1

Click here to load reader

Master minds - Teradataapps.teradata.com/tdmo/v07n03/pdf/AR5382.pdf · tise, Teradata Master certification gives her an entree into the Master’s Team Discussion Forum, informally

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Master minds - Teradataapps.teradata.com/tdmo/v07n03/pdf/AR5382.pdf · tise, Teradata Master certification gives her an entree into the Master’s Team Discussion Forum, informally

he title “Teradata Certified Master”

denotes a person of achievement and

knowledge—a guru, in some respects. Royal

Bank of Canada (RBC) Financial Group

has such a guru: Ruth Fenwick, Teradata

technical lead. Fenwick knows from experi-

ence that being a Teradata Master opens up

a new level of access to the best Teradata

minds around the world.

A Teradata Master since 2003, Fenwick

is responsible for all of the hardware and

software upgrades as well as performance

capacity management. “I’m the technical

source for everybody else,” she says.

Fenwick began working with Teradata

in 1997 and received her first Teradata cer-

tification in 2000, followed by her second

in 2001. A job change led to her current

position at RBC and gave impetus to her

mandate. “As the recognized data ware-

housing leader in Canada, it was only proper

that RBC have the first Canadian customer

Teradata Master,” she says. “I achieved four

of the certifications in the three months after

I joined the bank.” In fact, she passed the last

three exams in two weeks.

Fenwick has found that Master certifi-

cation gives her credibility as well as holistic

knowledge of Teradata; she has learned how

all the elements of Teradata work and how

they are connected. “I’m never going to do

a physical implementation,” she says, “but

it was interesting to learn how it works.”

In addition to improving her own exper-

tise, Teradata Master certification gives her

an entree into the Master’s Team Discussion

Forum, informally known as the Master’s

Team Mailing List. The forum allows mem-

bers to query one another about Teradata

best practices and “how tos,” providing a

wealth of real-world information. “Member-

ship to the Master’s Team Mailing List gives

me access to the best minds in the industry

and insight into how other customers are

fixing real problems,” says Fenwick.

Recently, Fenwick needed to optimize

the bank’s statistics collection. She turned

to the Master’s Team Discussion Forum to

find out how others had approached the

same challenge. She elaborates, “Rather

than spending three weeks doing a lot of

investigation and analysis, I was able to ask

the Master’s Team Mailing List, ‘Is there

anybody out there doing this? What is

your experience?’ ”

Not only did she receive an answer, but

it also gave her a new way of looking at

the data. “Because I pinged the Master’s

Team Mailing List, I received a view from

someone that guided me to data mine the

statistics so I could do better analysis,”

Fenwick explains.

Getting this type of feedback is an excel-

lent way to gauge whether an idea will be

successful, according to Fenwick. “When

you receive a couple of people replying,

‘This is great; it worked for us,’ then you

go into it with a greater sense of confidence

that this is going to work,” she says. Instil-

ling confidence is what Teradata certifi-

cation and the Master’s Team Mailing List

are all about.

Shirley S. Savage has published articles on

technology, energy and science.

Master minds

TERADATA@ WORK

Photo

grap

hy by M

atthew Plexm

an

Teradata technical lead at RBC achieves Certified Master status and gains access to the best minds and resources in the Teradata community. by Shirley S. Savage

TeradataMagazine.com

T

Ruth Fenwick, Teradata technical lead at Royal Bankof Canada Financial Group, has reaped the benefitsof being a Teradata Certified Master.

PAGE 1 | Teradata Magazine | September 2007 | ©2007 Teradata Corporation | AR-5382