MindfulEye
Investors get "in the know" with robust Internet monitoring service powered by Microsoft
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Company Overview
MindfulEye is a subscription-based Internet monitoring service that automatically alerts investors in near real time to online news, rumours, information and changes in public sentiment about companies they are interested in. The service is being developed by Vancouver-based MindfulEye Systems, Inc. (MindfulEye™), a wholly owned subsidiary of MindfulEye, Inc. MindfulEye is the creator of Lexant™, an artificial intelligence technology that can read and understand language as it occurs on the Internet. MindfulEye’s first application of Lexant is for the investment community.
Business Challenge
In launching the service, MindfulEye had several scalability concerns. As the company adds more and more sources of content, it was imperative that the database expands proportionately. And as the subscriber base grows, database usage will increase significantly. “Our biggest challenge relates to scalability in every sense of the word,” says Todd Cusolle, MindfulEye’s chief technology officer. “We needed to ensure that we were on track, that the database could handle our rate of growth, and that we could continually expand without hitting a wall.”
Options Explored
The MindfulEye platform, built on Microsoft technology, was running a successful beta mode under SQL Server 7.0. Yet as the monitoring service’s launch date grew closer, Cusolle and his team expanded their wish list to include data mining, distributed partitioned views, Extensible Markup Language (XML), data transformation services, full-text searching and replication. After carefully reviewing the options, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 provided the solution powerful enough to deliver a robust reporting and analysis environment with scalability at its core. “We explored all the major database products on the market,” says Cusolle. “But there were some great risks in introducing a different vendor into the mix. We knew that SQL Server 2000 would be scalable, reliable, easy to maintain and highly supported by Microsoft service. It’s also relatively easy to find potential employees who have extensive experience working with SQL Server. From all sides, there was no doubt that the SQL Server 2000 would be the great fit for our particular needs.”
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Solution
SQL Server 2000 is the data management and analysis backbone for Microsoft’s planned series of .NET applications and services. SQL Server 2000 is tailored to rapidly deliver Web-enabled applications for e-commerce, data warehousing and line of business that are highly scalable and reliable. SQL Server 2000 will interoperate with MindfulEye’s other Microsoft technology, including Windows 2000 and Internet Information Services, Visual Basic and VisualC++ COM development systems.
Deployment Time
Throughout the entire project, Cusolle and his team worked closely with Microsoft Consulting Services to ensure the migration went smoothly. Proof-of-concept and performance testing began in June 2000. Deployment continued over the next several months. MindfulEye is launching its monitoring service on SQL Server 7 in November 2000. Under the Rapid Deployment Program, MindfulEye expects to complete its migration to SQL Server 2000 by December 2000, several months ahead of wide scale adoption.
Business Benefits
With SQL Server 2000, MindfulEye can query, analyze and manipulate data over the Web and use XML to exchange data between loosely coupled systems. MindfulEye has taken full advantage of SQL Server 2000’s Distributed Partitioned Views feature, which distributes data among a group of servers and coordinates query processing. “In the past, the partitioning of data has been an issue,” says Cusolle. “With SQL Server 2000 it’s seamless and transparent. Our developers can come up with ideas as if they’re developing on a single server. We can have SQL Server 2000 run across 10 servers with very little modification, saving considerable time and effort. As our business grows, servers can be added for even greater scalability.” SQL Server 2000’s full-text search capability allows MindfulEye’s customers to search unstructured data such as Microsoft Word documents, web pages, or Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. “Our customers won’t settle for limited search capabilities,” says Cusolle. “As we move into literally billions of records, full-text searching will allow customers to specify more parameters in their text search. It will vastly improve customer service because it will help our users find the information they need to make knowledgeable investment decisions.” SQL Server 2000’s data mining technology helps MindfulEye to analyze data in relational databases and multidimensional OLAP cubes and uncover patterns and trends that can be used to make predictions and derive additional value from customer data.
Resulting Value
“We’re always trying to reduce risk,” says Cusolle. “As a chief technology officer, I’m challenged by questions like, ‘How can I be sure the project will be successful when it grows 1,000 times bigger than it is now?’ Scaling up is not a trivial task, so if scalability and reliability are built into a product that has been well tested by the manufacturer, we can save ourselves a lot of development time. With Microsoft as our technology, MindfulEye can move forward confidently and chart a path for a successful e-future.”
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information via the World Wide Web, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/canada/casestudies/
http://www.mindfuleye.com
http://www.microsoft.com/business/services/mcs.asp
