Mining a Rich Vein of Data

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Thanks to the continuing generosity of Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation of Dayton, Ohio, and the Teradata University Network, more than 500 university information systems and computer science departments around the world can now access massive databases housed in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

The databases are part of a Teradata® Warehouse in the college’s Enterprise Systems program.

“The Teradata data warehouse is the world’s most proven and powerful database for enterprise data warehousing,” said David Douglas, Walton College professor of information systems. “We are very grateful to NCR and Teradata for giving our students and faculty access to some of the most leading-edge technology in the world. This technology plays a key role in our Enterprise Computing Curriculum, which helps students better understand how data warehousing, e-business and other large-scale systems work together to support management decision-making.” 

Data warehousing is a critical concept in business and other organizations. It uses enormous databases to allow knowledge workers to answer complex questions and perform sophisticated analyses of the database to extract information to use in managing the enterprise.

Fred Davis, chair of the Walton College information systems department and David D. Glass Chair in Information Systems, said, “This fabulous gift from the Teradata division of NCR helps transform the university into a 'world-class, industrial strength’ information technology center. With this hardware and software gift, students can utilize multiple large-scale computing platforms as a routine part of their studies.”

Access to this exceptional resource is the result of a donation from NCR Corporation to University of Arkansas students, announced by the Walton College in October 2005.  The new Teradata warehouse software and hardware are valued at $1.1 million and contain large databases donated by Sam’s Club.

The most recent donation builds on a partnership forged in 2000 between NCR and the Walton College, the College of Engineering and UA University IT Services to provide an initial Teradata data warehouse valued at more than $7 million. This new gift is an update to the previous Teradata gift with a 5251 system and 5.4 terabytes of disk storage, representing a 400 percent improvement in resources. 

Joe Rarey, director of the Teradata Wal-Mart global support team, said, “We believe the Teradata Warehouse is the ultimate business intelligence platform. It is used by many large organizations for data analysis and decision making. The system provides invaluable educational opportunities for computer and information systems graduates as well as business students.”

“We would like to thank NCR for making this technology experience possible for our students and faculty as well as for all the members of the Teradata University Network,” said Walton College Dean Dan Worrell. “The Walton College is the only business school with a Teradata Warehouse able to offer these databases to institutions all over the globe.”

Davis commented on the far-reaching implications of the universal access offered through the Teradata University Network: “A student from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, for instance, can log into our Teradata system and search on billions of pieces of Sam’s Club dataset. While this may be 2000 year data, the databases give these students incredible, real-world experience in mining the data for analysis and researching business trends. We are very grateful to NCR for their gift of this technology.”

The Teradata Enterprise Systems program for Walton College is managed by Paul Cronan, director of Enterprise Systems, Walton College professor of information systems and holder of the M.D. Matthews Endowed Chair in Information Systems, and Eddie Mahar, associate director of Enterprise Systems.

“We are honored to host databases for students taking courses around the world; there is no doubt we are influencing student learning in the U.S. and abroad,” said Cronan. He was recently appointed a member of the board of directors of the Teradata University Network. The mission of the network is to be a premier academic resource for knowledge and learning about data warehousing, decision support systems, business intelligence and database. The network is also an international community through which members share their ideas, experiences and resources with one another and that serves as a bridge between academia and the world of practice.

The Walton College also houses major technology gifts from IBM, SAP and Oracle. Davis added, “The University of Arkansas is one of the few schools that can offer this combination of real-world technology. We are preparing students to be highly productive as they enter the information technology workforce.” Future enhancements to the system are expected to include updated databases from several Arkansas-based corporations this spring.