Crescent on the Horizon

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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

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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!

Atlanta BI SIG December Meeting

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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
Bob Abernethy is SVP & GM of Strategy Companion Corporation. A veteran of Oracle Corporation and Siebel Systems, Bob brings over twenty years of software industry experience to his discussion with customers about their Business Intelligence implementations. Bob received his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in New York and his Masters of Management Information Systems from West Coast University in Southern California. the current president of the Kansas City SQL Server Users Group.
Overview:
 		We will begin by taking a look how the focus and characteristics of Business Intelligence have changed over the last 25 years. We will also discuss the recent history of Microsoft’s focus on BI, and will take an in-depth look at another approach to SQL Server-based BI provided by Strategy Companion Corporation. You will see why companies such as Citigroup, L’Oreal, Honeywell, DataQuick, and many others have embraced Analyzer, Strategy Companion’s award-winning front-end to Analysis Services, for their Business Intelligence applications. You’ll see why SQL Server magazine recently called Analyzer “the best solution to complete the Microsoft BI platform.” (Editor’s Best Award, December 2009.) And you’ll learn ways to quickly and add significant value to your SQL Server-based data – the kind of value business people will be able to see, understand, and appreciate.
  
Location:Matrix Resources Dunwoody Office
Sponsor:Strategy Companion Corporation
See the overview for the main presentation.

See you there!

More Dundas Components Move to Microsoft

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Now, this is great news for Microsoft BI and .NET developers. As announced on the Dundas website, the agreement between Dundas and Microsoft, which allows Dundas to continue sell, enhance, update and support its components, will expire on October 31, 2010. Subsequently, all components change hands and become a Microsoft intellectual property. These components are:

  • Dundas Chart for ASP.NET (Professional and Enterprise), Dundas Chart for Window Forms (Professional and Enterprise), Dundas Chart for SharePoint, Dundas Chart for SQL Server Reporting Services, Dundas Chart for OLAP Services
  • Dundas Gauge for ASP.NET, Dundas Gauge for Windows Forms, Dundas Gauge for SharePoint, Dundas Gauge for SQL Server Reporting Services
  • Dundas Map for ASP.NET, Dundas Map for Windows Forms, Dundas Map for SQL Server Reporting Services
  • Dundas Calendar for SQL Server Reporting Services

For me, the most interesting of these is the Dundas Chart for OLAP Services. If you have followed my blog, you know that I’ve been complaining on a regular basis that after retiring OWC, Microsoft didn’t provide any suitable web-based OLAP browser. In fact, this ranked 3rd on my SSAS wish list last year. Although I won’t get a Silverlight-based control anytime soon, I’ve used the Dundas Chart for OLAP Services (AJAX-based) in my projects and I can say great things about it. It lets you add OLAP browsing features to ASP.NET applications very easily. The Dundas Calendar will be a good addition to SSRS and .NET as well.

At this point, it’s not clear how which Microsoft products will acquire which components. Most of them (excluding probably the SSRS counterparts) will get added to Visual Studio. I can’t wait this to happen…

So, what will Dundas do after the transition? The Dundas Dashboard – now in version 2.0, with 2.5 coming up soon. More about the Dundas Dashboard will be coming up …. stay tuned.

UPDATE 10/22/2010

To clarify, Microsoft acquired the intellectual property rights from Dundas back in 2007. At the end of October, Dundas will stop selling these components that they were reselling from Microsoft since the acquisition. Dundas will continue to support them through October 31, 2011 for existing customers with support agreements. Integrating the “orphaned” components into Microsoft offerings is on the Microsoft TODO list. 

Where is x64 Excel 2010 Data Mining Add-in?

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Mark Tabladillo delivered a great presentation about using Excel for data mining at our last Atlanta BI SIG meeting. The lack of an Excel 2010 x64 DM add-in came up. There was a question from the audience whether Microsoft has abandoned DM technology since it stopped enhancing it. A concern was also raised that Microsoft might have also neglected the corporate BI vision in favor of self-service BI.

That’s definitely not the case. I managed to get a clarification from the Microsoft Analysis Services team that Corporate BI will be a major focus in “Denali”, which is the code name for the next version of SQL Server – version 11. As far as the long-overdue x64 DM add-in for Excel, Microsoft is working on it and it will be delivered eventually. Meanwhile, the 2007 add-in works with the x32 version of Excel 2010.

For those of you going to SQL PASS (unfortunately, I won’t be one of them), Microsoft will announce important news about Denali and hopefully give a sneak preview about the cool BI stuff that is coming up.

