How Knowledge-Management Repositories Are Used within Organizations - Essay Example

? MANAGEMENT In this turbulent environment business is not only about distributing the products on the market and selling them to the customers. It is about distributing the right product to the right customer and also at the right time and place. However such precision can only be achieved when an organization has a sound data warehousing and storage systems. The report is also about how an organization gets benefitted by employing such practices into the operations. The essay will principally focus upon the data warehousing techniques of the organizations. Apart from that it will also give insights to the system of knowledge management within the organizations. Apart from that the essay will also highlight on the various types of storage systems. Finally the report will shed light on the advantages of the mentioned storage systems Table of Contents Introduction 4 Data Warehousing 5 Types of Storage system 6 References 8 Introduction Knowledge management can be defined as the set of methods that are responsible for arrangement, distribution, and deployment of knowledge. Knowledge management has a long history; however the form of knowledge management was different from time to time. Knowledge management is a broader topic and plays a significant role in today’s age of information technology. It hugely impacts the action we perform and the decision we make, as both are influenced by some form of knowledge. According to Thomas Bertels knowledge management can be defined as the management or supervision of the organization in the context of continuous regeneration of knowledge. Incorporating information technology within the organization, circulation of knowledge and developing the structure of organization are the examples of knowledge management (The knowledge management forum, n.d.). Thus knowledge management can be portrayed as the capability to manage knowledge. These days organizations have also started to view ‘knowledge’ as a type of resource. However in the context of organization knowledge, repository can be depicted as a computer system which incessantly captures and evaluates the knowledge bases of an organization. It is normally a shared system within the organization where people browses and queries both structured as well as unstructured data. Such activities are principally carried out to preserve knowledge assets of the organization and also to facilitate group working. The next half of the report will present a brief description about data warehousing. Data Warehousing Data warehousing is the process by which an organization stores its historical data in a structured form, so that it can be used further. Data warehousing can be defined as the set of techniques, methods and tools that are employed to offer support to the knowledge workers such as managers, directors, and analysts. The primary function of a data warehousing is to facilitate availability of information which further helps in the process of decision making and also for enhancing informational resources. William H. Inmon defined data warehouse as an integrated, non volatile, issue oriented collection of data which helps in the decision making process of the management (Inmon, 2005, p. 32). Data warehouse is the base storage location, which contains data from a number of sources and then transforms it into a multi dimensional and informational model that can be used for the process of querying and investigation. A data ware house also holds the capability to carry out many activities. For example a training manager from an organization may ask ‘what are the best possible orientations for a newly recruited employee?’ Apart from that personnel from administration department may ask ‘which particular strategy is more likely to get success in the market place’. Each of the aforementioned questions needs information pertaining to the area of research and this information instigates from the data warehouse. In general, on regular basis information the operational systems are imported and extracted in the data warehouses. Data warehouses even take information from the third party information system. As a result queries and complex inquiries are carried out from data warehouse with fewer disruptions in the operational systems. Data warehouses focuses on specific organizational concepts such as products, customers, sales figure, and also about the orders. A storage system on the other hand is a diversified field and can have different meanings to different users. The importance is purely dependent upon the users of the system. Generally storage systems have capacity and high performing hardware that holds the ability to store a large amount of information. In technical terms storage system is a group of hard drives that are located inside the server and is the space where data is actually stored. The next section will discuss about the various forms of storage systems. Types of Storage system Modern system of computing employs a number of storage types in order to maintain data in a structured form. These systems maintain a balance between the various storage types. This also ensures organizational computing needs gets fulfilled. Some of the common storage types are discussed below:- Primary storage- Primary memory mainly comprises of volatile or unstable Random Access Memory (RAM) and is probably the most high performing storage system. The advantage of primary storage is after the task gets completed the memoir gets cleaned automatically and reserves space for further operation. Secondary storage – It is a non volatile and inexpensive form of storage. Here the information is stored for the purpose of long term usage. Hard drives, tapes, disks, CD, DVD are some of the examples of secondary storage. The main advantage of a secondary storage is that data gets stored permanently and can be used for a longer period of time. Some of the modern versions of secondary storages are coming up with data recovery systems, where the user can even recover the deleted data from the storage device. Virtual storage– It allows the usage of additional primary memory by using additional secondary storage. Its biggest advantage is its cost effectiveness. Random access storage- It allows the operating system of the computer to ask for contents at any time. Examples include RAM and Hard disk. Sequential access – Sequential storage is about scanning an entire media and then to reach the desired position. Common example of sequential storage is magnetic tape. Volatile storage – Volatile storage is a type of storage that loses its contents as soon as the power gets turned off. The most common example of volatile storage is RAM. Hence this type of storage is not the permanent storage of data. Non volatile storage – A non volatile storage is not dependent upon the availability of power. Hence once data gets stored in non volatile storage, data remains intact until and unless the user removes it (Stewart, Chapple & Gibson, 2012, data/information storage). References Inmon, W. H. (2005). Building the Data Warehouse (4th ed.). New Delhi: Wiley-India. Stewart, J. M., Chapple, M., & Gibson, D. (2012). CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional Study Guide (6th ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. The knowledge management forum. (No Date). What is Knowledge Management. Retrieved from http://www.km-forum.org/what_is.htm. Read More