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Introduction

27 August, 2015 - 17:03

An organization engages in various business processes—such as hiring employees, purchasing inventory, and collecting cash from customers—and the activities that occur during execution of these business processes are referred to as events. Event data processing is the process whereby event-related data are collected and stored. This chapter describes event data processing, discusses the major approaches employed to capture, process, and store event data, and recounts the types of data collected in event data processing systems. After introducing the major types of events, the text describes a crucial element of the Information System—the data. You need to know how data and databases will become an integral part of your day-to-day work. What data do we collect? How do we collect the data, store the data, and use the data?

Consider the importance of the groundwork laid in this chapter. In Chapters 4 and 5, we focus on advanced techniques for managing data and speeding the delivery of information. In Chapters 6 and 7, we emphasize techniques for developing good Information Systems that capture and deliver the right data. In Chapters 8 and 9, we focus on techniques to assure the reliability and security of data. Finally, in Chapters 10–14, we focus on how data are captured and processed across an organization’s business processes. What’s the moral to the story? If you can’t access good, useful data, you can’t make good business decisions.