Business Intelligence Blog (BI Blog)

BI Certification – Microsoft MCTS 70-448 Exam

2011-12-15T20:19:00.044Z

Dear friends,

Yesterday I updated my MCTS-BI certification on SQL 2008 version realizing the 70-448 exam with a 972 score. The score and certificate achievement are not important; what is really important for me is to have one more reason to learn new things or to re-learn old things! Take a look at my previous experience doing this exam in the previous SQL version (SQL 2005 – exam 70-445)

How did I study?

I spent one day studying hard through the exams provided by the MS Press Training Kit book (written exclusively for this exam) and through the exams provided by uCertify. Both Microsoft Press book and the software provided by uCertify, have very good resources to study and learn into deep detail the subjects required for this exam. The learning method I’ve followed was to read the book on each failed question included in the book and in the uCertify software.

The well-known dumps not exist here, and I don’t recommend anyone to use it. Using dumps the merit realized on passing on exam does not exist and mainly, you’ll not learn anything! I cannot understand the logic of using dumps and I think Microsoft should do something about it.

Skills Being Measured

Implementing an SSIS Solution (17%)

Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSIS (15%)

Implementing an SSAS Solution (21%)

Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSAS (17%)

Implementing an SSRS Solution (17%)

Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSRS (13%)

Courses associated with this exam

6236A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Reporting Services (3 Days)

6235A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Integration Services (3 Days)

6234A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Analysis Services (3 Days)

Key subjects to focus in

The following list shows some of the key subjects that I remember from my exam and I consider very important for all those persons that want to learn and do the exam:

SSIS Protection Level Options (about 3 questions)

SSIS command-lines DTExec and DTUtil (about 3 questions)

SSRS RSConfig and RSReportServer Configuration File (about 4 questions)

SSRS Encryption Keys and Configuration tool

SSAS Data Mining (about 1-2 questions)

SSAS Processing Options (about 4 questions)

SSAS Deployment Wizard and XMLA (XML for Analysis) scripts

SSAS IsAggregate, Usage and AtributeHierarchyEnabled properties

SSAS Roles (about 2 questions)

SSAS Usage Base Optimization (about 2 questions)

MDX Languages (3-4 questions)

I think the most questions were focused on SSAS and less on Data Mining. The questions I think many persons will have some difficulty during the exam are configuring a SSIS, SSAS and SSRS Servers that are typical tasks more related with SQL Database Administrators (DBA)… Except in small/middle companies, rarely a BI developer needs to administer a SQL database. Although and based on my last experience helping implementing a critical BI system, some DBA’s issues aroused often, and our team needed to do everything including DBA tasks. For that reason, I am planning to take SQL DBA certification next weeks. But before it I’ll take BI exam 70-452 to update MCTIP BI certification for SQL 2008

uCertify Experience

uCertify kindly asked me some weeks ago to try their product on 70-448 exam. I accepted the challenge but in one condition… use it in real for making the exam! The experience was very interesting and I changed my opinion about these kinds of products. The uCertify product has several exams to test your skils but also a study helper. The exams are not Dumps and if you want to pass the exam learning, I truly recommend that you invest on this product. If you fail the exam, at the end you’ll spend more money. Visit the uCertify software for this exam

If you plan to invest on uCertify testing software, I can send you a 10% discount voucher

BI Graduation – Best student award!

2011-11-08T00:35:00.024Z

One more season, one more success!

This success is merit of the 24 talent student’s with willingness to learn and share their knowledge with everyone. Last week, was held the awards ceremony where congratulations were made to all students for their efforts over the last year especially to Carlos José Monteiro who got the best result. The ceremony was then followed by a final convivial dinner offer by the University.

The 3rd edition took off at the same day with 25 students enrolled, which is proof that this graduation is on the right path and is becoming increasingly a national BI reference on this field. This success is far beyond the interest of students who have gone there, but also due to the magnificent organization exists in this University primarily to Filomena Lopes. For my part, I thank the confidence placed on me and it is with great pride that I accepted the invitation to re-join the team of the 3rd edition

This success has allowed dreaming up with new projects that would make this graduation getting more visibility at national and international levels... One of the main projects for this purpose, is underway and I hope it becomes reality with the students support.

Special thanks to the post-graduation partners, which allowed some approximation between “real” and academic world through several seminars and mentoring the students in their final projects

BI Book - SQL Server MVP Deep Dives - Volume 2

2011-09-23T00:04:00.015+01:00

Dear friends,

I’m not writing for too much time... almost 2 months! Although we are on summer (usually time for vacations) I was working almost day and night! Yes… it’s true! Too many challenges and few much time to vacations or to write here some posts) One of the challenge was being a co-author of the MVP Deep Dives book (2nd Volume). The book is almost available for sell! See here more details from the chapter I wrote: “Excel as BI FrontEnd tool”.

Book Description

Individually, each SQL Server MVP possesses an impressive wealth of knowledge and skill. Collectively, the 63 MVPs who contributed to SQL Server MVP Deep Dives, Volume II represent over 1000 years of daily experience in SQL Server administration, development, training, and design. This incredible book captures this expertise and passion in a collection of sixty concise chapters, each handpicked by lead editor Kalen Delaney and section editors Louis Davidson, Greg Low, Brad McGehee, Paul Nielsen, Paul Randal, and Kimberly Tripp, and written by an active SQL Server MVP.

This second volume picks up where the first SQL Server MVP Deep Dives leaves off, offering completely new content on topics ranging from testing and policy management to integration services, reporting, and performance optimization techniques. The chapters fall into five parts, Architecture and Design, Administration, Database Development, Performance Tuning and Optimization, and Business Intelligence

About the Authors

This book includes contributions from 63 SQL Server MVPs. All chapters were selected and edited by Kalen Delaney and section editors Louis Davidson (Architecture and Design), Paul Randaland Kimberly Tripp (Database Administration), Brad McGehee (Performance Tuning), Paul Nielsen (Database Development), and Greg Low (Business Intelligence)

Your purchase supports Operation Smile

An international children's medical charity dedicated to healing cleft lip, cleft palate, and other facial deformities through safe and effective surgical care. Every donation can help change a life! Learn more at www.operationsmile.org

BI with US against Moodys

2011-07-26T23:51:00.011+01:00

I don’t like to publish this type of videos, but this time I think Moody’s deserve this message just because we are making all the efforts to overcome our problems. I know that almost problems we are currently facing, are the responsibility of the latest government’s, but this time the latest Moody’s downgrade was really an injustice and an attack against Portugal.

There's always something good in the bad moments, like many of you that can know now a country called Portugal. Visit us and know this amazing country!

BI Tools - SQL Denali CTP3 Released

2011-07-12T23:16:00.005+01:00

Microsoft announced today in the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference the release of the Community Technical Preview (CTP 3) of Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali”! I’m really very excited to install and check all the new BI features that I have at very high expectations! The world is moving fast and I hope that all you can stay connected with the future!!!

