To: Crazy Canuck who wrote (464 ) 4/11/1999 5:05:00 PM From: AriKirA Respond to
What is data mining all about?Definition Technically, data mining involves the use of software to automatically explore data to identify patterns, anomalies and correlations which yield useful knowledge about trends, processes, and relationships among the data elements. Use and Application Data mining can be a very valuable asset in a variety of industries (financial services, telecom, retail, utilities, health care / pharma, and manufacturing being notable examples). Difference between data mining and analytical tools The key technical difference between data mining and other analytical tools is that while data mining permits the automated exploration of data to reveal unknown knowledge, other analytical tools generate predefined reports or respond to specific user queries for information. Future potential Two key issues have made data mining investments — in relative terms — lower priorities on most corporate agendas. Y2K compliance has absorbed a disproportionate share of corporate technology budgets, as everyone knows. Y2K solution providers have been winners; others have been losers. Among enterprises investing in business intelligence, the bulk of free technology purchase dollars have been allocated to building the “infrastructure” required to facilitate the capture and analysis of corporate data — through data warehouses, data marts and similar projects to upgrade and modernize legacy operational systems. Much of this investment, to date, has focussed simply on getting access to operational data and being able to generate timely and useful “line of business” operational reports.
