Business Intelligence is a process to convert data from
various channels into meaningful pattern which help better understand business
and help directors and senior management make better business decisions.
Learning business intelligence is about gaining technical
skills with domain knowledge.This mixture can bring out critical information
for business users from historic data in formatted reports which helps them
better analyze the business and take proactive measures. Whereas end users can
also create their own reports and analysis and easily share and collaborate
with their colleagues.
Unlike other job profiles, BI professionals understand
business, understand how organizations analyze data and make sense out of it to
grow their business.
There are various BI software suites in the market which
serve to this purpose. SQL SERVER BI is one of them which come bundled with SQL
Server database software which also makes it more affordable.
In this series of posts I will take you over SQL Server BI
suite with appropriate examples. It’s better to have TSQL (I want to Learn) knowledge before you begin. Please install SQL
Server 2008 Enterprise edition if you don't already have and Adventure works
sample database installed in it. (Click here to download sample database).
Reporting project has a better chance of being successful
when the business requirements and the way it will be used are well defined and
clearly communicated. As a report designer we should understand the source
data. Having a better view of business requirements and the data will
eventually result in a successful project, lacking either can easily spin of
the project out of control.
If you are familiar with visual studio you will find great
ease using BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio) tool used for designing
/Developing BI projects.
Our BI suite comprise of three different parts which serve
us with distinct Data Warehouse solutions.
- SQL Server Analysis Services.
- SQL Server Reporting Services.
- SQL Server Integration Services.
Below is the simple mechanism commonly used.
Data is pulled from operational/transactional database using ETL/SSIS package which is a strategical design pattern to extract,transfer and load data in to data warehouse.Data is then pulled in from data warehouse using TSQL/MDX (TSQL in our case) query and then represented in formatted reports.
You will see an updated version of this diagram soon which will also include OLAP(Online Analytical processing) data cube designed in SSAS which use MDX to pull data from data warehouse.