Take a look to the keynote presented by Satya Nadell (President of Server and Tools Business Group) to see all the news about Microsoft products, best partners and strategy for the next year

More details here
SQL "Denali" CTP3 Download

BI Book – Excel as BI Front-End Tool

2011-06-29T22:53:00.012+01:00

I’m very happy to announce that finally I submit the chapter for the next MVP Deep Dives Book that I’m a co-author with some other MVP professionals around the world. The book will be published next October and for sure I’ll give you here more news about it.

The chapter I wrote, explains the construction of an Excel Dashboard from an IT and Business perspective in a retail sector scenario. It was not intended to explain the best way to create a dashboard for the retail sector, but to describe some tips and tricks for a low-cost dashboard using a familiar tool commonly implemented across organizations: Excel.

Excel 2010 seems to be the strongest candidate to be chosen as preferable tool. It's certainly true that Excel 2010 doesn't yet have the design features of some BI Front-End competitors, but the low cost and welcome acceptance from end users are big advantages to it. Naturally, there are huge commercial interests in favour of more robust solutions that generally stand by their promises, but in turn, the return on the investment (ROI) is the question.

The dashboard created along the chapter is shown in the previous figure. I highlight the fact that beyond this dashboard, information is centralized inside an OLAP cube, and the dashboard was created without any line of code! At one hand, you make IT department satisfied (because they still control data quality, data governance…) and at another hand, business has the freedom to create their own dashboards and reports not only through Excel 2010, but also through Report Builder 3.0.

All the money from the book sales will be donated to charity. And the organization selected by almost co-authors of this book is the Operation Smile. I hope you buy this book to learn new things but also to help to make the difference for these children!

I'll keep you informed about book published date!

BI Tools - Cumulative Update #8 for SQL 2008 R2

2011-06-22T00:05:00.003+01:00

Dear Friends,
Just to inform you that a new cumulative update was released today! If you use SQL 2008 R2 version don´t forget to update it with these new fixes.

Take a look a the full details here:
CU#8 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2534352

Previous Cumulative Update KB Articles:
CU#7 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2507770
CU#6 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2489376
CU#5 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2438347
CU#4 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2345451
CU#3 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2261464
CU#2 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2072493
CU#1 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981355

Follow all Microsoft SQL Server Release Services here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices

BI Blog - Four Years Blogging - Thank You!

2011-06-21T00:20:00.006+01:00

Four years blogging! For me it’s simple amazing!
I started this challenge 4 years ago (May 2007) when few people known what a blog is! I always kept in mind that this place is just for write about BI and never to make money with banners with commercial purposes. My goal was always to spread BI world and never disappoint you with other intentions like earning money with this.

Almost 100.000 page views for a blog without adult content or illegal download links, it’s for me absolutely positive. I know that there are several points to review and improve, but it’s all about stop for a while and decide to focus on it.

Naturally without the support of special persons, I couldn’t arrive here. I highlight the following important persons, who directly or indirectly make this blog still alive:
- The ISCTE students from MSIAD and MEI master degrees classes
- The UPT students from post-graduate BI classes (1º and 2º Editions)
- The Ensiguarda students from MBA classes
- My dear teacher Maria José Trigueiros
- All the persons that believed in me and always encouraged me to continue on this challenge
- All blog visitors!!

Some numbers...

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Want to share an experience? A tip? Some news?
You could write a post here as a guest in section BI Guest Corner

This place will continue to be a meeting point for all those persons that have the same passion as me for Business Intelligence.

THANK YOU ALL
I promise you that I’ll never stop

BI Book – Free Data Quality and MDM SQL e-book

2011-06-01T23:53:00.010+01:00

Well… here am I again with another free e-book… and this time a Data Quality (DQ) and master data management (MDM) book using SQL 2008 R2! The book was written by my MVP colleagues Dejan Sarka and Davide Mauri. It’s for sure an amazing book that you should not miss! I’ll start reading soon!

"This book deals with master data. It explains how we can recognize our master data. It stresses the importance of a good data model for data integrity. It shows how we can find areas of bad or suspicious data. It shows how we can proactively enforce better data quality and make an authoritative master data source through a specialized Master Data Management application. It also shows how we can tackle the problems with duplicate master data and the problems with identity mapping from different databases in order to create a unique representation of the master data.

For all the tasks mentioned in this book, we use the tools that are available in the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 suite. In order to achieve our goal—good quality of our data—nearly any part of the suite turns to be useful. This is not a beginner’s book. We, the authors, suppose that you, the readers, have quite good knowledge of SQL Server Database Engine, .NET, and other tools from the SQL Server suite.

Achieving good quality of your master data is not an easy task. We hope this book will help you with this task and serve you as a guide for practical work and as a reference manual whenever you have problems with master data"

Download link!

I hope you enjoy it!

BI Book - Free Business Intelligence e-book

2011-05-31T00:37:00.011+01:00

Today I bring you a link for an interesting free e-book from Logica. This e-book doesn’t require any registration and I think you should take a look!

"Knowing that we address Business Intelligence (BI) experts with our mailing, there's no need to convinve you of the importance of monitoring and measurement of the performance of your organisation in times of uncertainty and economic downturn.

With our book "The BI Framework - How to turn information into a competitive asset" we introduce how BI can help to reach your business objectives. Knowing that most organisations already have BI solutions in place we focus on cost effective management of BI and provide you with a clear roadmap on how to lower the total cost of ownership of your current landscape"

Table of contents:
1. Introduction
2. Business Value of BI
3. Business Intelligence definition
4. Managing BI
5. BI Lifecycle
6. BI Solution Engineering
7. Best Practices
8. Ferrari Case Study

Download link
I hope you enjoy it!

BI Seminar – MSIAD – BI new trends

2011-05-16T23:22:00.015+01:00

It’s almost beginning the master degree entirely dedicated to Business Intelligence (BI) idealized by my main reference on BI: Dra Maria José Trigueiros that physically left us on year ago. This Master is held every two years and the season 2011-2013 will begin next October 2011. To formal present to the public this master, the ISCTE-IUL University in the person of Dr. Filipe Santos, decided to follow one of the Dra Maria Jose Trigueiros dream: A Business Intelligence seminar dedicated to the fourth edition of BI master! Wherever Dra Maria Jose Trigueiros is, I believe she is proud of this university and all the people that will make this dream come true.

If you are interested in BI and also were a Maria Jose Trigueiros student, I truly suggest you to be in ISCTE-IUL next Friday. BI demonstrations from DevScope (main Microsoft BI Portuguese partner), F5TCI (Qlickview) and SAS will be some of the amazing content that will be provided to you! Don’t miss this event!!!
Official website here

BI Book - Reactive Business Intelligence

2011-04-30T19:53:00.018+01:00

This book was for me one of the more original and interesting data mining books! It explains the several data mining tasks and techniques in a very intuitive and innovative way. It explain almost key points in the data mining field from the simple to complex topics. Even those persons that hate statistics and formulas will read and like this wonderful book. It has written in a “clean” language, with a lot of pictures that provides a better understanding about author’s message.

The book was written by the two persons of the picture above (R. Battiti and M. Brunato), and I truly suggest you to buy it. In the official book website, R. Battiti and M. Brunato added their description about it: “Reactive Business Intelligence is about integrating data mining, modeling and interactive visualization, into an end-to-end discovery and continuous innovation process powered by human and automated learning. This unifying goal requires collecting and integrating topics which are usually dissected into books dedicated to different areas” and also in the YouTube it’s possible to see a more personal description:

The concept of Reactive Business Intelligence introduced on the book is focused in four main areas: Data Mining, Models, Visualization and Feedback/Learning by software and people.

Throughout the book can be seen huge amount of intuitive pictures that support a fast learning, mainly in some topics often difficult to understand. Some examples can be seen in the official website, but I selected right now some of them for you:

Some points that I think could be improved/changed:

- Reduce the references to the visualization tool used (Grapheur) or add a new one more intuitive.

- More alignment between amazing book content to “real world” business cases

You can buy the book at official website!

I hope you enjoy it!

BI Event - SQL Saturday Portugal

2011-04-13T17:32:00.029+01:00

The SQL Saturday, owned by the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), is organizing for the first time outside USA, an SQL event here in Portugal! The SQL Saturday goal, is to provide the tools and knowledge to groups and event leaders that need to organize and host, a free day of training for SQL Server professionals. This SQL event will be realized all day, and will take place next 15-April at the Microsoft Portugal auditorium. It’s for sure a very interesting event, mainly for those professionals in the SQL DBA and DEV fields.

The session’s schedules are the following:
09:00 AM Niko Neugebauer
SQL Server Denali CTP1 and more
10:15 AM Nuno Godinho
SQL Azure Overview - How to Develop and Manage it
11:30 AM Ramesh Meyyappan
SAP/SQL Server - Software Integration at its best!
01:30 PM Artur Santos
Optimizing SQL Server for Sharepoint 2010
02:45 PM Scott Stauffer++
SSIS: Overcoming Common Challenges
04:00 PM Pedro Rosa
Introduction to SQL Azure Reporting?
05:15 PM Ramesh Meyyappan
SQL Server Performance Monitoring and Tuning

Click here to Register

BI Award – SQL BI MVP Award 2011

2011-04-03T17:37:00.013+01:00

Yesterday, I received the email from Microsoft with MVP Award related for all my contribution in the last year. It’s an honor to be again in the restricted group of those persons that spend huge time in what they believe and has passionate.

I have some projects related with this award that I’ll write here very soon. But for now, I want to thank primarily to my princess Joana that is always by my side and to my family. Some special thanks to all direct and indirect support from:

- All blog visitors
- All the post-graduation students on BI from Universidade Portucalense (Porto)
- All the master graduation students on BI from ISCTE (MSIAD + MEI) (Lisboa)
- Dra. Maria José Trigueiros for all the magic words (She’s still alive in my life)
- All those persons that believed in me, even more than myself

Thank you all! Regards.

BI Conference - Microsoft Portugal 2011 (day after)

2011-03-26T10:46:00.021Z

Yesterday I attended the Microsoft BI Conference that took place here in Portugal. It was the first time that Microsoft organize a big and vertical conference focus specifically only in Business Intelligence. The advantage of this kind of focused event is that the attendees know exactly where they go and also is more easy to get support from Microsoft BI partners that could implement some interesting initiatives like show what they has being done in BI, but also to get the contacts of potential future customers and also employees. 700 attendees are a signal that Microsoft BI Tools and “BI world” have been gaining more confidence and support from the community. A special reference for my BI students from ISCTE (Lisbon) and also from UPT (Porto 300 kms distance) that were attending the event! This is just one more step on their interest on BI World… I hope they enjoyed it!

But because this is the first big BI event with 3 parallel tracks, naturally that has some contents that not fit at all in some group of attendees. Almost the sessions was too soft for Microsoft BI professionals, but was amazing for those people that were seeing Microsoft BI capabilities for the first time. Naturally this kind of event has a commercial purpose that allowed being a free event. So… a free event with a very good speakers and also with an amazing organization from Microsoft staff… what we can expect more?! I believe these kind of vertical/focused events are here to stay. And I hope to finally see an academic track where the BI students around Portugal could show their projects based on Microsoft amazing BI tools. And also we want to see more Portuguese speakers like Bruno Cortes that was planned to present at the beginning, but for some reason his session was canceled. There are huge potential in BI here in Portugal that Microsoft in my perspective should invest. What about the several conference partners? Just one Portuguese partner presents a session? This makes any sense? For me naturally not!

It was amazing to speak personally with Albert Ferrari that is one of my references since some many years. If you want to follow one of the discussions I had with him in SQL BI methodology click here. I confess that I don’t believe too much in Microsoft Power Pivot Excel Add-in (One of the main key areas of Albert Ferrari and also Marco Russo), but after speak for a while with Albert, he convinced me with some new features that I didn’t know. I am an advocate of a single repository of data, and create more “islands” of information scares me! I know that Power Pivot has huge performance, I know that could be amazing for a prototype, but I also know, Microsoft is interested in these islands (Office is a key area) and in a more realistic scenarios cannot be created by end-users, because they need to know a new query language (DAX)… If Integrated with Sharepoint I truly believe that could resolve some issues, even because the amazing Sharepoint design/layout could easily create a new end users habits that in spite of going to file system looking for their excel files, maybe start looking in Sharepoint that centralize them… Congratulations for all your sessions! Nice so see you here!

The Facilities and organization
Relating to the facilities and all organization, I just need to thank to João Bilhim e Miguel Vicente for all the amazing work they done on this event. They always give 200% to make these initiatives come true. On my side as a BI passionate I want to thank all the efforts done.

The Tagetik Session
In spite of their very good speaker’s performance, I was expecting a bit more about Tagetik tools. It was more a Sharepoint integration than a Tagetik session… for those that saw Sharepoint for the first time I imagine that it was amazing… but for those not, I think they was little disappointed because they have not seen the huge promise of Tagetik capabilities. Maybe in a next opportunity… but thanks for the speakers that made a very good session!

One day in a decision maker life session
The session was promising a lot… and despite almost attendees not having learned anything new, it was a funny and cool session… Basically, Sergio Ferreira (Microsoft) was telling us a history about BI (in Sergio BI perspective) and about how he deal with 400 new email messages every day and about the 1.200 meetings he has per month! He showed a power pivot excel file that reads data from outlook… It was a different session more focused on convinces business users, that they can do more with less effort. I think he made it well!

The Maciej Pilecki Sessions
Usually the speaker that comes from Project Botticelli Company is Rafal… See here my posts about this amazing speaker. Unfortunately he didn't come this time and Maciej Pilecki replaced him. Maciej is also a huge speaker, but the topics was very simple and generic and already included in previous Rafal events on Portugal. But for those who never had the opportunity to see Rafal sessions and are beginning a BI career, I don’t have any doubt they were convinced about Microsoft BI tools capabilities. Congratulations to Maciej!

