“An excellent summary of the state of supply chain management going into the twenty-first century. Explains the essential concepts clearly and offers practical, down-to-earth advice for making supply chains more efficient and adaptive. Truly a survival guide for executives as they struggle to cope with the increasing competition between supply chains.” — Christian Knoll, Vice President of Global Supply Chain Management, SAP AG “Through real-world case studies and graphic illustrations, David Taylor clearly demonstrates the bottom-line benefits of managing the supply chain effectively. Although the book is written for managers, I recommend it for everyone from the executive suite to the shipping floor because they all have to work together to master the supply chain. But beware—you can expect many passionate employees demanding improvements in your company’s supply chain after reading this book!” — David Myers, President, WinfoSoft Inc., Former Board Member of Supply Chain Council “A comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and well-designed book that gives managers the information they need in a highly readable form. I am already starting to use the techniques in this book to improve our international distribution system.” — Jim Muller, Vice President of Produce Sales, SoFresh Produce “Supply chain management is a deceptively deep subject. Simple business practices combine to form complex systems that seem to defy rational analysis: Companies that form trading partnerships continue to compete despite their best efforts to cooperate; small variations in consumer buying create devastating swings in upstream demand, and so on. In his trademark fashion, Taylor clearly reveals the hidden logic at work in your supply chain and gives you the practical tools you need to make better management decisions. A must-read for every manager who affects a supply chain, and in today's marketplace there are few managers who are exempt from this requirement.” — Adrian J. Bowles, Ph.D., President, CoSource.net “David Taylor has done it again. With his new book, David makes supply chain management easy to grasp for the working manager, just as he did with his earlier guides to business technology. If you work for a company that is part of a supply chain, you need this book.” — Dirk Riehle, Ph.D. “David Taylor has done a masterful job of defining the core issues in supply chain management without getting trapped in the quicksand of jargon. This concise book is well written, highly informative, and easy to read.” — Marcia Robinson, President, E-Business Strategies, author of Services Blueprint: Roadmap “Taylor has done a tremendous job of giving readers an intuitive grasp of a complicated subject. If you’re new to supply chains, this book will give you an invaluable map of the territory. If you're already among the initiated, it will crystallize your insights and help you make better decisions. In either case, you can only come out ahead by reading this book.” — Kevin Dick, Founder of Kevin Dick Associates, author of XML: A Manager’s Guide “My motto for compressing data is ‘squeeze it til it gags.’ In the current business climate, that’s what you have to do to costs, and Taylor shows you many ways to squeeze costs out of your supply chain. He also writes with the same economy: This book contains exactly what you need to manage your supply chain effectively. Nothing is missing, and nothing is extra.” — Charles Ashbacher, President, Charles Ashbacher Technologies Today's fiercest business battles are taking place between competitors' supply chains, with victory dependent on finding a way to deliver products to customers more quickly and efficiently than the competition. For proof, just look to Dell and Amazon.com, both of which revolutionized their industries by changing how companies produce, distribute, and sell physical goods. But they're hardly alone. By revamping their supply chains, Siemens CT improved lead time from six months to two weeks, Gillette slashed $400 million of inventory, and Chrysler saved $1.7 billion a year. It's a high-stakes game, and you don't have a lot of choice about playing: If your company touches a physical product, it's part of a supply chain--and your success ultimately hangs on the weakest link in that chain. In , best-selling author David Taylor explains how to assemble a killer supply chain using the knowledge, technology, and tools employed in supply-chain success stories. Using his signature fast-track summaries and informative graphics, Taylor offers a clear roadmap to understanding and solving the complex problems of supply-chain management. Supply Chains: A Manager's Guide Modern manufacturing has driven down the time and cost of the production process, leaving supply chains as the final frontier for cost reduction and competitive advantage. will quickly give managers the foundation they need to contribute effectively to their company's supply-chain success. Supply Chains: A Manager's Guide

