Saturday, January 7, 2012

Decision Making Skills

  • Using a DECISION MATRIX to help you to decide between alternatives:

SWOT analysis is a subjective method used to evaluate the STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES, and THREATS involved in trying to attain an objective


Reference:
http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/decisionmaking.htm#DECISION

  • PEST analysis (political, economic, social and technological) describes a framework of macro-environmental factors used in the environmental scanning component of strategic management. It is part of an external analysis when conducting a strategic analysis or doing market research, and gives an overview of the different macro-environmental factors to be taken into consideration. It is a strategic tool for understanding market growth or decline, business position, potential and direction for operations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEST_analysis


  • Identifying "Big Picture" Opportunities and Threats
Changes in your business environment can create great opportunities for your organization – and cause significant threats.PEST Analysis is a simple and widely used tool that helps you analyze the Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, and Technological changes in your business environment. This helps you understand the "big picture" forces of change that you're exposed to, and, from this, take advantage of the opportunities that they present.PEST Analysis is often linked with SWOT Analysis [Add to My Personal Learning Plan] , however, the two tools have different areas of focus. PEST Analysis looks at "big picture" factors that might influence a decision, a market, or a potential new business. SWOT Analysis explores these factors at a business, product-line or product level.These tools complement one another and are often used together.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_09.htm

business analyst role

What are the challenges a BA may need to overcome to respond to the increased expectations of companies who hire business analysts not just to manage requirements, but

also to perform project management and participate on decision-making processes?


To be truly effective, a BA must consider the project requirements their primary concern, from the development of a product vision and scope to detailed user and

software requirements specifications and the change control processes that will be used to manage requirements during the lifetime of the proj


Reference:
http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/expanding-the-business-analyst-role-good-or-bad/

preparation

Top 5 Job Interview Tips
http://career-advice.monster.co.uk/job-interview/preparing-for-job-interviews/top-5-job-interview-tips/article.aspx


Marketing Yourself Successfully - Video Advice
http://career-advice.monster.co.uk/job-interview/job-interview-behaviour/marketing-yourself-successfully-video/article.aspx

What is the difference between an incremental backup and a differential backup?

An Incremental backup backs up only the selected files that have their archive bit set to ON, setting them back to OFF.
a backup of all files that are new or changed since the last backup whether it was a full or an incremental.
The advantage of an Incremental is that it takes the least amount of time and media of all the backup methods.
In the case of restoring with Incremental backups, all the Incremental backups since the last full backup plus the last full backup would be necessary.




A Differential backup backs up only the selected files that have their archive bit set to ON but does not set the archive bit back to OFF.
A Differential backup will back up all selected files that are new and changed since the last full backup.
at restore time; you'll need only the last full backup and the last differential to get a complete restore

Reference:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_an_incremental_backup_and_a_differential_backup


  • Continuous data protection (CDP), also called continuous backup or real-time backup, refers to backup of computer data by automatically saving a copy of every change made to that data, essentially capturing every version of the data that the user saves. In its true form it allows the user or administrator to restore data to any point in time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Data_Protection


Simply stated, continuous data protection (CDP), also called continuous backup, is a storage system that backs up data whenever any change is made in it. In effect, CDP creates an electronic journal of complete storage snapshots, one for every instant in time that data modification occurs.

Why continuous data protection?
IT complexity: Continuous data protection helps ensure continuous availability of the varied, cross-platform environments.
Administrative capability:
Cost factor:Continuous data protection may prove to be a cheaper solution than traditional backup and recovery solutions. Software-based continuous data protection solutions today are easy to deploy and manage,
Data growth:  Remote users in geographically dispersed locations have access to email, core systems and other mission-critical applications. In such cases, continuous data protection makes perfect sense for enterprises with locations in multiple geographies.
Criticality of data:Continuous data protection technologies enable seamless backup and restore at the backend without affecting end users. Many continuous data protection solutions can recover data from any point in time within less than a minute.

Most of the challenges with continuous data protection emanate from the environment being targeted. A true continuous data protection solution will support real-time protection rather than scheduled snapshots. The change rate of the data sets that are being protected could pose challenges to the continuous data protection solution.
https://www.computerweekly.com/tip/Continuous-data-protection-Do-you-need-it

SQL JOIN

  • ChatGPT

SQL JOINs are used to combine rows from two or more tables based on a related column between them. Here’s an explanation of different types of SQL JOINs with Venn diagrams and examples:

1. INNER JOIN

Definition: An INNER JOIN returns records that have matching values in both tables. It retrieves only the rows that satisfy the join condition.