The Alejandro Leguizamo session
Alejandro is Spanish and my MVP colleague. It was the first time I saw a session presented by him, and truly loved! He made a very good job in his session about “Designing scalable and complex Analysis Service Cubes”… it was for more advanced and tech users, and fits more in those people that already work with SSAS. Unfortunately I didn’t speak in person with Alejandro, because I left his session before the end, and I never found him again around the conference location. Congratulations Alejandro! Nice to see you here in Portugal!

More conferences like this one is desirable for sure!

BI Videos - SQL Server Denali Videos‏

2011-03-07T18:12:00.007Z

Today I paste some very interesting SQL Server videos links for you... not only for BI professionals, but also SQL DBA's and DEV's. I hope you enjoy them!

The videos and links could be found below:

Upgrade Your Database (Denali)
Data Programmability Tools (Denali)
SQL Server appliance (Denali & R2)
Parallel Data Warehouse (R2)
SQL Server virtualization (Denali & R2)
SQL Server security (Denali)
SQL Server AlwaysOn (Denali)
SQL Server backup compression (R2)
SQL Server Integration Services (Denali)
SQL Server Non-Relational (Denali)
SQL Server CLR (Denali)
SQL Server Data Compression (R2)
SQL Server Manageability (Denali & R2)

BI Conference - Microsoft Portugal 2011

2011-02-27T23:47:00.009Z

Microsoft is organizing a conference only about BI here in Portugal… I have no doubts that will be an amazing conference! It's a big surprise a Microsoft conference focused only in BI…

There are 3 tracks…
Track 01 – IT Decision makers
Track 02 – Deep Dive em Microsoft BI
Track 03 – Microsoft BI Ramp-Up

If you are in Portugal you cannot miss this conference next 25 March!!
It’s a free conference! Registration can be done here

BI News – Donald Farmer Left Microsoft

2011-01-07T00:46:00.006Z

Today I received the notice that Donald Farmer, one of the main business intelligence (BI) minds left Microsoft. Even yesterday I was writing about him on the predixion post and I had no idea what happened today… And imagine to where? To QlickTech…

I do not understand how Microsoft let their main BI reference Donald Farmer goes to the main concurrent of PowerPivot: Qlickview. Last year, Donald Farmer was defending his perspective of PowerPivot product agains Qlickview… now his in that side… what a great loss!

What can we think right now? Some question that we can do: Will Microsoft BI strategy follow Data mining Strategy? (Silenced) Why Donald Farmer left Microsoft? Exactly because there is a change on BI strategic? It’s the end of the line in Microsoft BI?

Read the entire Donald Farmer perspective through his blog in first person here.
Just some paragraphs here:

“When I joined Microsoft in 2001, the Analysis Services team was then about 50 people, and was the largest organization I had ever worked in. Along with Reporting Services, and later Integration Services, the BI org was an exceptional team including some of the smartest, most driven, and most amiable people I know. (Some were all three!)
…
So, where am I going? I am joining QlikTech, creating a role as the Product Advocate for QlikView. In my next post, early next week, I’ll write more, from QlikTech HQ. I look forward to telling you more about this role and what promises to be a thrilling new direction for me with the most exciting company I have seen in years"

Some Donald Farmer references in this blog during last years:

BI Interview – Donald Farmer BI Perspective
Yes we can!...see Donald Farmer in Portugal!
BI Webminar - Free Data Mining Webinar

I wish you the best luck in your new challenge.

Pedro

BI Webminar - Free Data Mining Webinar

2011-01-05T00:08:00.016Z

If you are curious to know more about Data Mining and you use Excel as one of your favorite tools, I truly suggest you to assist at the Predixion Webminar that will take place next 11th January. Microsoft changed the strategy concerning to the Data Mining, and it was perceptible not only by the new position of Donald Farmer at PowerPivot team, but also after the main Microsoft team elements abandoned Microsoft Data Mining team on 2009. These elements created a new and amazing company named Predixion. I truly believe on determination and capabilities of the main founders of this company since the first time (like Jamie MacLennan an Simon) and it’s an honor to be a Beta tester of their fantastic Data Mining Product since the beginning.

The main and big improvements comparing to MSFT Data Mining Add-In:

- The amazing design
- The easy and flexibility to manage the models done with Predixion
- The huge performance (mainly because their cloud plataform)
- No cost-prohibitive software license fees
- The possibility to use PowerPivot dataset as source that support the process of millions of rows in seconds
- Connectivity with SAS and SPSS (world leaders) through PMML language
- (…)

Even Microsoft recognizes today the importance of Prexition in the Data Mining field and also as a Microsoft partner. Donald Farmer (He was the Microsoft Data Mining team responsible and now he’s the Microsoft PowerPivot responsible) assume that with this opinion:

"Many businesses have ambitions to use predictive analytics to improve their practices and intelligence. Until now, such projects have often been shelved because current tools were either too difficult or limited to the desktop. Now, we see an alternative – Predixion Software.

Predixion Insight’s deep integration with SQL Server Data Mining brings analytic power; the integration with Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel brings flexibility for end users to prepare almost limitless data for analysis, and their business model makes experimentation and incremental deployments practical and attractive. The result is a truly agile, yet potent, solution for predictive analytics.” Donald Farmer, Microsoft Corporation

Take a look into Predixion Corporate video on the YouTube:

Predictive analytics and data mining are now available to business intelligence experts everywhere with Predixion's cloud-based predictive analytics software. Predixion brings affordable, sophisticated predictive analytics to Microsoft Excel and PowerPivot.
Do not miss the Predixion Webminar!

You will learn on this webminar:
- What exactly is Predictive Analytics & who needs it.
- Where & how Predictive Analytics is being used.
- What Predictive Analytics can do for your bottom line.
- How to get started using Predixion insight

I’m preparing a post to show you into deep detail, how it's easy to create a Data Mining model through Excel using Predixion tool. If you want know more about Data Mining and the session I presented last year at Microsoft TechDays 2010, follow this link

BI Seminar - Microstrategy BI Tools

2010-12-23T01:01:00.018Z

Last Friday, I invited the "Microstrategy" to present a session based on their BI tools, to students from two different master degrees classes and also some BI passionate friends.
I confess that I didn’t have a very a good opinion about Microstrategy. But since some months ago, I surrendered to their products quality not for my own experience with the tools, but mainly by the market opinion and for the amazing staff that Microstrategy Portugal currently has.

Related to market opinion, Microstrategy is for Gartner, one of the world BI leaders. Mainly after this session, I truly believe on it, but BI is more than that… there is a huge work that BI should do to became a successful system. And because we are talking about tools... an ETL tool to extract, transform and load operational data into BI system is a critical step where almost projects in average spend 70% of the time. A BI system has a huge pillar on technology, but is required to be aligned with strategy, with business processes and with the people which almost the times resist to the change.