Praise for XForms: XML Powered Web Forms “XForms is an exciting new technology for designing Web forms in an elegant and accessible way. Raman’s book provides strong motivations for flexibility in the design of human-machine interactions, and explains how to use XForms to this end in crystal-clear prose.” — Eve Maler XML Standards Architect, Sun Microsystems “Interactive forms technology is the logical evolution of Web user interface design. XForms represents a significant leap forward in that evolution.” — Sean McGrath CTO, Propylon “The greatest strength of this book is the skill with which T. V. Raman links the XForms technology with the larger context of the Web. The limitations of HTML forms, the ways in which XForms provides a better foundation for Web and Web service user interfaces, and the opportunities for an XForms-powered Web that is accessible to all users and devices are outlined and brought together in a compelling way.” — Michael Champion Advisory Research and Development Specialist, Software AG “Raman’s book gives the reader an excellent explanation of the emerging W3C XForms recommendation. It’s a well-organized and well-written book that begins with a gentle introduction to the concepts that motivated the development of XForms and then provides a reasonable overview of the relevant XML technology related to XForms. Most of the book covers XForms components: user interface controls, model properties, functions, actions, and events. It concludes with XForms as a Web service, offering multi-modal access and accessibility. In light of the October 2003 deadline for U.S. federal agencies to comply with the mandate of the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA) to give citizens the opportunity to provide information online, this important technical work comes none too soon. As T. V. masterfully elucidates, XForms provides the ‘last mile’ in ‘connecting users to their data.’ Insightfully, he also observes ‘the document is the human interface’ to data—an understanding without which the challenge to make eGov services ‘citizen-centered’ simply cannot and will not be met.” — Owen Ambur Cofounder and Cochair, XML Working Group, U.S. CIO Council “I found the author’s straightforward style quite comfortable and informative. I heartily recommend this book, especially for government XML developers interested in the broader area of E-Forms. Understanding XForms is key to developing robust and flexible E-Forms solutions that separate content, logic, validation, and presentation. You’ll never look at (X)HTML forms the same way after reading Raman’s book.” — Kenneth Sall GSA eGov Technical Architect/XML Specialist, SiloSmashers “Reusable components such as E-Forms are at the heart of the U.S. Federal Enterprise Architecture and E-Government, and XML standards-based solutions are starting to appear for use across the government. T. V. Raman’s book meticulously explains how XForms leverage the power of using XML for E-Forms and have been designed to abstract much of XML’s functionality into a set of components referred to as MVC (Model, View, Controller), which separates the model from its final presentation. This XForms component architecture serves as an excellent roadmap for the reader. T. V. eloquently shows how XForms make the original promise of ‘the document is the interface’ a reality so the collected data can be directly submitted to a Web service—thus putting a human face on Web services!” —Brand Niemann, Ph.D., Chair, XML Web Services Working Group, U.S. CIO Council XForms—XML-powered Web forms—are set to replace HTML forms as the backbone of electronic commerce. XForms enable the creation and editing of structured XML content within a familiar Web browser environment, which is likely to play a key role in enabling simple browser-based access to Web services. XForms leverage the power of XML in modeling, collecting, and serializing user input. In this book, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XForms specification editor T. V. Raman explains how programmers can create durable and dependable feature-rich forms accessible from multiple platforms and devices and available in multiple languages and modes. XForms play a key role in connecting humans to information technologies, deployed as Web services. This book begins by providing an overview of the XForms technology and the set of XML standards on which it is built, including XML Path Language (XPath), Dom2 events, XML events, XML namespaces, and XML Schema. Part II profiles the XForms architecture and its components. An introduction to the available user interface controls leads into a guide to creating complex user interfaces. The following chapters describe XForms model properties, functions, actions, and events. Each chapter’s increasingly complex examples illustrate the concepts discussed. The final part of the book details how XForms will be used to create a new generation of human-centric, multimodal, accessible Web transactions. Readers will learn: Why XForms can deliver better user interaction at less cost How the XForms technology works What comprises the XForms architecture How to use XForms to connect users to Web services How XForms can accommodate spoken and visual interaction How to ensure universal accessibility to Web content with XForms XForms will transform the way companies and consumers handle Web transactions. provides Web developers, IT professionals, and Web server administrators with a firm grasp of this standard, how it will shape emerging solutions, and how it will change the nature of their day-to-day work. XForms: XML Powered Web Forms

XQuery Kick Start delivers a concise introduction to the XQuery standard, and useful implementation advice for developers needing to put it into practice. The book starts by explaining the role of XQuery in the XML family of specifications, and its relationship with XPath. The authors then explain the specification in detail, describing the semantics and data model, before moving to examples using XQuery to manipulate XML databases and document storage systems. Later chapters discuss Java implementations of XQuery and development tools that facilitate the development of Web sites with XQuery. This book is up to date with the latest XQuery specifications, and includes coverage of new features for extending the XQuery language.

