2013 Highlights: Databases, Strategy, and Governance

IBM Data magazine is closing out 2013 with a collection of feature and column highlights from the past year. The many contributions from our talented and generous subject-matter experts provided abundant coverage of thought leadership, best practices, and tools not only for big data and analytics (see the companion installment, "2013 Highlights: Big Data and Analytics"), but databases, information strategy, integration and governance, and other key areas.

Would you like to revisit popular postings from IBM Data magazine's DB2 for z/OS, Governance, and Informix columns? Discover career paths on the rise? Brush up on best practices for test data management? The IBM Data magazine staff offers this installment spotlighting popular articles from the past year that covered databases, business strategy, and governance. Enjoy the holidays, and please share any thoughts, suggestions for 2014, or questions in the comments.

Feature highlights

I Am an Information Strategist February 2013 By Steve Adler This new role draws on multiple business and IT disciplines to help organizations make the most of their data   Borrowing From Science to Revolutionize Business Analytics April 2013 By Chris Young Intel and IBM collaboration delivers a quantum leap forward with 25x faster performance in IBM DB2 with BLU Acceleration   Super Analytics, Super Easy April 2013 By Sam Lightstone, Guy Lohman, and Berni Schiefer Introducing IBM DB2 10.5 with BLU Acceleration   Big Data and Business Innovation May 2013 By Krish Krishnan Big data provides a powerful resource for defining your organization’s value to your customers   Hybrid MDM: The Best of Both MDM Worlds May 2013 By Jennifer McGinn and Stephanie Hazlewood Addressing the need for multiple styles in the same infrastructure with IBM InfoSphere MDM   5 Best Practices for Test Data Management July 2013 By Kimberly Madia Extract subsets of production data for continuous testing at warp speed   Business and IT Collaboration: Essential for Big Data Information Governance July 2013 By Robert Routzahn Well-informed business decisions depend on trustworthy information obtained from agile, automated integration and governance   No More Excuses: Improving Business Processes and Decisions July 2013 By Trey Anderson III, Jay Limburn, and Anju Willard Your business decisions can be only as good as the data and processes that go into them   Storing Native XML in a DB2 Table Column July 2013 By Kurt Struyf Learn the basics of the global standard in data exchange   Debunking Database Archiving Myths August 2013 By Swati Moran Think quick-fix approaches optimize costs and justify not implementing an archiving strategy? Think again   Big Data Adventures September 2013 By Praveenkumar Hosangadi Avoid complexity when integrating big data into enterprise architectures   Rethinking Compression September 2013 By Tom Rieger IBM DB2 with BLU Acceleration streamlines storage and access of columnar data in an ecosystem of optimization

Column highlights

DB2 for z/OS

Performance and Capacity Considerations for zIIP Engines April 2013 By Cristian Molaro zIIP engines can dramatically reduce mainframe TCO—but they must be handled differently than general-purpose processors   The What, How, and Why of DB2 Accelerators May 2013 By Cristian Molaro Direct answers to the most important questions about DB2 accelerators   Do Not Ignore Structured Data in Big Data Analytics July 2013 By Cristian Molaro The important role of structured data when gleaning information from big data   Governance   Getting Started with Information Governance: The Glossary Approach February 2013 By Paula Wiles Sigmon Shared definitions of key terms help align business and IT and make analysis more meaningful and trusted   The Big Data Paradox: More Data, Less Confidence June 2013 By Paula Wiles Sigmon Confidence is not an all-or-nothing attribute   Meet the New Boss October 2013 By Paula Wiles Sigmon Chief data officers bring a new level of confidence in big data   Informix   Are Your Database Backups Safe? February 2013 By Lester Knutsen Using archecker to make sure your database backups work properly   Informix 12.10: New Grid Queries April 2013 By Lester Knutsen A paradigm shift in thinking about database queries   Minimizing Buffer Turnover Rate June 2013 By Lester Knutsen Optimize Informix database server memory management to help reduce database memory churn