Related to the Microstrategy Portuguese staff, they are very kindly and always available to be in touch with the master degrees that I collaborate as assistant teacher. They are amazing and I’m sure that they make the difference in an increasingly competitive BI world.

The session was very interesting and concerning to the Microstrategy tools I highlight the big flexibility to create a dashboard, and also the huge performance that seemed to have! Also the dashboard showed directly in IPAD was wonderful!

The feedback from the audience was very positive... I highlight the following:

Take a look at this video to better imagine what was included on this seminar

Thanks again to Daniel and Carla from Microstrategy Portugal!

BI Tools – Microsoft Project Crescent

2010-12-01T16:59:00.006Z

During the PASS Summit, Microsoft announced the launch of the community technology preview (CTP) of SQL Server 11, codename “Denali”. Unfortunately, this version doesn’t have yet almost BI functionalities promised by Microsoft. Only at the end of 2011 these functionalities will be available to try!

But for now, I’m very excited to see codenamed Project “Crescent” (entirely developed on Silverlight) available to try and test! Microsoft already have cool BI front-end tools, although it’s required a tool that gathers all the functionalities dispersed by these several tools in only one. Right now, we can explore information inside a Data Warehouse or OLAP Database, through very good tools like: Excel, Visio, Report Builder, Reporting Services, Power Pivot (Excel Add-in)… but Project Crescent is a hope that an amazing visualizing world is coming soon… I hope not be disappointed, but on 2011 we all see and prove!

If you want to download the SQL Server Denali CTP, follow this link

Regards, Pedro

BI Guest Corner - Oracle and SAP Events

2010-10-31T13:06:00.007Z

Dear friends,
Today I have the honor to publish some feedback about SAP and ORACLE realized last month in Portugal and submitted by Maria João Gama to the blog.

SAP Conference Day
The SAP Conference Day - Business Intelligence held at the Museu do Oriente (Lisbon) on 23rd September 2010, and it was probably the biggest Business Intelligence event this year in Portugal, with the presence of about 400 guests. The whole event was very oriented to the pressing need to "mobile" BI solutions.

With a very interesting agenda, the event began with an excellent presentation of Timo Elliott (No. 8 of official Business Objects), entitled "The Clear Future Intelligence." This presentation, which I strongly recommend, is available on YouTube:

The following agenda items were completed by case studies presentations based on SAP Business Objects platform. These presentations were all realized in partnership between the customer and the provider of the BI solution (SAP partner)

Highlight the presentation of Ricardo Guerra Volkswagen AutoEuropa, for being the only one that showed benefits with financial translation, quantifiable and measurable on implementing a BI solution - Business Objects Dashboard. This project, implemented by Novabase, the main goal was to monitor the daily operations of the various IT systems. The success of this project has brought Volkswagen adopt this solution as standard within the Group

The event ended on a high note with a presentation provided by an economist and university Professor, João César das Neves

Oracle Conference
15 September 2011, at Sana Lisboa Park Hotel, Oracle held an event where they made the official release of Oracle Business Intelligence 11g.

This event was very diversified, because although it has focused on the slope of the end user, exploring the platform provided by Oracle Business Intelligence, also covered technical solutions for integrating real-time data for BI and Data Warehousing and Extreme Performance Data Warehousing

The first presentation was entitled, Integrated Solutions for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing, where it has been a demonstration of Business Intelligence platform - Oracle Business Intelligence 11g, which is positioned as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, Gartner

It was then addressed the integration of real-time data for BI and Data Warehousing, through Oracle Golden Gate that provides a data integration in real time without affecting system performance

The event ended with a brilliant presentation of Extreme Performance Data Warehousing with Oracle Exadata Database Machine, which promises to increase the performance of Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) Databases and Data Warehousing (DW) in more than 10 times. Impressive!!!

It was also scheduled a presentation from Oracle Essbase, which was cancelled due to delays

Bio: Maria João Gama is a project manager at EDP and more details can be found at her LinkedIn profile.

PDC10 - Developers, Developers and Developers

2010-10-27T12:27:00.004+01:00

This event is mainly interesting for developers. Although I think that could be also interesting for those in several other areas like BI that have some free time. I suggest you to view the key note and sessions live streaming, to be inside the latest technologies.

"Since 1991, the PDC has been the epicenter of Microsoft’s biggest platform announcements. This year will be no exception. Leading-edge developers and architects will gather in Redmond this October to hear firsthand from Microsoft’s leaders about the next generation of Microsoft developer technologies.

The PDC isn’t just about content and sessions – it’s an opportunity for you to get hands-on access to the latest technologies, have your questions answered by the people who conceived and built the technologies and plan the features and architecture to support your business goals. If you’re a developer, architect or technology leader involved in making strategic technology decisions for your company or organization, you can’t afford to miss the PDC

This year’s groundbreaking PDC event will include live streaming of the keynotes, as well as concurrent live streaming of sessions. If you can’t join the live stream, you can still watch the video on-demand, or download all the content within 24 hours of live recording. The online event is free; no registration is required to join the live or on-demand stream"

BI Event – Microstrategy BI Symposium

2010-10-04T20:11:00.011+01:00

Well… I come again with a post related to BI Events… Mainly because the entire world is open the eyes and the focus to BI world is growing a lot… I would not be fair if I don’t enclose Microstrategy in the more important events about BI realized in Portugal. Microstrategy is one of the top companies in BI on the entire world. After SAP and Oracle events you cannot miss Microstrategy event next 9th November 2010… Personally, I want to thank to Carla Bastos, Rodolfo Vale and Nuno Esculcas (Microstrategy Portugal) for all the support and availability to make this BI world better!

BI Events – Oracle and SAP BI Platform’s

2010-09-11T13:29:00.009+01:00

Business Intelligence (BI) is the present and the future. Independently on which BI tools are used, the well succeeded companies don’t live without BI. Naturally BI is not only technology, but we all agree that they are the most important driver on BI. If you are a decision maker, an employee, a student, a teacher, or a simple person that are thinking to enter on this world, could be interesting see another perspective of BI. Oracle (15 September) and SAP (23 September) will hold this month their BI events with the latest news about their BI platform.

Join these events.

BI Event – FREE Sharepoint 2010 Event

2010-09-08T01:04:00.005+01:00

The SharePoint Portuguese User Group is holding what they describe as a mega-event on September 29 2010 – the SharePointPt Day! I don’t have any doubt about their success! Huge professionals like João Bilhim, Andre Lage and Rodrigo Pinto are speaking and organizing it. You’ll also have the opportunity to see SharePoint gurus Joel Oleson and Mark Miller speaking! You cannot miss it!

I think Sharepoint 2010 is very expensive for Portuguese market, although, I truly believe that has huge capabilities and functionalities to make a Business Intelligence system perfect (BI is my area of interest, but Sharepoint provides you a lot of other interesting subjects). This week I’ll buy a 64-bits laptop to put the "hands" on it!