Praise for Effective XML “This is an excellent collection of XML best practices: essential reading for any developer using XML. This book will help you avoid common pitfalls and ensure your XML applications remain practical and interoperable for as long as possible.” — Edd Dumbill, Managing Editor, XML.com and Program Chair, XML Europe “A collection of useful advice about XML and related technologies. Well worth reading both before, during, and after XML application development.” — Sean McGrath, CTO, Propylon “A book on many best practices for XML that we have been eagerly waiting for.” — Akmal B. Chaudhri, Editor, IBM developerWorks “The fifty easy-to-read items cover many aspects of XML, ranging from how to use markup effectively to what schema language is best for what task. Sometimes controversial, but always relevant, Elliotte Rusty Harold’s book provides best practices for working with XML that every user and implementer of XML should be aware of.” — Michael Rys, Ph.D., Program Manager, SQL Server XML Technologies, Microsoft Corporation “ Effective XML is an excellent book with perfect timing. Finally, an XML book everyone needs to read! Effective XML is a fount of XML best practices and solid advice. Whether you read Effective XML cover to cover or randomly one section at a time, its clear writing and insightful recommendations enlighten, entertain, educate, and ultimately improve the effectiveness of even the most expert XML developer. I’ll tell you what I tell all my coworkers and customers: You need this book.” — Michael Brundage, Technical Lead, XML Query Processing, Microsoft WebData XML Team “This book provides great insight for all developers who write XML software, regardless of whether the software is a trivial application-specific XML processor or a fullblown W3C XML Schema Language validator. Mr. Harold covers everything from a very important high-level terminology discussion to details about parsed XML nodes. The well-researched comparisons of currently available XML-related software products, as well as the key criteria for selecting between XML technologies, exemplify the thoroughness of this book.” — Cliff Binstock, Author, The XML Schema Complete Reference If you want to become a more effective XML developer, you need this book. You will learn which tools to use when in order to write legible, extensible, maintainable and robust XML code. Page 36: How do you write DTDs that are independent of namespace prefixes? Page 82: What do parsers reliably report and what don't they? Page 130: Which schema language is the right one for your job? Page 178: Which API should you choose for maximum speed and minimum size? Page 257: What can you do to ensure fast, reliable access to DTDs and schemas without making your document less portable? Page 283: Is XML too verbose for your application? Elliotte Rusty Harold provides you with 50 practical rules of thumb based on real-world examples and best practices. His engaging writing style is easy to understand and illustrates how you can save development time while improving your XML code. Learn to write XML that is easy to edit, simple to process, and is fully interoperable with other applications and code. Understand how to design and document XML vocabularies so they are both descriptive and extensible. After reading this book, you'll be ready to choose the best tools and APIs for both large-scale and small-scale processing jobs. Elliotte provides you with essential information on building services such as verification, compression, authentication, caching, and content management. If you want to design, deploy, or build better systems that utilize XML—then buy this book and get going!

