Data Mining Test Facility Opens In Arizona

A new facility for testing and developing data mining technologies has been constructed by KPMG Consulting, the consulting arm of KPMG Peat Marwick LLP (New York) and

Retrograde Data-Systems (New York). The Center for Data Insight (CDI), located on the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, combines KPMG's business and analytical expertise with Retrograde's data mining analysis and the university's engineering, technology and business resources. Companies can come to the center to test tools from data warehousing to analytical engines, and use up to six different software tools for building and testing prototype data mining models. Among the vendor partners are Angoss Software (Toronto, Ontario), Cognos (Burlington, MA), Oracle (Redwood Shores, CA), SAS Institute (Cary, NC) and Sun Microsystems (Mountain View, CA). The center will also allow NAU faculty "to perform leading-edge applied research for businesses," said NAU Provost Charles Connell. An open house of the facility, hosted by KPMG and Oracle, is being conducted today.