Introduction
Incorta is a platform that you can do so many things with. Its ability to put data from so many different sources at your users’ fingertips so that they can both combine disparate sources and deep dive at scale makes it a tool that you will likely find more and more uses for. Fortunately, Incorta is capable of expanding to meet your needs. That said, whenever you consider new initiatives, you will want to plan ahead so that your existing user base is not affected by what is upcoming.
What you should know before reading this article
We recommend that you be familiar with these Incorta concepts before exploring this topic further.'
Applies to
These concepts apply to all releases of Incorta.
Let’s Go
Business Preparation
Management consulting 101 recommends that you plan out your initiatives ahead of time and prioritize them based on their impact, with those that have the largest ROI or align most closely to your company’s strategic initiatives going at the top of the list. Incorta, with its ability to ingest data, model it, and start building dashboards very quickly, gives you some leeway for skunkworks outside of that structure, but the concept still applies. You really do want to expend your Incorta efforts on the most impactful use cases first.
It makes sense to work with the business owners who use or wish to start using Incorta on a regular basis to determine what initiatives/use cases they would like to see go into Incorta. Create a backlog of all the requests and then prioritize them. You can even create a roadmap that outlines what will be added to Incorta and when. You will find that some requests are small (e.g. data is already there and just want a dashboard) and others are big (e.g. combining multiple new data sources so need to build data model). In the case of small initiatives, getting resources trained up on Incorta dashboarding may be enough to move them along quickly whereas with bigger initiatives you may need someone who has architect skills. Another thing to do as you consider new initiatives is to check out what blueprints are available from Incorta. You might just find that much of the work has been done already.
When it comes to executing on new use cases, it is important to get commitment from the key resources. Of course, since this is Incorta, you will need someone with the right level of Incorta knowledge and experience to work on the project. It is not unusual to need access to a Subject Matter Expert (SME) who can explain requirements, answer questions that come up along the way, and validate results. You will also need access to IT resources that can help with things like connecting to data sources, deploying connectors and provisioning. Identify who you need and lock them in so that you can move forward efficiently.
If, along with rolling out new content, you are bringing new users onto Incorta, make sure that they get the proper training. Incorta’s Learn site has free training opportunities for every level of user including Basics for users who will just view the content you provide. We also recommend creating
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Recommendation
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Notes
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Align new work to company initiatives
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Work on use cases that will have the biggest positive impact first. Alignment to company initiatives and ROI are important factors to consider.
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Get resource commitment
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Make sure all the needed resources, both business and technical, are lined up and available to work on the initiative.
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Train up new users
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Make sure that new users get the proper training both for Incorta use generally and for the specific use cases with which they will work. Incorta Learn is a great resource.
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Technical Preparation
As you evaluate your new Incorta initiatives, it is important to take into consideration how they might affect the performance of your Incorta cluster. Understand how much new data (new rows) will be coming into Incorta and how that data will grow over time, if Spark usage will increase (e.g. because of new materialized views), and how many new users will be accessing Incorta. These are all factors that may drive the need to expand the size of your Incorta Cluster. See the Sizing Guide for detail on how these different factors can affect sizing or work with your Customer Success representative if you would like assistance.
If you determine a need to expand your cluster footprint, consider how long that will take as you plan your initiative. With Incorta Cloud it can take as little as a few minutes to size up but if you are on premises, you will need to work with your IT team to work out the timing. Remember, you can work with limited but representative data in your non-prod instance as a measure that allows you to begin work before your new hardware topology is ready.
You may also need to plan ahead with regards to where the new work will live and be accessed by users. The simplest place to expand is within an existing tenant but there are lots of other choices from creating a new tenant to creating a new cluster. Your choices here can affect how you manage Incorta at your company going forward. The Incorta Solution Topology article covers what to consider and best practices.
Finally, think through security so as not to affect existing users. It is a good idea to have a documented Security Model that you can refer to and update whenever you work on a new initiative. If you get security wrong, you could expose data to folks who should not see it or not expose it to those who should. Getting your design right upfront will save you headaches and possible compliance problems.
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Recommendation
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Notes
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Understand impact on hardware sizing
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Use the Sizing Guide to help you understand if you need to grow your Incorta cluster(s). Work with Customer Success if you need assistance with making the evaluation.
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Consider Incorta Solution Topology
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Think about where your new Incorta work will reside.
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Think through security
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Fit the security approach for your new initiatives into your existing Security Model.
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