This second edition of the bestselling Learning XML provides web developers with a concise but grounded understanding of XML (the Extensible Markup Language) and its potential-- not just a whirlwind tour of XML.The author explains the important and relevant XML technologies and their capabilities clearly and succinctly with plenty of real-life projects and useful examples. He outlines the elements of markup--demystifying concepts such as attributes, entities, and namespaces--and provides enough depth and examples to get started. Learning XML is a reliable source for anyone who needs to know XML, but doesn't want to waste time wading through hundreds of web sites or 800 pages of bloated text.For writers producing XML documents, this book clarifies files and the process of creating them with the appropriate structure and format. Designers will learn what parts of XML are most helpful to their team and will get started on creating Document Type Definitions. For programmers, the book makes syntax and structures clear. Learning XML also discusses the stylesheets needed for viewing documents in the next generation of browsers, databases, and other devices. Learning XML illustrates the core XML concepts and language syntax, in addition to important related tools such as the CSS and XSL styling languages and the XLink and XPointer specifications for creating rich link structures. It includes information about three schema languages for validation: W3C Schema, Schematron, and RELAX-NG, which are gaining widespread support from people who need to validate documents but aren't satisfied with DTDs. Also new in this edition is a chapter on XSL-FO, a powerful formatting language for XML. If you need to wade through the acronym soup of XML and start to really use this powerful tool, Learning XML, will give you the roadmap you need.

How profitable (or successful) is your e-business investment? How effective is your e-business at attracting new customers and retaining existing ones? What is the availability of your e-business Web server infrastructure and performance of your Web transactions? These questions, which are critical in measuring e-business success, are both behavioral and operational in nature. It is necessary to measure both e-business and IT metrics, which are closely linked, and have a direct effect on each other. For example, a spike in web traffic (or a single hit for that matter) has a direct effect on server load and the systems that process the transaction. Therefore, it is critical to analyze each of these metrics and draw correlations between them.

IBM DB2 Universal Database v8.1.2 will help you access any information, from any application, from anywhere in your organization, anytime—and do it all more easily and cost-effectively than you ever thought possible. Now, in DB2 Version 8: The Official Guide, a team of IBM DB2 experts shows experienced DB2 professionals exactly how to make the most of DB2 Version 8 in any environment—Linux®, UNIX®, or Windows®. The authors draw on extensive personal experience helping customers implement state-of-the-art DB2 solutions, and unparalleled access to the IBM DB2 development team. They offer detailed, never-before-published technical guidance for the key challenges you'll face in delivering high-performance DB2 databases, e-business infrastructure, and enterprise integration solutions. Coverage includes: Simplifying management with the Configuration Advisor, HealthCenter(, and Memory Visualizer Integrating the enterprise via Federated Web Services and the DB2 enhanced XML productivity tools Maximizing database scalability, availability, and robustness Using multidimensional data clustering and other integrated business intelligence tools Integrating with IBM WebSphere and Microsoft software development tools Leveraging key improvements in DB2 SQL functionality The accompanying CD-ROM contains a complete trial version of IBM® DB2® Universal Database Personal Edition Version 8.1, for Windows® Operating Environments, Evaluation Copy, plus the DB2 demonstration program for trying out the various SQL commands on your own machine. If you're an experienced DB2 professional who's ready to take DB2 Version 8 to the max, DB2 Version 8: The Official Guide is the book you've been searching for.

Oracle system performance inefficiencies often go undetected for months or even years--even under intense scrutiny--because traditional Oracle performance analysis methods and tools are fundamentally flawed. They're unreliable and inefficient.Oracle DBAs and developers are all too familiar with the outlay of time and resources, blown budgets, missed deadlines, and marginally effective performance fiddling that is commonplace with traditional methods of Oracle performance tuning. In this crucial book, Cary Millsap, former VP of Oracle's System Performance Group, clearly and concisely explains how to use Oracle's response time statistics to diagnose and repair performance problems. Cary also shows how "queueing theory" can be applied to response time statistics to predict the impact of upgrades and other system changes. Optimizing Oracle Performance eliminates the time-consuming, trial-and-error guesswork inherent in most conventional approaches to tuning. You can determine exactly where a system's performance problem is, and with equal importance, where it is not, in just a few minutes--even if the problem is several years old. Optimizing Oracle Performance cuts a path through the complexity of current tuning methods, and streamlines an approach that focuses on optimization techniques that any DBA can use quickly and successfully to make noticeable--even dramatic--improvements.For example, the one thing database users care most about is response time. Naturally, DBAs focus much of their time and effort towards improving response time. But it is entirely too easy to spend hundreds of hours to improve important system metrics such as hit ratios, average latencies, and wait times, only to find users are unable to perceive the difference. And an expensive hardware upgrade may not help either.It doesn't have to be that way. Technological advances have added impact, efficiency, measurability, predictive capacity, reliability, speed, and practicality to the science of Oracle performance optimization. Optimizing Oracle Performance shows you how to slash the frustration and expense associated with unraveling the true root cause of any type of performance problem, and reliably predict future performance.The price of this essential book will be paid back in hours saved the first time its methods are used.

