Teradata, a division of NCR Corp., has announced the availability of Teradata Warehouse Miner 5.1, which enables data-mining technology from multiple vendors to be embedded and run within the Teradata Enterprise Data Warehouse.

Teradata's technology goes beyond describing what happened last quarter or last week and instead can start predicting what is going to happen in the future, the company says. The technology uncovers relationships and patterns within the data that can be used to predict behavior and events. As a result, businesses can better understand customer behavior, identify unexpected opportunities, and anticipate opportunities and problems before they happen, the company says.

Due to increasing customer adoption of in-database processing, Teradata has made 150 customer-requested enhancements to Teradata Warehouse Miner. One of the key improvements is the embedding of partner analytic applications that run within the database. The partners' applications are pre-configured and easily integrated into a customer's open enterprise warehouse environment. Neural network algorithms provided by StatSoft are just one example. Neural networks are a sophisticated statistical tool that is capable of identifying and evaluating the inter-relationship of a large number of variables at one time. They are capable of self-learning behavior.

Neural network algorithms have many invaluable business and practical uses. They can be used to determine credit worthiness of an individual, detect and evaluate medical phenomena to support a treatment plan, and prevent fraud by recognizing a signature, including the velocity of a pen stroke of an individual consumer.

In 1999, Teradata was the first database vendor to integrate the data-mining process into the database engine, thereby leveraging the inherent parallelism and processing power of Teradata. Teradata Warehouse Miner 5.1, as with previous versions, integrates data mining within a centralized data warehouse, streamlining the data-mining process, and making it possible to mine massive volumes of data with improved accuracy and speed.

"Teradata's open analytic approach provides our customers with access to the best and most powerful technology from global data-mining partners and leverages the power and performance of Teradata to optimize the data-mining process. The combination of the Teradata Enterprise Warehouse and partners' data-mining technologies provide our customers with superior predictive intelligence," said Randy Lea, vice president, Teradata products and services. "It's no longer a competitive advantage to just understand the past by looking in the rearview mirror; competitive differentiation is being driven by predicting what is going to happen just ahead or even around the corner."

Teradata Advanced Analytics

In addition to embedding partners' technology within Teradata Warehouse Miner, Teradata has long provided optimization for the data-mining process by integrating with partners such as KXEN, SAS, SPSS and Fair Isaac. These partners use the XML-based Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) to leverage the processing power of the Teradata Warehouse. PMML is an open standard language that allows customers to share analytic models among applications, enabling them to easily port desktop and server-based analytic models to run within the Teradata Warehouse.

The expertise of the Teradata Professional Services consulting team, the world's largest team focused on data warehousing, empowers the IT professional, data miner, and business user to work together to build data-mining competence regardless of the current level of proficiency. The hands-on mentoring approach of the Teradata consulting team helps businesses be more successful, more quickly.

About Teradata Division

Teradata, a division of NCR Corp., is the global technology leader in enterprise data warehousing, analytic applications, and data warehousing services. Organizations around the world rely on the power of Teradata's award-winning solutions to get a single, integrated view of their business to enhance decision making, customer relationships, and profitability.

About NCR Corp.

NCR Corp. is a leading global technology company helping businesses build stronger relationships with their customers. NCR's Teradata Data Warehouses, ATMs, retail systems, self-service solutions and IT services provide relationship technology that maximizes the value of customer interactions and helps organizations create a stronger competitive position. Based in Dayton, Ohio, NCR employs approximately 29,650 people worldwide.