Time is Money

The temporal dimension yields richer

analyses and more insight. by Alan Greenspan
T
ime dimension is key to any organizations
insight in an increasingly competitive and ever-
changing business environment. Understanding
how the business has evolved over time, as opposed to
just delving into what it looks like today and what transac-
tions occurred in the past, will lead to much better insight and
smarter decisions.
A temporal database is a record of the past and present, and even a
glimpse into the future that provides the strategic link to the time dimension.
WHY TERADATA
Added Value
The data in a traditional enterprise data warehouse represents the
business as it is. The data in a temporal data warehouse represents
all aspects of the business, including how attributes of the business
have changed over time and how the business has evolvedopening
a whole new dimension to analysis.
A temporal database allows a business to examine a point in time,
compare two points in time or perform time-series analysis. It also
provides simple, quick support for audit trails and reporting assistance,
eliminating the time-consuming need to reconstruct history to show
why or when a particular decision was made.
With a temporal database, a business can track uctuations and
patterns in production or other activity over months or even years to
understand the business at any point in time. For example, instead
of just asking, How many customers do I have now? business users
can ask, How many customers did my records show were active as
of December 31 when I calculated year-end bonuses last January 31?
In addition to better quality data, a temporal database provides the
opportunity for much richer analysis.
Without temporal support in the database, it is extremely complex
and expensive to maintain the necessary time-dependent historical data
in IT processes and ask time-based questions. These complexities force
compromises that generally prevent temporal analysis.
Who Needs It?
Most organizations can recognize the enormous value of maintaining
history through time and supporting time-sensitive analysis in a data
warehouse. Examples are virtually endless:
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SALES TERRITORIES
A temporal database provides value when
the data or the business it represents changes
over time, as is often the case in sales. A
salespersons territory can change regularly
customers are added or taken away; territories
are divided or expanded. If these changes are
not considered, business views become distorted.
A sales manager, for instance, could appear to
perform better this year than last year when, in fact,
he simply gained salespeople or territories. Likewise, a
salespersons numbers may be down this year not because
he performed worse, but because his sales territory shrank. A
temporal database understands how the territories changed over
time and allows the organization to examine sales while adjusting for
organizational changes.
Sales this year and last year can be calculated using the territory denition
as of this year, or the denition in effect when the sales were made, thus
isolating the salespersons true performance. While the blind comparison of
absolute sales this year versus last year is still available, the organization now
has the option to truly understand performance over time.
INSURANCE
Common time scenarios in the insurance industry occur when policy
changes are made and when events are processed out of order. As an
example, a policyholder may incur an expense before, but le a claim
after, a policy change is made. If policy terms are updated without
maintaining how they evolved over time, the claim cannot be processed
according to the appropriate terms.
In another case, when an employer waits until mid-month to supply a
list of new employees covered as of the rst of the month, knowing both
when an individual was covered and when the coverage was reported
can be critical to claims processing and accurate reporting.
A fully bitemporal database allows the insurance company to act
based on the date the coverage started and understand the impact on
reports of delayed notications by group sponsors. A temporal database
also lets insurers quickly and easily le regulatory reports for a given
period, a task that is time consuming and complicated using a classical
database approach.
MANUFACTURING
In the manufacturing industry, analysis frequently must be done as of a
point in time. Bills of material (BOMs) detailing the parts used in prod-
ucts change over time. A temporal database lets a manufacturer analyze
quality issues and answer questions based on the BOMs for a certain date.
For instance, what is the failure pattern for all products built with screws
from Vendor X versus the same products built with screws from Vendor Y?
When a product comes in for repair, a manufacturer can easily determine
product specications for the date it was built and act accordingly.
Most data warehouse users dont realize how much valuable
history is thrown away during routine data updates. While
a data warehouse may keep multiple years of detailed data,
it often only keeps that history for transactions or other
similar data.
The temporal capability extends the concept and value of
detailed data by keeping the history of business processes
and business data that evolves over time.
Dont Trash That History
With a temporal database, a business can track
uctuations and patterns in production or other
activity over months or even years to economically
understand the business at any point in time.
>>
Why Teradata for Temporal?
T
eradata Database 13.10 provides temporal data
management and query processing, allowing the
data warehouse environment to present data
not only as it is, but also as it was and how it changed
over time. With the temporal option, the database
becomes time-aware and removes the complexities
traditionally associated with keeping and using
historical data.
When temporal data is updated, the database will auto-
matically keep the previous values and remember when
they were valid. Users can easily ask time-constrained
queries without special knowledge of effective date
elds and without writing complex constraint conditions
in their SQL. The temporal semantics and optimizations
built into the database allow IT to economically deliver
new time-based analytical capability to the business.
RETAIL
Recategorizing products and product category hierarchy changes are com-
mon in the retail industry and are another illustration of when a temporal
database can provide unprecedented value. For example, in the retail food
industry, a product might move from the snack category to dessert.
Simply replacing category information loses this reclassication history
and distorts analysis. Sales reports comparing this month to the same
month last year will use current product categorization if the change in
history is lost; however, the category sales for last year will not match pre-
vious reports for the same month, making analysis of business progress
over time difcult. A temporal database adds the capability to compare
sales using product category information as of any point in time.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Financial institutions build and continually modify complex forecasting
models. A temporal database gives nancial experts a before-and-after
view by letting them compare model projections with reality. It also
provides answers to any number of questions: Which capital-markets
forecasting model would have worked better for the period of June 1
to Dec. 31, 2009, using the data acquired before the signicant nancial
event of Sept. 15, 2009? How should our decisions change based on
credit report and credit rating changes over time?
Sales reporting considering continual position changes is a key date-
dependent, back-ofce operation in this industry. Many of the factors
inuencing sales performance and compensation change daily. Tracking
and considering this history are essential.
TRAVEL, TRANSPORTATION AND HOSPITALITY
Businesses in these industries regularly analyze airline ights, ship-
ments and hotel accommodations as part of their revenue-management
models to adjust pricing and maximize revenue. With a temporal data-
base, historical analysis can determine the best revenue strategy, such
as how many airline seats were sold at various points in time leading up
to departure.
Understanding Time
A temporal database provides organizations with much more exibility
to truly understand the business and optimize operations by capturing
and understanding historical changes. Time is indeed money. A tempo-
ral database can help you live up to this mantra not just by saving time,
but by understanding it. T
Alan Greenspan joined Teradata in 1988 and is the product marketing
manager for the Teradata Database and other core software products.
WHY TERADATA
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The period data type with special temporal meaning to track date ranges
Full bitemporal capability to manage and query valid time (when something was valid in the world being modeled)
and transaction time (when it was entered into the database), enabling the full breadth of time-based questions
Built-in logic to track historical data when updates are completed
Upward compatibility for existing queries
Simple temporal SQL syntax options to make temporal use easier and to add temporal logic to existing data
warehouses and applications
Several temporal optimizations to improve temporal update and query performance and maintain the best possible
performance of nontemporal queries
Special time-series analysis extensions
The Teradata temporal option includes: