Part X. Business Intelligence
IN THIS PART
Chapter 70: BI Design
Chapter 71: Building Multidimensional Cubes with Analysis Services
Chapter 72: Programming MDX Queries
Chapter 73: Authoring Reports with Reporting Services
Chapter 74: Administrating Reporting Services
Chapter 75: Analyzing Data with Excel
Chapter 76: Data Mining with Analysis Services
If the Information Architecture Principle stated in Chapter 2 is true, then information is useful not only for daily operations, but also for current and future analysis. Hence, extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes collect data from the daily operations and store it in data warehouses using patterns organized for analysis, rather than daily operations. Cubes, MDX queries, and Reporting Services pull from the data warehouse and present the data for analysis.
This whole process of analyzing historical and current data, both today and in the future, is the proactive side of IT and is collectively called business intelligence (BI).
In the past four releases of SQL Server, Microsoft has been steadily growing SQL Server's BI services, and SQL Server 2008 brings to fruition years of planning and development. From the enterprise-grade ETL tool and the rich and easy-to-build cubes to the slick reporting interface, SQL Server 2008 is more than ready to help you conquer your BI requirements.
BI, by definition, does not exist in a vacuum. Not only is the data warehouse dependent on numerous operational databases, but the BI toolset frequently includes ...
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