Self-Service BI?!

We keep hearing about "SELF-SERVE" functionalities in new versions of BI tools specifically with Microsoft plan to delivering BI to the masses.

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduced some self-service options to allow business units and users to create and share BI solutions. Here is what MS says about them:

• SQL Server Project "Gemini” Add-in for Excel

Enables Excel power users to create BI solutions by streamlining the integration of data from multiple sources enabling interactive modeling and analysis of massive amount of data and by supporting the seamless sharing of data models and reports through Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010

• SharePoint 2010 based Operations Dashboard

This SharePoint managed service enables front-line operators and administrators to monitor access and utilization of analyses and reports as well as track patterns of hardware usage to help ensure the right security privileges are applied and user generated solutions are available, up-to-date, and managed in a consistent way.

• SQL Server Reporting Services Report Builder 3.0

This updated ad-hoc reporting client accelerates report creation, collaboration and consistency by allowing users to create and share report components that can be accessed via the shared component library and by enabling the rapid assembly of comprehensive business reports using these shared components.

• Rich visualization of geospatial data

New support for geospatial visualization including mapping, routing, and custom shapes can help your end users create customized reports that leverage existing content objects, such as queries, data regions, and charts and graphs. You can also enhance location-based data reports with Bing Maps in Report Builder 3.0.

I know many people are excited about them and especially about project Gemini, here are some quotes I found on the net:

• Gemini enables end users to work with business data
• 100 million rows on a laptop with Office 2010 Excel
• Slicers and spark lines in Excel 2010 are bringing BI to everyone
• Excel 2010 provides BI for the masses by making it easy to build your own charts/graphs on and offline

I agree with all of them, BUT, the question is: are we missing the main goal of BI: “single version of the truth”. Is Gemini leading us to the next generation of “Spreadmarts”? Does having Excel and access to source data make a BI solution?

From my experience, if you ask business-users to do something which requires more than 1 minute of technical training, most probably they get confused, and in most cases, anything more than 5 clicks away is considered as “too technical” and won’t be adobted by business users. So how do we expect them to get this toy and build a BI solution?!

I believe the idea of "Self Service BI" is like a double edged sword, though it can be useful in the same way as we do self-service check out in supermarkets: do it yourself when you don’t have many items, so you can save time, but you will be responsible for that and if you get confused about something, that’s OK, you may ask a staff to help you out with that, but it may take more time than standing in line in the first place.

However, it’s a quick way to discover the underlying data, and can be handy in some cases such as the following scenarios:

• If a business analyst needs to see what data is available in data sources
• To analyse source data and create simple reports when underlying data is clean and in simple structure
• To create a prototype for a reporting solution
• BUT, when you are dealing with complicated logics to bring data in, or when there are too many data sources and you are not a BI specialist: forget about it!

I don’t want to be negative; I like Microsoft and their BI toolset, but is it the right way to go? Does it lead us to the “BI for masses” idea or towards “messy BI”?!

I’d like to hear your thoughts.

MCTS & MCITP Certifications for SQL Server 2008 BI

Last week I got the results of those beta exams (71-448, 71-452) and surprisingly, I passed both!

The surprise was because I passed them though I hadn't had a chance to work with SQL Server 2008 in a real project before, and that means there is something wrong with the exams that you can pass them based on your SQL Server 2005 experience and just reading about new features of the 2008 version.

But the good thing is that I've passed them and there is nothing to worry about till the next version! The next version of SQL Server code-named "Killimanjaro", will be released in the first half of 2010, according to Microsoft officials. The first tech preview test builds of Kilimanjaro are due in the first half of 2009. It will provide the foundation for Microsoft's first data warehouse appliance, code-named Madison, and a BI tool called Gemini that's being designed to bring a broader range of employees into the BI fold.

SQL Server 2008 RTM

Download SQL Server 2008 Enterprise 180-day evaluation from here:

• Trial Experience for Developers
• Trial Experience for IT Professionals

SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack (August 2008). It contains 17 new redistributable and backward compatibility components and add-on providers. Download it from here:

• SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack - Aug 2008

Have you ever wondered what the last meeting before a product ships is like? Have a look at inside the SQL 2008 ship room!.