Venn Diagram:

  • A (left table) ∩ B (right table) = Intersection

Example:

Consider two tables:







  • Employees

    IDName
    1Alice
    2Bob
    3Charlie
  • Departments

    IDEmployeeIDDepartment
    11HR
    22IT
    34Finance



  • SELECT Employees.Name, Departments.Department
    FROM Employees
    INNER JOIN Departments ON Employees.ID = Departments.EmployeeID;


    Result:

    NameDepartment
    AliceHR
    BobIT

    2. LEFT OUTER JOIN

    Definition: A LEFT OUTER JOIN returns all records from the left table and the matched records from the right table. If there is no match, the result is NULL on the side of the right table.

    Venn Diagram:

    • A (left table) ∪ (AB) = Left table plus the intersection
    SELECT Employees.Name, Departments.Department
    FROM Employees
    LEFT OUTER JOIN Departments ON Employees.ID = Departments.EmployeeID;


    3. RIGHT OUTER JOIN

    Definition: A RIGHT OUTER JOIN returns all records from the right table and the matched records from the left table. If there is no match, the result is NULL on the side of the left table.

    Venn Diagram:

    • B (right table) ∪ (AB) = Right table plus the intersection

    SELECT Employees.Name, Departments.Department
    FROM Employees
    RIGHT OUTER JOIN Departments ON Employees.ID = Departments.EmployeeID;

    4. FULL OUTER JOIN

    Definition: A FULL OUTER JOIN returns all records when there is a match in either left or right table. It combines the results of both LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN.

    Venn Diagram:

    • A (left table) ∪ B (right table) = Union of both tables

    Example:

    SQL Query:



    SELECT Employees.Name, Departments.Department
    FROM Employees
    FULL OUTER JOIN Departments ON Employees.ID = Departments.EmployeeID;

    Summary

    • INNER JOIN: Retrieves only the rows with matching values in both tables (intersection).
    • LEFT OUTER JOIN: Retrieves all rows from the left table and matching rows from the right table (left table plus intersection).
    • RIGHT OUTER JOIN: Retrieves all rows from the right table and matching rows from the left table (right table plus intersection).
    • FULL OUTER JOIN: Retrieves all rows from both tables, with NULL where there are no matches (union of both tables).

    • The SQL JOIN clause is used whenever we have to select data from 2 or more tables.

    There are 2 types of SQL JOINS – INNER JOINS and OUTER JOINS.

    The INNER JOIN will select all rows from both tables as long as there is a match between the columns we are matching on.

    SQL OUTER JOIN and it has 2 sub-types called LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN.


    The LEFT OUTER JOIN or simply LEFT JOIN (you can omit the OUTER keyword in most databases),
    selects all the rows from the first table listed after the FROM clause, no matter if they have matches in the second table.

    The RIGHT OUTER JOIN or just RIGHT JOIN behaves exactly as SQL LEFT JOIN, except that it returns all rows from the second table (the right table in our SQL JOIN statement).



    References:
    http://www.sql-tutorial.net/SQL-JOIN.asp
    http://www.quackit.com/sql/tutorial/sql_outer_join.cfm
    http://www.tizag.com/sqlTutorial/sqljoin.php
    http://www.sqltutorial.org/sqljoin-innerjoin.aspx




    • INNER JOIN
    Inner join shows matches only when they exist in both tables.this SQL will only give you result with customers who have orders. If the customer does not have order, it will not display that record
    SELECT Customers.*, Orders.* FROM Customers INNER JOIN Orders ON Customers.CustomerID =Orders.CustomerID

    There is another way to visualize the SQL INNER JOIN by using the Venn diagrams

    • LEFT OUTER JOIN
    Left join will display all records in left table of the SQL statement. In SQL below customers with or without orders will be displayed. Order data for customers without orders appears as NULL values
    SELECT Customers.*, Orders.* FROM Customers LEFT OUTER JOIN Orders ON Customers.CustomerID =Orders.CustomerID

