Book Review – Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010

0020.pp.png-550x0I dare to predict that in a few years after SQL 11 ships, there will be two kinds of BI professionals – those who know the Business Intelligence Semantic Model and those who will learn it soon. By the way, the same applies to SharePoint. What can you do to start on the path and prepare while waiting for BISM? Learn PowerPivot, of course, which is one of the three technologies that are powered by VertiPaq – the new column-oriented in-memory store. This is where the book PowerPivot for Excel 2010 can help. It’s written by Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari, whose names should be familiar for those of you who have been following Microsoft BI for a while. Both authors are respected experts who have contributed a lot to the community. Stationed in Italy, they run the SQLBI website and share their knowledge via their blog and publications.

This is the second book that I’ve read about PowerPivot – after Professional Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint, which I reviewed in this blog. What I liked about this book is its deep coverage of Data Analysis Expressions (DAX). I specifically enjoyed the following chapters:

Chapter 6: Evaluation Context and CALCULATE – Provides a deep coverage of how DAX measures work. Although DAX is meant to be simpler than MDX, expressions can get complex and this chapter will help you understand how DAX works behind the hood.

Chapter 7: Date Calculations in DAX – Time calculations, such as YTD, QTD, are an important requirement for most BI projects. This chapter goes into details to explain how to implement them and provide workarounds for PowerPivot limitations.

Chapter 9: PowerPivot DAX Patterns – If you wonder whether PowerPivot can do this and that, read this chapter. It demonstrates advanced concepts ranging from ratio, percent of total, standard deviation, ranking over measures, Pareto computations, and more.

Chapter 10: PowerPivot Data Model Patterns – Another gem for addressing popular BI needs, such as banding, courier simulation, and many-to-many relationships.

Although not big in size (370 pages), you will find this book rich in patterns and solutions. What impressed me is that the authors put a great effort to cover not only the PowerPivot basics but to leave no stone unturned when the tool lacks in features. The authors discuss a requirement, approach it from different angles, and provide several implementation approaches. Thus, this book will benefit both beginners and advanced users. An indispensible resource for learning PowerPivot and giving a head start on BISM!

Prologika Training Classes Dec 2010-Jan 2011

Our online Microsoft BI classes for December 2010 and January 2011:

Class

Mentor

Date

Price

 

Applied SSRS 2008Teo Lachev12/14-12/16 12:00-5:00 EDT

$799

Register

Applied SSAS 2008Teo Lachev1/11-1/13 12:00-5:00 EDT

$799

Register

Applied PowerPivotTeo Lachev1/25-1/26 12:00-4:00 EDT

$599

Register

Visit our training page to register and more details.

VertiPaq Column Store

In SQL 11, the VertiPaq column store that will power the new Business intelligence Semantic Model (BISM) will be delivered in three ways:

1. PowerPivot – in-process DLL with Excel 2010.

2. A second storage mode of Analysis Services that you will get by installing SSAS in VertiPaq mode.

3. A new column stored index in the SQL RDBMS.

The third option picked up my interest. I wanted to know if a custom application will be able to take advantage of these indexes outside VertiPaq. For example, this could be useful for standard reports that query directly the database. It turns out that this will be possible. The following paper discusses columnstore in more details. In a nutshell, SQL 11 will run the VertiPaq engine in-process. Here are some highlights of the VertiPaq columnstore:

  • You create an index on a table.
  • You cannot update the table after the index is created. Not a big limitation since a data warehouse is typically loaded on a schedule so the index can be dropped and rebuilt at the end of the ETL process.
  • The relational engine scans the entire table and loads it into memory in a Vertipaq store. As you could imagine, the more RAM the better.
  • Query performance will be great but probably slower than VertiPaq in SSAS.
  • Creation of this index isn’t cheap, but the query performance gains should justify using it in common DW scenarios.
  • From performance standpoint, it will be best to load data in VertiPaq (SSAS store) instead of using column store.

Business Intelligence Semantic Model – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

UPDATE 11/14/2010

This blog probably will be the most updated blog I’ve ever written. I have to admit that my initial reaction to BISM was negative. For the most part, this was a result of my disappointment that Microsoft switched focus from UDM to BISM in Denali and my limited knowledge of the BISM vision. After SQL PASS, I exchanged plenty of e-mails and Microsoft was patient enough to address them and disclosed more details. Their answers helped me to “get it” and see the BISM big picture through more optimistic lenses.

