Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

VI.2.1. Understanding Business Intelligence

Business intelligence (BI) is a group of applications used together to improve the decision making process. With the availability of databases and the huge amount of data they contain, the problem facing executives isn't that they don't have enough data, but instead that they have too much data.

BI tools are used to compile and present the data in a more meaningful way so that executives and decision makers can focus on what's important. BI provides actionable insight — information useful enough to take action on. SQL Server 2008 includes three BI applications. All three are available within the Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS). They are

• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS): SSRS provides a means to retrieve relevant data from databases and present it to users in a meaningful way without requiring users to know things like SELECT, FROM, and WHERE. Instead, a user can launch his Web browser, and simply point and click to retrieve the needed data.

• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS): When data needs to be combined, SSIS can extract, transform, and load (ETL) data. Sophisticated SSIS packages can be created within BIDS to integrate databases.

• SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS): SSAS allows you to design, create, and manage multidimensional structures that allow decision makers the ability to view data easily from different perspectives. Cubes are denormalized versions of the database (the multidimensional structures) used ...