Easy Microsoft Office Access 2003 takes the work out of learning this powerful database by using short, easy-to-follow lessons that show you how to accomplish basic tasks quickly and efficiently! It is the perfect book for beginners who want to learn Microsoft's database application through a visual, full-color approach. More than 100 hands-on lessons are designed to teach the easiest, fastest, or most direct way to accomplish common Access tasks. The book is suited for new Access users, as well as those upgrading from an earlier version.

Microsoft Access 11 is a powerful, relational database software package that makes it easier for you to create and manage complex databases. With Access, you can create a database quickly from scratch or by using and Access database Wizard. Once you¿ve created your database, Access provides all the tools you need to enter and manipulate data. Using Access, you can do the following: Quickly start a new database by using the Database Wizard. Create tables from scratch or by using a Wizard. Add and edit database information by using both tables and forms. Manipulate data in a number of tables by using queries and reports.

Tom Kyte of Oracle Magazine’s “Ask Tom” column has written the definitive guide to designing and building high-performance, scalable Oracle applications. The book covers schema design, SQL and PL/SQL, tables and indexes, and much more. From the exclusive publisher of Oracle Press books, this is a must-have resource for all Oracle developers and DBAs.

Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) is one of the access methods used to process data. Many of us have used VSAM and work with VSAM data sets daily, but exactly how it works and why we use it instead of another access method is a mystery. This book helps to demystify VSAM and gives you the information necessary to understand, evaluate, and use VSAM properly. It clarifies VSAM functions for application programmers who work with VSAM. The practical, straightforward approach should dispel much of the complexity associated with VSAM. Wherever possible an example is used to reinforce a description of a VSAM function. This IBM Redbook is intended as a supplement to existing product manuals. It is intended to be used as an initial point of reference for VSAM functions. This book also builds upon the subject of Record Level Sharing and the new z/OS feature called DFSMStvs.

This book is for database designers and database administrators using Visio, which is the database component of Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET for Enterprise Architects suite, also included in MSDN subscriptions. This is the only guide to this product that tells DBAs how to get their job done. Although primarily focused on tool features, the book also provides an introduction to data modeling, and includes practical advice on managing database projects. The principal author was the program manager of VEA's database modeling solutions. · Explains how to model databases with Microsoft® Visio for Enterprise Architects (VEA), focusing on tool features.· Provides a platform-independent introduction to data modeling using both Object Role Modeling (ORM) and Entity Relationship Modeling (ERM), and includes practical advice on managing database projects.· Additional ORM models, course notes, and add-ins available online.

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, the reader picks up all the skills needed to increase the effectiveness and reliability of Access applications. Using a straightforward, step-by-step approach, each lesson builds upon the previous one, allowing the reader to quickly learn the essentials of Access programming from the ground up. The book helps the reader to understand the fundamentals of the Access architecture, gain fast knowledge of the new features that Access offers, learn how to effectively use the latest tools and features of Access by following practical, real-world examples, and get expert tips from the best-selling author, Alison Balter. This book is designed for the way readers learn. They can go through each step-by-step chapter or just choose the lessons that interest them the most.

Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Access 2003 is a comprehensive reference for all the features of Access 2003. This edition adds new chapters on collaboration with Microsoft SharePoint Team Server, and creating or consuming XML Web Services, both of which are hot topics. The XML chapter includes Access 2003¿s new XML export/import features. The book¿s organization follows the development process for typical Access database applications. Detailed, step-by-step instructions with icons guide those who are new to Access through table design, data addition, importing data from external sources, query design and execution, and designing data entry forms and printed reports. Chapters on advanced form and report design emphasize data-entry efficiency and presentation clarity.