 

UPDATE 05/21/2011

Having heard the feedback from the community, Microsoft announced at TechEd 2011 that Crescent will support OLAP cubes as data sources. This warrants removing the Ugly part from this blog.

 

After the WOW announcement at SQL PASS about PowerPivot going corporate under a new name, Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM), there were a lot of questions from the SSAS community. Your humble correspondent did his own share of nagging. For some obscure reason, this time Microsoft decided to keep MVPs and community leaders in the dark until PASS, so I was as unprepared as the rest of the community about what is to come. Prior to PASS, the SSAS team told me that corporate BI would be a major focus in Denali, which I interpreted as enhancements to UDM, only to find out that the entire buzz is about BISM…what a thunder from a clear sky. To its credit, the SSAS team was quick in its attempt to cover the collateral damage as we can see in the posts below from Amir Netz and T.K. Anand.

http://cwebbbi.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/pass-summit-day-2/#comment-1498

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2010/11/12/analysis-services-roadmap-for-sql-server-denali-and-beyond.aspx

I decided to put down the gist about what I’ve learned about BISM so I have a ready answer for questions that I am sure I will be asked over and over. Let’s start with the WHY.

Why BISM?

While SSAS is now an undisputed leader in the OLAP space and the BI platform of choice, Microsoft is facing competitive pressures. As you know, new vendors and technologies are popping up like daisies every day in the fast-changing BI landscape attacking on all fronts – QlikView, Tableau, Business Object Universe, to name a few, and Microsoft cannot rest on its laurels. The main selling point of these companies is that OLAP is too complex. I’ve seen their marketing campaigns in action and I know how persuasive they could be. One interesting thing I’ve noticed though is that the sleek demos I’ve seen all used star schemas, where data is neatly organized and stored in a set of dimension and fact tables. Creating this schema and populating it usually take about 60-80% or the development effort for implementing a BI solution.

So, if the star schema is not obsolete, what’s so appealing then in the offerings of these vendors? The notion that the OLAP layer is too complex and you don’t need it. This is a clever strategy (and one of the laws of power) – If you can’t have it (OLAP market share) than despise it J Instead, these companies build their analytical layer as a thin wrapper directly on top of the star schema, which is exactly what PowerPivot does. This abstracts IT from knowing all these intimidating OLAP concepts, such as cubes, dimensions, measures, and the most complex of them all – MDX. This is a perceived simplification though because it’s unlikely to meet more demanding requirements. For example, I wouldn’t have been successful implementing BI financial solutions if I didn’t have UDM features, such as scope assignments, parent-child dimensions, and many-to-many relationships.

While I don’t personally believe that UDM (the SSAS implementation of the OLAP layer) is too complex, I do think that it carries a lot of baggage partially due to its deep roots in traditional OLAP and evolution over years. Let’s name a few:

  1. Cubes – The cube as a core OLAP concept that became somewhat outdated after moving to the UDM which is an attribute-based model. Ever wondered if you should go for one cube or multiple cubes? This is one of the main dilemmas when starting a new project.
  2. Detail-level reporting – This is where UDM over-promised but under-delivered. For example, UDM doesn’t support text-based measure. Besides actions, the clumsy workarounds are action or degenerate dimensions, with the latter being what the “classic” OLAP recommends.
  3. Storage complexities – the need to process the cube, partitioning, aggregations, etc. Moving to BISM, you still need to load the data into VertiPaq (unless you do real-time). So there is still “processing” involved but there is no need for aggregations or “index building” anymore. Partitions are still there – but they are needed for data management purposes (incremental updates, rolling off data etc) and not for performance reasons.
  4. Data latency – the UDM proactive caching attempts to address it but it’s far from ideal.

