Targetbase adopts Oracle Exadata Database Machine for real-time data warehousing

25 Oct 2011 Irving - Targetbase, a data-driven marketing agency, now delivers a higher level of service at a lower total cost of ownership since migrating to the Oracle Exadata Database Machine. In March 2010, the agency moved its multi-terabyte data warehouse to Oracle Exadata Database Machine to support clients' growing real-time information and analysis demands.

The transition was smooth, since Targetbase was already running Oracle systems. "We've always been an Oracle shop so migration was relatively easy. Going Oracle to Oracle saved us time not having to rewire apps into a different environment. And the performance improvements have been dramatic and game-changing", stated Targetbase Chief Technology Officer Ed Forman.

"We work with marketing database processes, and we've experienced improvements from 10 times faster up to 40 times faster", Ed Forman continued. "Processes that used to run in an hour now run in five minutes; some that ran in hours are down to a matter of seconds. And segmentation queries that ran over a weekend are now complete in hours. This is a huge advantage to us in terms of providing faster and more in-depth analysis of client marketing initiatives. We're helping clients get more relevant consumer-facing campaigns to market faster."

Oracle Exadata enables real-time reporting with enhanced support of data warehousing, business intelligence, and analytical services. The enabling technologies provide a platform to capture, integrate and analyze transactional, click stream, social media and customer attitudinal data. All while helping Targetbase reduce its data storage footprint by more than 30 percent through the use of Oracle Exadata's Hybrid Columnar Compression technology.

In the world of consumer marketing, timing is everything, so the improvements and savings have been crucial to enhancing Targetbase’s deliverables. "For us, providing greater throughput has led to greater consumer satisfaction and happier clients, and that's a win-win across the board", Ed Forman added. The migration has also enabled Targetbase to focus on the real-time support needs of their clients' businesses.

In terms of lowering costs, Ed Forman pointed to Oracle Exadata's advanced compression features that have contributed to reducing the total cost of ownership. "Our first migration, which was for our largest consumer package goods client, yielded a 29 percent database size reduction - and we realized a 38 percent database size reduction for our largest retail client. That's the kind of savings we can pass on to our clients."

Targetbase runs two quarter-rack Oracle Exadata Database Machines in an active-active configuration using Oracle Active Data Guard for business continuity purposes.

Oracle Exadata ensures Targetbase's ability to manage mixed workloads spanning real-time warehousing, storage and bi-directional online transactional processing (OLTP) for consumer facing sites and social applications that require continual consumer dialogue. "We still do traditional warehouse support, but being able to execute across all digital channels and having that capability in one environment has been extremely helpful", Ed Forman added. "It's a great accelerant to our business as we press deeper into digital executions."

Ed Forman stressed: "We need stability underneath all of the consumer facing applications we execute. We deal with a lot of social, retail and point-of-sale (POS) data. And we interrogate web blogs, which provide large volumes of data that must be interpreted into actionable insights for clients." From real-time consumer analytics scoring to consumer-specific text mining with web blog data, Oracle Exadata helps Targetbase quickly interpret raw data and turn it into actionable insight for clients in a timely manner.