in May, a company called Alpine Miner, an intelligent analysis of the base launched the first offer. The original version of the root business software company is designed for Greenplum. Zions only had given incentives to invest in this area.

"In this area we looked at the other technology providers," said Johnson, including the products do not offer a database. "All were expensive and required the construction of infrastructure. ... The Alps do not have to work when an application infrastructure. "

Alpine Miner, co-founder and CEO of Anderson, according to Wong, it contains all the structured information in the database tries to access the MPP. Unlike the in-memory analysis, predictive models of users who benefit from large data sets without having to build and move data to another location in the database are able to score.

Zions for the new technology, building models of delinquency is not the only possible way, and customer behavior, for example, ATM, and online transaction data to be monitored.

"This kind of data is probably the best data to mine customer behavior research," said Johnson. "To understand what the customer, the ability of the process, monitoring, and really need to assess what is in the process data."

Johnson can see the individual volatility 18% 20% a year for the banking sector which is particularly useful when it comes to customer losses, he said.

"We want to keep more customers," he said. Changes in behavior can report customers who want to pack bags and recognize the signs; the bank may have a chance to address the concerns of its customers before it's too late.

"This valuable and I think it is cheaper for customers to walk toward the door," he acquire new customers, but also added that the price.

Alpine few laboratories in the Zions employees "at all levels of the organization to display" user-friendly tools to use to use "intuitive" and "direct" accounts as a source of supply for the database analysis.

Johnson said, "scientists working in the Alps and Greenplum ... [work] require skills solid database and strong analytical skills, because it is a small data set."

Last week, this type of SAS and SPSS predictive analysis vendors such as IBM, hoping to bring the Alpine laboratory data, Oracle Exadata and expands its base, the product Alpine Miner announced version 2.0 of open source PostgreSQL .

Wong data, laboratory of the Alps in the semi-structured data and unstructured to be taken to develop a version of the Alpine Miner said that working closely with Hadoop. The company expects the launch of this product is just over 18 months.