Again, I don’t list complexity because I don’t think UDM is very complex. Or if it is, that’s because business requirements are and I sure don’t want BISM to have less features that will prevent us meeting such requirements. So, the SSAS team had a dilemma: should they continue enhancing UDM or go back to the drawing board. Microsoft realized that the UDM internal architecture and storage model have become increasingly complex over the years, thus barring major changes and growth. Instead of continue building on the old foundation, they’ve decided to start from scratch by going with the VertiPaq column-oriented store that debuted in PowerPivot. I have to give credit to the SSAS team for making such a bold and a gut-wrenching decision, which I am sure hasn’t been made lightly.

The Good

BISM is essentially a fresh start for Microsoft in the BI space. It will attempt to simplify OLAP and make BI even more accessible. As many of the BI professionals agree, based on what we know and seen in PowerPivot, BISM has a huge potential and will bring welcome enhancements, such as:

  1. Schema simplification – no need to define explicit cubes, dimensions, measures, and thus eliminate the perceived complexity of implementing an OLAP solution. In fact, expect the term “OLAP” to be heavily deemphasized in years to come.
  2. Blazing performance – this will probably void partitions and aggregations.
  3. Flexibility – There will be no distinction between measures and dimensions. Every attribute can be used for aggregating and slicing. This is one PowerPivot feature that I like the most.
  4. Detail-level reporting without hacks.
  5. DAX expression-based language that removes some of the complexity of MDX.
  6. Possibility of real-time data access – BISM running in VertiPaq mode will deliver the best performance and it is similar to MOLAP. However, data latency will also be improved if you work in real-time (like ROLAP) against a SQL database that has column store indexes and you don’t query massive data volumes. It should be fast, but still slower than working directly against the BISM VertiPaq.

The Bad

In Denali, BISM will not be as feature-rich as UDM and it probably won’t be for years to come. The lack of more advanced features (we don’t have a feature comparison list yet), will probably make organizations and consultants favor UDM in the interim, which is still the “bread and butter” for MS OLAP. I personally won’t go for a new model knowing that its limitations can bite me in a long run or a model that puts me back a decade ago no matter how simple and fast it is. As you know, all projects start simple until a requirement that changes everything.

So, why didn’t Microsoft left BISM in the self-service BI area to marinate for a while as PowerPivot?

  1. BISM will let Microsoft levels the playing field against the various enterprise BI semantic models
  2. Remove Excel hosting limitations, such the 2 GB size limitation an Excel workbook has. In reality, 2 GB translates to many more gigabytes of uncompressed data but still not enough for corporate data volumes.
  3. Microsoft can now position BISM as a BI platform for both reporting and analytics without abandonment of relational concepts in favor of “weird” OLAP terminology. This is something that mainstream IT will find very attractive.
  4. BISM will provide the continuum of Self-service BI -Corporate BI on a single platform. You can start with self-service BI with PowerPivot and migrate it to a corporate solution.

Unfortunately, since BISM will not get all UDM features at least in Denali, in the interim we will have to make a choice between UDM and BISM, which essentially will be a compromise between features and ease of use. In years, as BISM catches up with UDM, I’d expect the choice to become easier. Meanwhile, BISM will not be as advanced as the UDM and for more advanced requirements UDM is your only choice.

That said, even in its first release, you may find BISM much more advanced and powerful than competing technologies, such as BO Universe and similar metadata storage models. So, when evaluating the BISM capabilities, it is important to pay attention to your reference point. The UDM is a very high bar. However, if you compare it against Universe, Qlikview, etc., you will probably find BISM superior.

The Ugly

Crescent (the new SSRS ad-hoc reporting tool) will support BISM only. Frankly, I don’t know what was the thinking here especially given that UDM is still the “bread and butter” of OLAP (see the links above). The message that everyone would get is that UDM has fallen out of favor which is apparently not the case. I strongly encourage Microsoft to support UDM in Denali even if it won’t make it in the box (no a big surprise there, Report Builder 2.0 has done it and hell didn’t freeze over). I think Crescent has a lot of promise and since we don’t have a webi browser, it is long due on the BI wish list. There are probably good technical reasons for supporting BISM only but if Excel can do MDX against PowerPivot, so should Crescent. This will also reinforce the message that UDM is still the premium model for years to come while BISM is in the works.

So?

