Thursday, June 25, 2009
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Learn how to strengthen your company's overall health and help your business thrive in this tough economy - without ever leaving your desk.
- Attend this exclusive series and discover how to quickly deliver actionable information without any significant software costs or long running data warehouse projects.
- Cut excessive costs, identify your most profitable customer's attributes, improve operations, and reap additional business value from your organization's existing data assets
- Get real-life tips and to-the-point training on how to leverage Microsoft BI to reduce uncertainty and generate quick ROI for your company.
Join industry gurus Derek Comingore and Barry Ralston for 3 lessons + live Q&A and learn how to:
- leverage Excel and Data Mining technologies that exist today
- support the democratization of BI in your organization using Excel and SharePoint technologies
- quickly provide enterprise visibility into your organization's key metrics
See you there!
http://windowsitpro.com/elearning/index.cfm?fuseaction=dynamic&v=5168&p=5209&code=&eventid=29&code=EPspeakersBIeLearnJul09
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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SQL Server data mining has always been somewhat of an overlooked, niche technology. There are several logical reasons for SQL Server data mining’s slow adoption. First, there are few companies that take the time to consider if they can benefit from the technology (OLAP tends to be the technological “stop point” in modern day). Furthermore, there are few Information Workers (IWs) and technology professionals that are trained in data mining concepts. Finally, SQL Server data mining requires the availability of an installed SQL Server Analysis Services instance.
I do believe that over time the first two reasons for SQL Server data mining’s slow adoption will dissipate. While the third reason is not going away, there is an alternative solution to the problem of SQL Server data mining requiring an installed instance of Analysis Services…The Cloud!
Azure, the Microsoft suite of cloud-based services includes a new technical preview of Data Mining in the Cloud “DMCloud”. DMCloud allows you to perform some basic data mining tasks leveraging a cloud-based Analysis Services connection. You can leverage a browser or download an Excel 2007 add-in to use DMCloud.
DMCloud is valuable capability for IWs that would like to begin considering SQL Server Data Mining without the added burden of needing a technology professional to first install Analysis Services. Additionally, IWs can use the DMCloud services no matter where they may physically be located as long as they have an Internet connection! The data mining tasks you can perform with DMCloud are the same Table Analysis Tools found in the traditional Excel Data Mining add-in. These data mining tasks include:
· Analyze Key Influencers
· Detect Categories
· Fill From Example
· Forecast
· Highlight Exceptions
· Scenario Analysis
· Prediction Calculator
· Shopping Basket Analysis
Sunday, May 03, 2009
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From rags to riches....congrats Calvin Borel...the common man.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
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Silverlight 2.0 & 3.0
About a year ago now I witnessed my first Silverlight dashboard in a product Microsoft created called Microsoft Enterprise Cube (MEC). The dashboard was amazingly rich and interactive. I quickly became a fan boy of Silverlight dashboards and finally understood the important relationship between data and data visualization (a term until then I felt was a bit overhyped). A recent project I have been working on has given me the ability to exploit Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 for Business Intelligence purposes.
Basically, Silverlight (including the 2.0 release) is a lightweight, cross-browser plug-in developed by Microsoft that facilitates rich, interactive thin-client (browser) experiences. Silverlight applications are developed using eXtensible Application Markup Language (XAML).
The most noted advances in the 2.0 version are code behind CLR support, controls, and data binding features. Silverlight 2.0 applications can source their data from Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services (including ADO.Net Data Services), XML data via LINQ or the XML Reader, and Isolated Storage on the client.
Silverlight 3 is currently in beta and has several added features including an “offline browser feature”.
3rd Party Dashboard Silverlight Components
While the Silverlight 2.0 Toolkit March 2009 release has a nice charting control, to obtain truly elegant Silverlight dashboards I recommend considering a 3rd party product. These are the Silverlight 2.0 control software vendors I am aware of currently (some are free, some are not):
Telerik:http://www.telerik.com/products/silverlight.aspx?utm_source=Silverlight.net&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=SL_april_Silverlight.net_showcase
Codeplex’s SmartTools Project: http://smarttools.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Charts
SoftwareFX: http://www.softwarefx.com/sfxNetProducts/ChartFX/silverlight/ http://visifire.com/ Visifire Opensource: http://visifire.com/silverlight_charts_gallery.php
Infragistics: http://www.infragistics.com/dotnet/netadvantage/silverlight/line-of-business.aspx#Overview
Resources
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/
http://silverlight.net/
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
Monday, March 09, 2009
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This is my biggest frustration with the advanced certification programs at Microsoft. Microsoft has clearly identified the need to create advanced certification programs yet Business Intelligence has zero representation! I have created past Connect suggestions and even made in-person suggestions on live meetings yet I keep receiving a response of “not now”.