FREE Registration for the Event

BI Guest Corner - Six Sigma Business Intelligence

2010-08-18T22:16:00.006+01:00

Dear friends,
Today I have the honor to publish an article submitted by Alexis Bonari exclusively for this our blog. The subject purposed has been taking increasingly importance in the BI world… Take five minutes and read it... is it worth reading:

Many educational institutions that teach Business Intelligence are taking on a new challenge: quantifying Business Intelligence quality. The most obvious way to quantify or define the quality of Business Intelligence is to create a marriage between the concepts that define Business Intelligence, and the popular Six Sigma Black Belt program.

Six Sigma strategies are defined by their adherence to a statistics-driven model. These models are designed to eliminate resource waste and streamline operational performance within a company. A marriage of Six Sigma statistical strategies with Business Intelligence principals would provide a mathematically based model for cost-effective Business Intelligence implementation. There are two main challenges inherent to applying the Six Sigma model to Business Intelligence.

1. How should the Business Intelligence product be defined?
Although much of the literature surrounding Business Intelligence relies upon terms and definitions that seem to defy strict quantification, data still represents the foundation upon which the definitions are based. Six Sigma techniques can be applied to this foundational data, thereby defining the Business Intelligence product.

2. How should we define the success of Business Intelligence?
The needs and desires of the client define the success of Business Intelligence. Therefore, quality can only be determined if the factors that clients care about are adequately identified. These factors generally include pre-defined industry standards such as performance, accuracy, clarity, availability of data, etc. Metrics can then be used to measure these factors.

A high quality Business Intelligence model will deliver these collated metrics to team members who are in the best possible position to act on them effectively. Six Sigma techniques are well positioned to judge how effectively the information is passed along. As more managers are trained in Six Sigma Business Intelligence, businesses will be better able to efficiently transfer data to the appropriate hands. By streamlining the processes employed in Business Intelligence strategies, companies will effectively reap many benefits that can be passed along to their customer base.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She often can be found blogging about general education issues as well as information on college scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

BI Conference - SQL Bits VII

2010-08-16T21:11:00.004+01:00

Today I want to inform you about an amazing conference that will take place from September 30th to Saturday October 2nd in York (UK). It will be the 7th edition and for sure is an event that you could not miss. I don’t know yet if I’ll attend, but I’ll try! I attended two times in the past… check here and here to read my experiences at SQL Bits II Birmingham and SQL Bits III London

"Just as a reminder, SQLBits 7 will take place over three days from Thursday September 30th to Saturday October 2nd in York. Day one will be a training day, featuring in-depth full day seminars by leading SQL Server professionals such as Chris Testa-O’Neill and Chris Webb; day two will be a deep-dive conference day with advanced sessions delivered by the best speakers from the SQL Server community; and day three will be the traditional SQLBits community conference day, with a wide range of sessions covered all aspects of SQL Server at all levels of ability. There will be a charge to attend days one and two, but day three, Saturday October 2nd, will as usual be completely free to attend allowing everyone to attend and experience a great day of training even if they have no training budget"

If you think to register let me know.

Pedro

BI Article - Writing for Portuguese Microsoft KB

2010-08-11T00:22:00.012+01:00

Recently I was invited by Microsoft to write to Portuguese Knowledge Base on SQL Server, more specifically in the Business Intelligence (BI) area. It was an honour and extra motivation for me, despite I’m being increasingly busier and with difficulty to contribute with my BI perspective in the various communities I am currently involved. This is also a challenge to test my capability for manage my time.

My articles on Microsoft's KB will follow a structure of "from theory to practice" in the BI area and they can be less or more detailed and addressing various issues on Data Warehousing, OLAP and Data Mining using tools such as Microsoft SQL Server R2, Excel 2010 , Power Pivot and Sharepoint 2010. This first article focuses on an approach that I typically use to design the date dimension. I hope this article is useful and also contribute for more complex approaches on date dimensions that you may need to implement on your BI System.

Take a look at my first KB article (KB2293691) here and follow this link or press on the image below to download the files refered on the article!

If you want to know my perspective about BI concept, I suggest you to read my article on BlogNotions here

BI Education - Post-Graduation in BI

2010-07-15T00:54:00.011+01:00

The current Business Intelligence (BI) post-graduation degree at Universidade Portucalense (UPT) is near the end, and the next edition, as is typical in a well-organized institution like UPT, is already being prepared. According to the students, the current and first edition is being a success, which gives more motivation and enthusiasm for the entire teaching staff to continue the work and achieve the high expectations of the people who normally enroll in such courses.

I was again invited to take the course of BI, which made me very honored and proud and with a sense of accomplishment. There is always something to improve and innovate, and the next edition will be no exception. In terms of innovation will be my priority update all my modules and the used tools, and especially keep students of the 1st edition "tied" to the university for sharing knowledge among all, inviting them to attend some classes, workshops and mainly to present the final project done in the current edition. The following image show the general structure of my modules aligned with all the post graduation degree:

With the aim of bringing academia to the "real world", were created partnerships with large national and international companies with recognition in the area of BI. Among them are Microsoft, Primavera and Devscope as GOLD partners, and Microstrategy, Novabase, Critical Software, Informatica, PHC and Oracle as SILVER partners. My thanks to various partners for this partnership, even in the current crisis, providing the next edition students, with high quality workshops, BI books and awards for the best students.

A special thanks to students from the current edition for all their interest, dedication, kindness and friendship. I’m sure that for all their qualities their future is very promising. Personally, I see this graduation as only a training opportunity for sharing knowledge with students about this fantastic world of Business Intelligence and for which I am truly passionate.

Check all details here

Registrations are now open!

BI Thoughts – Writing on BlogNotions about BI

2010-07-07T01:05:00.010+01:00

After Karen's (BlogNotions) invitation, today I’m starting a new adventure… writing about BI more often at the Business Intelligence BlogNotions website.

"BlogNotions Business Intelligence Blog delivers a diverse series of perspectives provided by BI thought leaders. Presented by NetLine, this forum delivers compelling updates on the latest technologies in the marketplace, discussions of competitive decision making, new ideas for analyzing data, and much more. Here you can find helpful information, ask questions, and collaborate freely"

This first post is dedicated to the Business Intelligence concept and for that reason, I should refer my main reference in this world: Drª Maria José Trigueiros.

I hope you read it and also enjoy it. Check it here
Give feedback and let me improve with your experience and knowledge.
Regards,
Pedro

BI Article - Writing about BI in a Magazine

2010-06-29T23:56:00.009+01:00

Today I accomplish one more important step in my professional evolution. Together with Drª Filomena Lopes (IT Director of Universidade Portucalense) I wrote an article for a Portuguese magazine about Business Intelligence. Naturally, this article is more interesting for Portuguese people than those that don’t have Portuguese as a mother or second language. But for those that don’t understand Portuguese don’t worry, because I was invited to write some stuff about BI in a english website... I’ll tell you more about it during this week.