BISM has a bright future and will be a winner if it delivers on its promise but doesn’t throw the baby with the bathwater:

  1. Simplifies OLAP
  2. Preserves UDM flexibility and features we have today, especially the ones that came with SSAS 2005, such as flexible dimension relationships and scope assignments. 
  3. Supports both DAX and MDX as query and expression languages to preserve investment developers and vendors have made throughout all these years.

Do I feel that my consulting business will be negatively affected by BISM should it become super user-friendly so even my mom can use it? I don’t think so. Here is where the C++/C# analogy could be helpful. Those C++ developers who took the time to learn C#, which for them was a walk in the park, found that it opened new opportunities. And again, no matter how simple the tool, the requirements are what makes things complex and I don’t think BISM will read minds any time soon. Sure, sometimes an old dog must learn new tricks but that’s why we love it …

May you live in interesting times!
A Chinese proverb

More Details about BISM (UDM 2.0)

It looks like this year SQL PASS was the one to go. A must read blog from Chris Webb who apparently shares the same feelings and emotions about the seismic change in Analysis Services 11 as I do. A must read…

Crescent on the Horizon

Now that the official word got out during the Ted Kummert’s keynote today at SQL PASS, I can open my mouth about Crescent – the code name of an ad-hoc reporting layer that will be released in the next version of SQL Server – Denali. Crescent is a major enhancement to Reporting Services and Microsoft Self-Service BI strategy. Up to now, SSRS didn’t have a web-based report designer. Denali will change that by adding a brand new report authoring tool that will be powered by Silverlight. So, this will be the fifth report designer after BIDS, Report Builder 1.0 (not sure if RB 1.0 will survive SQL 11), Report Builder 3.0, Visual Studio Report Designer.

Besides brining report authoring to the web, what’s interesting about Crescent is that it will redefine the report authoring experience and even what a report is. Traditionally, Reporting Services reports (as well as reports from other vendors) have been “canned”, that is, once you publish the report, its layout becomes fixed. True, you could implement interactive features to jazz up the report a bit but changes to the original design, such as adding new columns or switching from a tabular layout to a crosstab layout, requires opening the report in a report designer, making the changes, and viewing/republishing the report. As you would recall, each of the previous report designers would have separate design and preview modes.

Crescent will change all of this and it will make the reporting experience more interactive and similar to Excel PivotTable and tools from other vendors, such as Tableau. Those of you who saw the keynote today got a sneak preview of Crescent and its capabilities. You saw how the end user can quickly create an interactive report by dragging metadata, a-la Microsoft Excel, and then with a few mouse clicks change the report layout without switching to design mode. In fact, Crescent doesn’t have a formal design mode.

How will this magic happen? As it turns out, Crescent will be powered by a new ad-hoc model called Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM) that probably will be a fusion between SMDL (think Report Builder models) and PowerPivot, with the latter now supporting also relational data sources. The Amir’s demo showed an impressive response time when querying billion rows from a relational database. I still need to wrap my head around the new model as more details become available (stay tuned) but I am excited about it and the new BI scenarios it will make possible besides traditional standard reporting. It’s great to see the Reporting Services and Analysis Services teams working together and I am sure good things will happen to those who wait. Following the trend toward SharePoint as a BI hub, Crescent unfurtantely will be available only in SharePoint mode. At this point, we don’t know what Reporting Services and RDL features it will support but one can expect tradeoffs given its first release, brand new architecture and self-service BI focus.

So, Crescent is a code name for a new web-based fusion between SSRS and BISM (to be more accurate Analysis Services in VertiPaq mode). I won’t be surprised if its official name will be PowerReport. Now that I picked your interest, where is Crescent? Crescent is not included in CTP1. More than likely, it will be in the next CTP which is expected around January timeframe.

ResMon Cube Sample

Greg Galloway just published a ResMon cube sample on CodePlex that aggregates execution statistics (rolls up information about Analysis Services such as memory usage by object, perfmon counters, aggregation hits/misses, and current session stats) from Analysis Services dynamic management views (DMVs) and makes it easily available for slicing and dicing in a cube. I think this will be a very useful tool to analyze the runtime performance of an Analysis Services server or as a learning tool to understand how to work with DMVs. Kudos to Greg!