Is Business Intelligence not deserving of its own advanced certification programs? Clearly Microsoft sees the value in the Business Intelligence industry via its large efforts on creating the best enterprise BI platform available in the market!
Derek
Sunday, March 01, 2009
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My first Summit and its been a blast thus far! Defenitely a gratifying experience.
Monday, February 02, 2009
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Tomorrow’s Business Intelligence Platform
One of my favorite aspects about Microsoft is the company never stands still from a product development standpoint. The company is constantly driving innovation and releasing new products to the market. On the heels of the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (which serves as the foundation for the Microsoft Business Intelligence Stack), Microsoft is already beginning to discuss its next generation Business Intelligence products. The information in this article is a result of my personal research efforts and none of its content is under NDA with Microsoft Corporation.
The Foundation: SQL Server 'Kilimanjaro'
SQL Server ‘Kilimanjaro’ will provide customers with a BI-centric release of Microsoft's data platform. Scheduled to be released in the first half of 2010, ‘Kilimanjaro’ will enable self-service BI applications by incorporating ‘Gemini’. ‘Kilimanjaro’ is being release ahead of the next major version of SQL Server (version 11) due to perceived demand (much like Reporting Services’ early release for the SQL Server 2000 platform). It should also be noted that ‘Kilimanjaro’ will feature added capabilities for IT compliance leveraging policy-based management and discovery of SQL Server instances.
'Gemini', an end-user analytics platform will feature an update to Analysis Services, enhancements to Report Builder 2.0 (the Office like report authoring environment), add-in for Excel 14. Contrary to my original thoughts, ‘Kilimanjaro’ is expected to have the same supported upgrade paths as SQL Server 2008, since Kilimanjaro is SQL Server 2008 with new functionality.
End-User Tools: Excel 14 & PerformancePoint Planning sp3
Excel 14 will feature ‘Gemini’ add-ins to facilitate the self-service analytical capabilities. Excel will continue to be the Microsoft BI end-user tool of choice due to its wide adoption and familiarity. PerformancePoint Planning sp3 will be released in mid 2009 to provide the final updates to the product's planning module. Current Planning customers will continue to be supported, however I am labeling the component as 'deprecated' since it will not obtain future releases.
Consumption, Collaboration, and Data Quality: Office SharePoint Server 14
SharePoint Server continues to be the core delivery mechanism for Microsoft Business Intelligence. SharePoint Server will encompass 'Bulldog', the Master Data Management (MDM) solution resulting from Microsoft's recent acquisition of Stratature's +EDM product. MDM is a solution to the challenging needs of enterprises that contain redundant entities in their various lines of business systems. Customers, products, and locations are examples of such redundant attributes found in the enterprise. MDM solutions entail a ‘hub’ software architecture by which a system of record informs the ‘hub’ to send out updates to subscribing systems when a certain entity incurs attribute alterations.
PerformancePoint Services (monitoring & analytics) will continue its life as a part of SharePoint Server starting with its current release (version 12) and continuing with SharePoint Server 14 (Office 13 was skipped due to the aversion of the number 13). PerformancePoint Services provides a premier dashboard & scorecard environment in which users can create and publish their works to SharePoint Server.
Finally, ‘Gemini’ analytical views will be published and shared via SharePoint Server. Much like we have in current day with Excel Services, users will be able to create their ‘Gemini’ views in Excel 14 and then publish those saved views to SharePoint Server. I suspect that Excel Services will still be the primary foundation for this functionality and thus users requiring read-only usage of ‘Gemini’ views would not require the Excel 14 client.
The Teradata Competitor: 'Madison'
While Microsoft SQL Server 2008 can scale to tens of terabytes for a Very Large Data Warehouse (VLDW), the product has known limitations around the hundreds of terabyte range. Teradata has long been the leader in the data warehouse appliance market.
Microsoft continuing its investment in the BI market acquired DATAllegro and its data warehouse appliances. Originally powered by an Ingress database, ‘Madison’ will be powered by SQL Server Kilimanjaro which will include all of the scalability improvements found in SQL Server 2008 for data warehousing. Additionally, the appliance will leverage what is known as Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) to dramatically accelerate performance & scalability, while operating on industry standard hardware to keep costs low. ‘Madison’ will also not have a single point of failure for ensuring high availability. With ‘Madison’, Microsoft will be extending SQL Server's data warehousing scale to the hundreds of terabytes and possibly even petabytes of data for the largest enterprise data warehousing initiatives.
