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Agile Business Intelligence? Take a Bus!

How can Business Intelligence can be both scalable and agile? Can we simply plug some tools on existing data? Is there an approach that is both fast and effective without compromising long term results?

After exploring actual limitations of using operational data for BI and looking at proven, reliable and scalable ROLAP approach (previous posts), we take a look how Data Warehouse Bus Architecture gives scalability to business model allowing continuous integration of dimensions and measure.

Using this approach we can adopt the strategy “Plan a Data Warehouse, build a Data Mart” and provide almost immediate result without sacrificing flexibility.

Posted at 12:00AM Oct 22, 2009 by admin in Business Intelligence  |  Comments[0]

ROLAP: Starring your schema

Star schema is an effective, proven and scalable technique to organize large data marts to collect business information along years.

Adopting a star schema avoids many problems typical of normalized relational design that is impractical for strategic multidimensional analysis.

See how star schema solves problems imposed by normalized database through a simplified but complete example.

Posted at 12:00AM Oct 20, 2009 by admin in Business Intelligence  |  Comments[4]

Why Business Intelligence on OLTP is evil

What can happen when you try to make out BI from an operational (OLTP) database? Here is a typical evolution scenario, from initial enthusiasm to...

Posted at 12:00AM Oct 16, 2009 by admin in Business Intelligence  |  Comments[0]

OLAP vs OLTP: what makes the difference

OLPT and OLAP are complementing technologies. You can't live without OLTP: it runs your business day by day. So, using getting strategic information from OLTP is usually first “quick and dirty” approach, but can become later quite liiting.

In this post I will explore main differences between two technologies.

Posted at 12:00AM Oct 14, 2009 by admin in Business Intelligence  |  Comments[0]

What is Self Service Business Intelligence

Self Service Business Intelligence (SSBI) refer to a new set of business intelligence applications and tools that empower decision-makers to satisfy their information needs with no technical skills or intervention of IT professionals.

SSBI strategy is to let available information “elements” from which they assemble reports and build charts the way they need, as shown by this PISA screncast.

Posted at 04:34PM Oct 12, 2009 by admin in Business Intelligence  |  Comments[0]