Life science data integration and interoperability is one of the most challenging problems facing bioinformatics today. In the current age of the life sciences, investigators have to interpret many types of information from a variety of sources: lab instruments, public databases, gene expression profiles, raw sequence traces, single nucleotide polymorphisms, chemical screening data, proteomic data, putative metabolic pathway models, and many others. Unfortunately, scientists are not currently able to easily identify and access this information because of the variety of semantics, interfaces, and data formats used by the underlying data sources. Bioinformatics: Managing Scientific Data tackles this challenge head-on by discussing the current approaches and variety of systems available to help bioinformaticians with this increasingly complex issue. The heart of the book lies in the collaboration efforts of eight distinct bioinformatics teams that describe their own unique approaches to data integration and interoperability. Each system receives its own chapter where the lead contributors provide precious insight into the specific problems being addressed by the system, why the particular architecture was chosen, and details on the system's strengths and weaknesses. In closing, the editors provide important criteria for evaluating these systems that bioinformatics professionals will find valuable. * Provides a clear overview of the state-of-the-art in data integration and interoperability in genomics, highlighting a variety of systems and giving insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their different approaches. * Discusses shared vocabulary, design issues, complexity of use cases, and the difficulties of transferring existing data management approaches to bioinformatics systems, which serves to connect computer and life scientists. * Written by the primary contributors of eight reputable bioinformatics systems in academia and industry including: BioKris, TAMBIS, K2, GeneExpress, P/FDM, MBM, SDSC, SRS, and DiscoveryLink.

This IBM Redbooks publication describes how to create and implement a federated data management environment. That environment can enable access to, and use of, multiple heterogeneous data sources as if they were all resident in the same data management system. We use Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) and DB2 as the primary data sources, along with Informix Extended Parallel Server (XPS), Red Brick Warehouse, Oracle9i, and Microsoft Excel as data sources. We also use data management tools, such as IBM DB2 Information Integrator and Informix Enterprise Gateway Manager, to provide the data federation. For data access tools, we use DB2 Command Center, Server Studio JE for Informix, and Brio Explorer to show data federation in action. With the combined functionality of the Informix and DB2 database management systems and the DB2 Information Integrator, you can implement a very powerful federated data management environment. Informix customers will be well positioned to take advantage of the expanded capabilities for integration through data federation, as well as future enhancements.

Business Intelligence and OLAP systems are no longer limited to the privileged few business analysts: they are being democratized by being shared with the rank and file employee demanding a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that is more OLAP-aware. DB2 Cube Views and its cube model provide DB2 the ability to address multidimensional analysis and become an actor in the OLAP world. This IBM Redbooks publication focuses on the innovative technical functionalities of IBM DB2 Cube Views V8.1 to store multidimensional metadata in DB2 catalog; to build automatically model-based summary tables to speed up query performance; and to provide an advanced API to allow other Business Intelligence partners’ tools to benefit from both metadata exchange and improved query performance. This book positions the new functionalities and their benefits, so you can understand and evaluate their applicability in your own Business Intelligence and OLAP system environment. It provides information and examples to help you to get started planning and implementing the new functionalities.

Now that you have installed your SAN, how are you going to manage it? This IBM Redbooks publication describes the new product, IBM Tivoli Storage Area Network Manager, an active, intelligent, business-centric management solution for storage resources across the enterprise. IBM Tivoli Storage Area Network Manager provides effective discovery and presentation of SAN physical and logical topologies and provides multiple views of the SAN, including zones. Through its interface, it can be configured to show historical and real-time monitoring of SAN fabric devices. With IBM Tivoli Storage Area Network Manager, you will know what's on your SAN, how the devices are connected, and how storage is assigned to the hosts. If something goes wrong, or new devices are added, the topology display automatically updates to show the changed topology. SAN generated events can be displayed on the manager system, or forwarded to another SNMP manager or Tivoli Enterprise Console. This book is written for those who want to learn more about IBM Tivoli SAN Manager, as well as those who are about to implement it. This second edition of the book is current to IBM Tivoli SAN Manager V1.2. Please note that the additional material referenced in the text is not available from IBM.

Teach yourself how to use the data management power of the latest version of Microsoft Access—one step at a time! Learn exactly the skills you need for Access 2003 through self-paced, easy-to-follow lessons and hands-on practice files.