Looking Forward
As we look to the future we can see that Microsoft is continuing to invest in the Business Intelligence market. Microsoft will extend Business Intelligence to more users with ‘Gemini’. ‘Madison’ will enable Microsoft to penetrate the data warehouse appliance and VLDW market. Finally enterprise data quality will be addressed with SharePoint Server 14’s MDM functionality. All of these projects have separate beta, community technology preview, and release to manufacturing dates in 2009 & 2010. What is clear is that Microsoft Business Intelligence is about to become even more pervasive!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
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The signs of a tough economy surround us all. Many Fortune 500 companies have laid-off workers and those who are still employed fret over their job’s near-term outlook. The housing and financial markets have been shaken to their core and the new president is promising change that cannot seem to come quick enough.
So what are businesses to do in such hard times? The same things they do when times are good, continuously improve their organization on a variety of dimensions. Specifically, the application of Business Intelligence (BI) in tough times is a very strategic ‘play’. By leveraging BI to cut excessive costs, identify your most profitable customer’s attributes, or to improve operations you can strengthen your company’s overall health. If your organization already has licenses for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), SQL Server, and Excel you can even obtain such valuable information without any significant software costs. Additionally, if you already have hardware provisioned or can reallocate hardware for the BI Solution your only cost would be for the services rendered!
The Microsoft BI stack has always been one of the lowest overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) BI platforms available and with the recent announcement of PerformancePoint Services being included with MOSS Enterprise licenses the platform’s TCO is going down again. Take the time to revaluate if your organization can leverage their existing software & hardware assets to further strengthen its overall health in such turbulent times with Microsoft Business Intelligence.
Friday, January 23, 2009
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Adapted from my colleague's (Barry Ralston) post at SQL Server Magazine BI Blog...
http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/101322/101322.html
Today, in a message to the Business Intelligence Partner Community, Microsoft announced a major change in the alignment of the BI flagship product, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server. The net-net of the announcement is:
- Supporting the democratization of BI (aka BI for the masses) with the consolidation of PerformancePoint Server Monitoring and Analytics functions into Office SharePoint Server Enterprise. The new capabilities will be called PerformancePoint Services.
- As I read the announcement, PerformancePoint Planning has been put out of our misery. Service Pack 3 will represent the end of the line for investment in a stand-alone PPS Planning product.
The impact of this announcement for the BI market in 2009 is vast. Consider each and every SharePoint Enterprise Edition customer as a first-order PerformancePoint monitoring and analytics customer. This ties right back to the strategy of encouraging customers to use the software they own, with their data to create value.
The details of the announcement can be seen in a video starring Guy Weismantel on microsoft.com/bi.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
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Happy New Year!
My colleague Barry Ralston from ComFrame Software (www.comframe.com ) and I are giving a series of local user group presentations starting with the first two below. If you run a local user group in the midwest or southeast regions of the country and would enjoy having us stop and present on Microsoft BI topics please feel free to email us at dcomingore@comframe.com or bralston@comframe.com .
Date & Time: 1/20/2009 @6PM
Group: Steel City PASS User Group (http://steelcitysql.org/default.aspx )
Location: New Horizons Computer Learning Center on Beacon Parkway , Birmingham, AL
Title: Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 for Business Intelligence Solutions
Abstract: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides several key features & enhancements for Business Intelligence Solutions. Additionally, SQL Server 2000 is no longer a supported product by Microsoft and the next version of Microsoft SQL Server (‘Kilimanjaro’) will likely not support an in-place upgrade from SQL Server 2000. Once your organization is ready to execute the upgrade process for its business intelligence solutions you should follow recommended best practices and guidelines.
Date & Time: 2/20/2009 @12PM
Group: Louisville PASS User Group (http://louisville.sqlpass.org/ )
Location: Kindred HealthCare, Louisville, KY
Title: Pervasive BI with Reporting Services 2008
Abstract: Reporting Services 2008 brings about several new features and enhancements that enables organzations to further leverage their existing investments in the Microsoft BI Software Stack. We will cover in detail all three cornerstones of Reporting Services for the 2008 release: Report Authoring, Report Processing & Rendering, and Product Architecture & Tools