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Dundas Dashboard and PerformancePoint Comparison Review
December 8, 2010 / No Comments »
Digital dashboards, also known as enterprise dashboards or executive dashboards, are rapidly rising in popularity as the presentation layer for business intelligence. The chances are that you've been asked to implement a dashboard to let management quickly ascertain the status (or "health") of an organization via key business indicators (KPIs) and this task might seem daunting. This is where Dundas Dashboard can help. As a leader in data visualization solutions, Dundas has given us great products that power many business intelligence solutions, including Microsoft Reporting Services and .NET charting. Its latest offering, Dundas Dashboard 2.5, lets you implement compelling dashboards quickly and easily. Since my career focus has been Microsoft Business Intelligence, I was curious to evaluate the capabilities of Dundas Dashboard and compare them with Microsoft PerformancePoint 2010. Read the full review here.
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Denali Forums
December 1, 2010 / No Comments »
Microsoft launched SQL Server 11 (Denali) pre-released forums and is eagerly awaiting your feedback. Judging by the number of BI-related forums, one can easily see that BI will be a big part of Denali with major enhancements across the entire BI stack. Of course, not many questions to ask if we don't have the bits yet to play with (CTP1 doesn't include the BI stuff) but still you can start probing Microsoft.
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Book Review – Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010
November 25, 2010 / No Comments »
I 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...
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Prologika Training Classes Dec 2010-Jan 2011
November 22, 2010 / No Comments »
Our online Microsoft BI classes for December 2010 and January 2011: Class Mentor Date Price Applied SSRS 2008 Teo Lachev 12/14-12/16 12:00-5:00 EDT $799 Register Applied SSAS 2008 Teo Lachev 1/11-1/13 12:00-5:00 EDT $799 Register Applied PowerPivot Teo Lachev 1/25-1/26 12:00-4:00 EDT $599 Register Visit our training page to register and more details.
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VertiPaq Column Store
November 16, 2010 / No Comments »
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...
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Business Intelligence Semantic Model – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
November 13, 2010 / No Comments »
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...
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More Details about BISM (UDM 2.0)
November 11, 2010 / No Comments »
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…
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Crescent on the Horizon
November 10, 2010 / No Comments »
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...
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ResMon Cube Sample
November 4, 2010 / No Comments »
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!
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Atlanta BI SIG December Meeting
October 30, 2010 / No Comments »
If you are use Microsoft BI, live in or within driving distance to Atlanta, and don't know about the Atlanta BI SIG, you are missing a lot. At our last meeting we had some 50+ people and our attendance is growing! Due to the holidays, Atlanta BI SIG will not have a meeting at the end of November and December. Instead, our next meeting will be held on December 6th. I updated the Atlanta BI SIG home page to announce the December meeting. End of the year is a good time for reflecting on the past and planning for the future. Bob Abernathy from Strategy Companion will present BI past, present, and future trends. He will also show us how Strategy Companion integrates with Analysis Services. Topic: BI: Then and Now? Level: Beginner Date: Monday, December 6, 2010 Speaker: Bob Abernethy, SVP & GM of Strategy Companion Corporation...
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