Data Management and Business Intelligence

Database industry has developed in the last twenty years from a niche market to the main IT constituent of most organizations, small or big. The explosion in the volume of data collected in today’s applications dictates novel architectures, query paradigms and storage models. The first part of the course will cover traditional topics, such as: data modeling, design and architecture, relational systems, query languages, SQL, performance issues, query processing, transactions, web, distributed databases. It will also introduce the challenges modern data management systems face, such as stream data and cloud computing. Data warehousing, decision support, OLAP and data mining, what many people collectively call Business Intelligence (BI), has reached a maturity height with abundance of systems, platforms and methods. It has evolved from a niche area for large and highly sophisticated corporations to an essential component of any modern business entity or institution. The second part of the course will review basic BI concepts, such as: design, implementing and modeling of data warehouses, star schemas, data cubes, OLAP, tools & systems and design methodologies. It will also cover new trends in BI such as main-memory BI and column-oriented systems.