Microsoft® Business Intelligence For Dummies®

Chapter 13. Evaluating and Choosing Technologies

In This Chapter

• Identifying your current business intelligence capabilities

• Picking hardware and software to incorporate

• Discovering the value of "free" (as in "open source") BI software

• Increasing your success factor by reducing risk

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

—Arthur C. Clarke

Before you start evaluating and choosing components to include in your BI system, you need a complete understanding of your organizational environment — as it is now, and as may come to look if you choose to move forward with Microsoft Business Intelligence. Knowing where you are and where you're going help you get a good working sense of how much effort will be required to implement a BI system. To get to that understanding, you need two kinds of savvy:

• A deep knowledge of your current business processes — what they are, what they do for your business, and how they fit into its long-term goals.

• Familiarly with the technology presently used in each process — where hardware, software, and human work habits combine to do the job.

In this chapter, you will explore ways that you can identify the Microsoft products you may already be using such as SQL Server. You will also assess your current environment including the licensing you are using and the skill-sets of your people.

Assessing Your BI Capabilities

To build a successful implementation plan (see Chapter 12 for more about implementation plans), you need an accurate assessment ...