Prologika Training Classes

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Our online classes for the remainder of 2010:

Courses

Mentor

Date

Price

 

Applied SSRS 2008Teo Lachev10/26-10/29 12:00-5:00 EDT

$799

Register

Applied SSAS 2008Teo Lachev11/23-11/25 12:00-5:00 EDT

$799

Register

Applied PowerPivotTeo Lachev11/29-11/30 12:00-4:00 EDT

$599

Register

Visit our training page to register and more details.

MVP For Another Year!

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Just got the news that my MVP status got extended for another year! This will make it six consecutive years as MVP and as a member of an elite group of professionals that I am proud of belonging to.

Atlanta BI SIG September Meeting

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Atlanta BI fans, join our next Atlanta BI SIG meeting! Mark Tabladillo (Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, MCAD.NET, MCT) will show us how to do data mining with PowerPivot. And Dundas will demonstrate their latest BI offering – the Dundas dashboard. Here are the details:

Please RSVP to help us plan food as follows:

  1. Go to the Atlanta BI home page (atlantabi.sqlpass.org).
  2. Choose Yes and submit the RSVP survey found at the right top corner of the page.

 

Main Topic:        Data Mining with PowerPivot 2010
 Level: Intermediate
Date:Monday, September 27, 2010
Time:6:30PM
LocationMatrix Resources

115 Perimeter Center Place

Suite 250 (South Terraces Building)

Atlanta, GA 30346

Speaker:

 

 

 

 

Mark Tabladillo (Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, MCAD.NET, MCT)
Mark Tabladillo provides consulting and training for data mining with Solid Quality Mentors. He has taught statistics at Georgia Tech and for the graduate business school of the University of Phoenix. Mark has years of deep experience with the SAS System, and has presented at many local, regional, and national technical conferences. Mark produces a data mining resource and blog at http://www.marktab.net. the current president of the Kansas City SQL Server Users Group.
Overview:

 

Excel provides a compelling and ubiquitous interface for Microsoft Data Mining. With new features available through PowerPivot, business users can apply the technology through a well-designed infrastructure of Microsoft technologies. This presentation will welcome any newcomers to data mining, and provide interactive demos which highlight data mining through these technologies.

  

Location:Matrix Resources Dunwoody Office
Sponsor
Presentation:		Dundas

Dundas will present their latest BI offering: Dundas Dashboard. Dundas Dashboard is a flexible, turnkey solution for the rapid development of business dashboards. Whether you are leveraging an existing BI infrastructure/application or starting a standalone project from scratch, Dundas offers the industry’s most cost-effective platform for creating/deploying sophisticated digital dashboards and empowering users quickly and easily.

Analysis Services Processing Performance

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Analysis Services has a very efficient processing architecture and server is capable of processing rows as fast as the data source can provide. You should see processing rate in the ballpark 40-50K rows/sec or even better. One of my customers just bought a new shiny HP ProLiant BL680c server only to find out that processing time went three times higher than the old server. I did a simple test where I asked to execute the processing on both the old server and the new server. The query on the old server would return all rows within 2 minutes, while the same query would execute for 20 minutes which averages to about 4K rows processed/sec. This test ruled out Analysis Services right off the bat. It was clear that the network is the bottleneck. Luckily, the server had a lot of processing power, so processing wasn’t ten times slower.

As it turned out, the company has a policy to cap the network traffic at the switch for all non-production subnets or security and performance reasons. Since the new server was still considered a non-production server, it was on plugged in to a restricted network segment. The moral of this story is that often basic steps could help you isolate and troubleshoot “huge” issues.

DynamicHeight Bug

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The chart region in Reporting Services 2008 introduced the ability to dynamically size charts by setting the DynamicHeight and DynamicWidth properties, as Robert Bruckner explained in his blog. This feature is really useful and I hope one day it makes to the other regions as well. A customer recently reported an issue with their reports where regions would overlap when the report is previewed in Print Layout mode or exported to a hard page renderer, such as PDF. For example, in the report below the radar chart is positioned after the bar chart in RDL. However, in Print Layout preview the radar chart overlaps the bar chart. The customer tried every possible combination to enclose one or more regions in rectangles which helped avoiding the overlapping issue to some degree but introduced other issues.


After some digging, I discovered that the issue is caused by the fact that the bar chart is configured for dynamic height and managed to confirm that this is a bug. I will post an update when I learn more. Meanwhile, one possible workaround is to re-arrange the report so the region with dynamic height (hopefully, it’s only one) appears last on the report.

UPDATE (9/18/2010)

Robert Bruckner provided the following workaround which fixed the DynamicHeight issue for me:091610_1142_DynamicHeig1

1. Add a table with a single static cell (one row and one column).

2. Delete the table Details group.

3. Nest the chart in the table.