Article published last week on "Semana Informatica" magazine.

I hope you enjoy this article.
Regards,
Pedro

BI Green - I Love You Earth

2010-06-23T22:24:00.005+01:00

We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate.

The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film.

HOME has been made for you: share it! And act for the planet. You can find this amazing documentary on YouTube in several languages, even up in Portuguese. Take some time on this and see how our home is right now

Start today the change of your lifestyle… follow this Mind-Map:

HOME official website
http://www.home-2009.com

BI Interview – Donald Farmer BI Perspective

2010-06-19T20:07:00.014+01:00

Today I want to share an amazing interview done by my friend Ella Maschiach’s with the “father” of Microsoft Business Intelligence… Mr. Donald Farmer. He’s responsible for the new amazing Microsoft products like Power Pivot and Sharepoint 2010. You can’t miss this interview. Ella… why do you not follow a career also as a journalist?

ehehhehehehehe

Part I

Part II

Check the entire post in Ella’s blog here

I hope you enjoy it.

BI Dissertation – MSIAD

2010-06-16T23:13:00.008+01:00

Today I finally publish the presentation of my master BI dissertation, that I defended last year. I do it to share my perspective and experience with you, but mainly because I know that it was one thing that the teacher Maria Jose Trigueiros would want to see, if she was with us. For that reason, I’m also writing an article about this dissertation with my advisor, the teacher Drº Orlando Belo, in order to submit it internationally.

For now the presentation is in Portuguese, but I can easily translate it to English if I get some requests to do it. Unlike most of the master's students, I do not hide my dissertation and I share it with pleasure. I hope it could be helpful to you at least, to get some ideas.
Regards.

BI Blog - Three Years Blogging - Thank You!

2010-06-02T20:18:00.014+01:00

Starts to be a routine add a post to commemorate the anniversary of this blog. :-) It’s a project created 3 years ago with great passion and dedication, and therefore remains alive for this long time. This is the place where I described some of my many stories, tips, news and even some personal moments/events.

For those who thought three years ago that the blog was more like a joke, today maybe are surprised. It has over 100 posts on various subjects related to Business Intelligence… But I do not cross my arms and I'm already preparing something to further improve this blog, not only in design but also related to the content. The promised remote BI sessions mentioned in a previous post, will really start soon…

Naturally these three years of life are due also to the thousands of visitors who passed through this blog, from the simple readers, to those who placed questions or requested some opinions/feedback. I know that many of those visitors have yet unanswered questions due to my immense workload during the last year… nevertheless I’ll try to answer soon.

A special thank to a person that is the huge driver of BI in Portugal and is undoubtedly my main reference… the teacher Maria José Trigueiros. She’s not physically with us anymore, but for sure, she’s seeing what we are doing here.

Some numbers...

Want to receive an alert via e-mail about new posts?
Add your email address in the box at the right side menu

Want to have alerts about new messages and/or posts?
Follow the links from RSS feeds in the right side menu

Want to share an experience? A tip? Some news?
I could give you permission to create your own blog in BIResort community or you could write a post here as a guest in section BI Guest Corner

This place will continue to be a meeting point for all those persons that have the same passion as me for Business Intelligence. Some more technical post’s continue to be published on BIResort community that I’m co-founder.

THANK YOU ALL

Pedro

BI Conference - European TDWI Conference

2010-05-13T00:14:00.007+01:00

Today I want to advise you for a big and very interesting conference that will take place at Germany between 14th and 16th June... The 10th European TDWI conference! This conference will provide both business and technology professionals significant opportunities to learn and understand best practices across a wide variety of BI topics.

I can assure you that the conference will be very interesting as well as the country itself that is fantastic! I was there last November 2009 to take the CBIP exams and it was amazing. If you are near Germany or even in Europe don’t waste this opportunity. I hope someday organize CBIP/TDWI exams here in Portugal for all the BI Portuguese professionals interested on this certification. Regards, Pedro.

BI Tools - SQL 2008 R2 Digital Tour

2010-05-06T23:24:00.006+01:00

My teacher Maria Jose Trigueiros is not physical present any more, but she’s always present in my mind. I’m sure that she’s watching what the persons that has the luck to has her as teacher and as a friend will be doing. She shared amazing words, enthusiasm and experiences with me that changed my life. Because I know that she wishes that I continue blogging... I’ll do it, and even with more power!

SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM is now available for download!
I already installed in a new virtual machine in order to preparing some posts about it. In Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, several components have new or improved features. I highlight the following new improvements:

PowerPivot for SharePoint
PowerPivot for SharePoint adds shared services and infrastructure for loading, querying, and managing PowerPivot workbooks that you publish to a SharePoint 2010 server or farm. To create PowerPivot workbooks, you use PowerPivot for Excel.

PowerPivot for Excel
PowerPivot for Excel is an add-in to Excel 2010 that can be downloaded from the web and installed on client workstations. You use PowerPivot for Excel to assemble and create relationships in large amounts of data from different sources, and then use that data as the basis for PivotTables and other data visualization objects that support data analysis in Excel

Reporting Services improvements
Reports can now include maps, sparklines, data bars, and indicators to depict data. Report parts enable collaboration through shared datasets, report items, and data regions that are centrally stored and managed. Dataset query results can be cached on first use or by schedule. SharePoint integration supports multiple SharePoint Zones, SharePoint Universal Logging, and local mode report viewing with Access Services and SharePoint lists. SharePoint lists, SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, and SQL Azure Database can be used as data sources for reports

Take a look at additional news here
Take a tour on this new version of SQL through SQL 2008 R2 Digital Tour:

Regards,

Pedro

Até breve professora!

2010-05-02T15:41:00.010+01:00

I write this post in memory of the most important person for me in the Academic world. Unfortunately she left us yesterday, but I’ll never forget her. She’s an amazing person and all I have achieved in last 3 years is dedicated to her… The life is not fare! I never forget you teacher! Never! See you soon, I know that you’ll watching what we’ll doing here!

Maria José Forjaz Pacheco Trigueiros nasceu em 1956 em Cascais. Fez os seus estudos em Roma e em Caracas onde se licenciou em Matemática (1983, Universidade Central de Venezuela). Foi assistente estagiária na Universidade Simon Bulivar entre 1984 e 1986, onde obteve o título de Mestre em Ciências da Computação. Em Setembro de 1986 ingressou no ISCTE como assistente estagiária. Doutorou-se um 1994 em Investigação Operacional pelo Instituto Politécnico de Grenoble. Exerceu uma grande variedade de cargos académicos e actividade docente. À data do falecimento era professora auxiliar de nomeação definitiva no Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologias da Informação do ISCTE.

Missa de 7º dia por alma da professora Maria José Trigueiros no próximo dia 08 de Maio (sabado) pelas 19h00. Alguém não consegue ter saudades de um anjo como este?

Eternamente presente na minha memória e no meu coração.