    There is another way to visualize the SQL INNER JOIN by using the Venn diagrams

    • RIGHT OUTER JOIN
    Right join will display all records in right table of the SQL statement. In SQL below all orders with or without matching customer records will be displayed. Customer data for orders without customers appears as NULL values
    SELECT Customers.*, Orders.* FROM Customers RIGHT OUTER JOIN Orders ON Customers.CustomerID =Orders.CustomerID

    There is another way to visualize the SQL INNER JOIN by using the Venn diagrams

    • FULL OUTER JOIN
    Full outer join it will return all records from left table and from right table.
    There is another way to visualize the SQL INNER JOIN by using the Venn diagrams




    • JOIN SCHEMA



    • Using Cross Joins

    A cross join that does not have a WHERE clause produces the Cartesian product of the tables involved in the join. The size of a Cartesian product result set is the number of rows in the first table multiplied by the number of rows in the second table.

    The result set contains 170 rows (SalesPerson has 17 rows and SalesTerritory has 10; 17 multiplied by 10 equals 170).

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190690%28v=sql.105%29.aspx


    The SQL CROSS JOIN produces a result set which is the number of rows in the first table multiplied by the number of rows in the second table, if no WHERE clause is used along with CROSS JOIN. This kind of result is called as Cartesian Product
    http://www.w3resource.com/sql/joins/cross-join.php




    • Cross join

    CROSS JOIN returns the Cartesian product of rows from tables in the join. In other words, it will produce rows which combine each row from the first table with each row from the second table



    CREATE TABLE department
    (
     DepartmentID INT,
     DepartmentName VARCHAR(20)
    );

    CREATE TABLE employee
    (
     LastName VARCHAR(20),
     DepartmentID INT
    );



    INSERT INTO department(DepartmentID, DepartmentName) VALUES(31, 'Sales');
    INSERT INTO department(DepartmentID, DepartmentName) VALUES(33, 'Engineering');
    INSERT INTO department(DepartmentID, DepartmentName) VALUES(34, 'Clerical');
    INSERT INTO department(DepartmentID, DepartmentName) VALUES(35, 'Marketing');

    INSERT INTO employee(LastName, DepartmentID) VALUES('Rafferty', 31);
    INSERT INTO employee(LastName, DepartmentID) VALUES('Jones', 33);
    INSERT INTO employee(LastName, DepartmentID) VALUES('Steinberg', 33);
    INSERT INTO employee(LastName, DepartmentID) VALUES('Robinson', 34);
    INSERT INTO employee(LastName, DepartmentID) VALUES('Smith', 34);
    INSERT INTO employee(LastName, DepartmentID) VALUES('John', NULL);

    Example of an explicit cross join:

    SELECT *
    FROM employee
    CROSS JOIN department;

    Example of an implicit cross join:

    SELECT *
    FROM employee, department;


    Inner join

    SELECT *
    FROM employee
    INNER JOIN department ON employee.DepartmentID = department.DepartmentID;

    The following example is equivalent to the previous one, but this time using implicit join notation:

    SELECT *
    FROM employee, department
    WHERE employee.DepartmentID = department.DepartmentID;


    Left outer join

    SELECT *
    FROM employee
    LEFT OUTER JOIN department ON employee.DepartmentID = department.DepartmentID;


    Right outer join

    SELECT *
    FROM employee
    RIGHT OUTER JOIN department ON employee.DepartmentID = department.DepartmentID;


    Full outer join

    SELECT *
    FROM employee
    FULL OUTER JOIN department ON employee.DepartmentID = department.DepartmentID;


    Self-join
    A self-join is joining a table to itself

    SELECT F.EmployeeID, F.LastName, S.EmployeeID, S.LastName, F.Country
    FROM Employee F
    INNER JOIN Employee S ON F.Country = S.Country
    WHERE F.EmployeeID < S.EmployeeID
    ORDER BY F.EmployeeID, S.EmployeeID;


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join_%28SQL%29

    • JOIN Three Tables

    method 1

    SELECT Orders.OrderID, Customers.CustomerName, Shippers.ShipperName
    FROM ((Orders
    INNER JOIN Customers ON Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID)
    INNER JOIN Shippers ON Orders.ShipperID = Shippers.ShipperID);

    method 2
    SELECT tablo1.OrderID, tablo1.CustomerName, Shippers.ShipperName
    FROM (select * from Orders INNER JOIN Customers ON Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID) 
    as tablo1
    INNER JOIN Shippers ON tablo1.ShipperID = Shippers.ShipperID;

    https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_join_inner.asp