A feedback on beta exam 71-448 (70-448)

I'm just coming back from MS beta exam 71-448 (TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance). There were too many questions (70!) and the time was around 3 hours which was more than enough.

It was a bit disappointing that not many questions were specifically related to SQL Server 2008 new features -not even 5 questions were specific to that!- so if you don't know much about the new features, don't worry!

SSAS: · many admin tasks · a few MDX · dimension settings · attribute properties · performance monitoring and tuning · using profiler for monitoring user roles · cube processing options · deployment options · setting permission

SSRS: · security · backup the SSRS database · setting parameters · assembly file · custom control · failover environment

SSIS: · a few questions around SSIS package configuration · transaction · a couple of Foreach loop (file)

Data Mining: · a few DMX questions

In total it was not tough if you have passed the 70-445 (SQL 2005) exam, you just need to review the topics from Microsoft website and play around the topics that you haven’t had chance to work on them.

Good luck!

SQL Server 2008 RC0

Microsoft just released SQL Server 2008 RC0 (Release Candidate 0). It is expected that this will be the final release prior to SQL Server 2008 RTM in Q3/Q4 this calendar year. You can download it from here:

SQL Server 2008 RC0

New for this CTP are the AdventureWorks 2008 family of sample databases:

AdventureWorks 2008 sample database

"First to Know" Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 exam offer

Sign up to be the first get notified about SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 exams and receive 40% off!

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/sqlvs/offer/default.mspx

SQL Server 2008 - CTP 6

The latest Community Technology Preview of SQL Server 2008 is available.

SQL Server 2008 CTP6 is "feature complete," which means that Microsoft won't be adding or removing features between now and RTM later this year.

SQL Server 2008 February CTP 6 can be downloaded from here

Overview of SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence by Tom Casey

In this 9 minutes video, Tom Casey (general manager SQL Server Business Intelligence at Microsoft) gives an overview of BI in SQL Server 2008 (code name Catmai)

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/bi/

What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Business Intelligence

Integration Services in SQL Server 2008

• SSIS 2008 provides the data integration features such as SSIS pipeline, SSIS persistent lookups, and SSIS data profiling that help you to integrate data more effectively.
• SSIS 2008 provides data warehousing features and tools that help you to effectively manage large volumes of data. These features and tools include partitioned table parallelism, query optimization, Resource Governor, and data compression.
• SQL Server 2008 provides the MERGE statement that helps you to simplify the code and enhance the system performance. You can also use the MERGE statement as a join between a target that is the recipient of the DML and a source that is the provider of the data.
• SQL Server 2008 provides the CDC (Change Data Capture) feature that helps you to insert records, update, and delete activities applied to SQL Server 2008 tables. You can use CDC to store details of the changes in an easy relational format. CDC also provides a structured, reliable stream of change data that can be applied by users to dissimilar target representations of data.

Reporting Services in SQL Server 2008

• SSRS 2008 includes the report server that is used to set a memory threshold for background operations and performance counters for monitoring service activity.
• SSRS 2008 supports two modes of deployment for report server, the native mode and SharePoint integrated mode.
• SSRS provides the report authoring features that help you to manage large reports. These features include Report Designer, data visualization, and Tablix.
• SSRS provides the report delivery features that help you to generate reports. The features include rich-text, Office Word rendering, Office Excel rendering, export to Office Word and Office Excel, and report delivery through MOSS.

Analysis Services in SQL Server 2008

• SSAS 2008 provides several Cube Designer enhancements for better detection and classification of attributes along with identification of member properties. These enhancements include Analysis Services personalization extensions, best practice alerts, enhanced dimension design, enhanced aggregate design, and dynamic named sets.
• SSAS 2008 provides you with the capabilities to can enhance the data mining models by appending a new algorithm to Microsoft Time Series algorithm. This new algorithim is based on the ARIMA algorithm. This enhancement improves the accuracy and stability of predictions in the data mining models.
• SSAS 2008 provides several performance enhancements to manage cube space. The enhancements include subspace computation, MOLAP-enabled write back capabilities, scale-out analysis, and scalable backup tool.

Source: MS Clinic 6189: What’s New in Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 for Business Intelligence