BI Books - Free SQL 2008 R2 eBook

2010-05-01T14:01:00.004+01:00

Dear friends,
A very interesting free eBook was publish and shared by Microsoft Press. If you are a Database Administrator or a BI Developer, don’t forget to take a look to this book. You have no excuses… the book is FREE. Naturally the part of the book more interesting for me is undoubtedly the Business Intelligence chapters. Check the book structure:

PART I Database Administration
CHAPTER 1 SQL 2008 R2 Editions and Enhancements
CHAPTER 2 Multi-Server Administration
CHAPTER 3 Data-Tier Applications
CHAPTER 4 High Availability and Virtualization Enhancements
CHAPTER 5 Consolidation and Monitoring

PART II Business Intelligence Development
CHAPTER 6 Scalable Data Warehousing
CHAPTER 7 Master Data Services
CHAPTER 8 Complex Event Processing with Stream Insight
CHAPTER 9 Reporting Services Enhancements
CHAPTER 10 Self-Service Analyses with Power Pivot

More details about this book
Download the free SQL 2008 R2 eBook

Regards,
Pedro

BI Conference - TechDays 2010 - After my session

2010-04-27T23:37:00.014+01:00

Finally I have some time to describe what I experienced last week during the TechDays Portugal conferences. Today I’m writing my post nrº100 and could not do it better describing this fantastic experience

The facilities
The day before my session I went to see the event facilities and aclimatize myself to the room where I would present my session. There were many people working for this event, and it is important that everyone had the notion that organizing such an event is not easy. It requires lot of human labour and a lot of dedication, mainly from persons like Luis Martins, João Bilhim and Leonor (Microsoft) and several other amazing dedicated persons

The people
I met many people and also spoke with people who normally only contact via the Web. Is indeed a very interesting event, where people share knowledge and opinions that for sure is more important than if the lunch is good or bad! Jorge Paulino, Ricardo Peres, André Lage, Rodrigo Pinto, MVP guys, Jorge Moura, Nuno Batalha, Tiago Rente, and a lot of enthusiastic professionals

The Session
Most people, certainly should not have a notion that it was my first public session with so many people... and also, that a year ago never came into my head be presenting a session at TechDays. It was a very difficult challenge trying to pass a message on Data Mining for almost 300 people, mainly because the profiles of the audience was very diverse ... feedback received varied between easy and very difficult session contents. Thanks to all the persons that attended to my session. Well… if you're curious take a look into presentation below:

TechDays 2010 DAT202

I hope you enjoy it... I can translate to english if needed.

BI Conference - TechDays 2010 - Before my session

2010-04-20T18:44:00.007+01:00

Dear friends,
There are only a few hours before presenting my session at TechDays. It will be a great challenge for me where I hope I can transmit the message I purposed to.

I don’t know yet, how many people will be watching my session, could be from 40 to 500 attendees… and for that reason I cannot measure right now the pression level that I’ll have today… :-)

There’ll be a lot of interesting sessions almost made by portuguese professionals…It’ll be a prove, that here in Portugal we have lot of expertise professionals.

I am sure that next year there will be lot of new speakers that are just watching this year. Mainly the master and pós-graduation BI Students… are your there!?!! :-)

Well… I'll leave now and I’ll wish a good luck to myself and a very good TechDays to all you. :-) I’ll be back after the event...

Pedro

BI MVP - My time has come!

2010-04-01T22:42:00.013+01:00

My time has come!
Today I received the email from Microsoft with MVP award!
This award it’s the recognition of all my effort, passion and dedication to this amazing world of Business Intelligence. I know that I have lot a work to do and even more responsibility to follow Microsoft and community expectations.

Now, I cannot forget to thank all the persons that once again, helped me to achieve this award. I want to thank primarily to my princess Joana that is always by my side and to my family. Some special thanks to all direct and indirect support:

- To the all visitors of this blog (sorry for the late answers!)
- To the pos-graduation students on BI from Universidade Portucalense (Porto)
- To the master graduation students on BI from ISCTE (Lisboa)
- To Dra. Filomena Lopes for all the trust placed on me during last year
- To Dr. Orlando Belo for all support in my dissertation in the last years
- To Dra. Maria José Trigueiros for all the magic words (I'm wait a quickly recover!)
- To all those persons that believed in me, even more than myself!

Despite the award, I guarantee that I'll keep the same personality and I’ll remain my independence and always be watching to what all BI vendors and BI consultants are doing. I’m with Microsoft because I’ll believe in their strategy and If you want to join me in this adventure, I think you’ll not be disappointed. Unlike many other BI vendors, Microsoft remains near the community and always present. In my case, I want to thank to João Bilhim that is an amazing person that always encouraged me, to be inside this amazing world of Business Intelligence. Microsoft has few years in the BI market and for that reason is not yet the number one, but the first position is too close. If you want to join this adventure don’t lose the event with Donald Farmer next 16 April here in Portugal (just send me an email)

Regards,

Pedro

Yes we can!...see Donald Farmer in Portugal!

2010-03-24T20:58:00.018Z

For many years I have been following Donald Farmer work in Business Intelligence, mainly in Data Mining. Now and thanks to Microsoft Portugal we can see and make some questions to him in the first person.

"What do medieval archaeology, fish farming, Southwestern University of Chongqing and Microsoft Business Intelligence have in common? If you know, you should tell Donald Farmer, because he has been deeply involved in all of them at various times. Donald has worked in the Microsoft Business Intelligence team for 8 years covering many subject areas: data integration, information quality, metadata intelligence, master data management, OLAP, predictive analytics and self-service BI. He is a well-known speaker at Microsoft and other industry events, and the author of several books and articles" [Source: SQLBits]

In the scope of the Business Intelligence community (www.BIResort.net) Donald Farmer will come to Portugal for a meeting/session at Microsoft Auditorium on April 16, 2010 from 18h to 20h.

The session topic will be focused on Self-Service BI (Power Pivot) followed by some questions and answers. It’ll be a mix between public/private and all the attendees should have an invitation.

If you want to be on this FREE event, just send an email to BIResort@gmail.com

(Limited seats)

BI Conference - TechDays 2010 Portugal

2010-03-22T19:15:00.005Z

Sorry for not writing for so many weeks, but last month was very hard to me… not only the weekly work as BI Consultant but also the work as invited teacher at Universidade Portucalense on a Business Intelligence pos-graduation. Additionally I was working on the event preparation which brings me to blog today: the TechDays 2010

Microsoft Portugal will organize the TechDays 2010 event next April (20/21/22) at Lisbon (Oeiras). For the first time, in spite of attending the event, I’ll be presenting a session on Data Mining with SQL 2008 R2… that I’m sure that will be a huge challenge for me.

My session description:
“The volume of business data grows exponentially and the technology made the world evolve rapidly. Bad decisions may be the result of the world be evolving more rapidly than the decision maker’s capability to analyze these data.

This session is intended to establish a first contact with multidimensional data structures (OLAP) and to recognize and to derive the exponential importance of knowledge discovery in databases through the data mining models in SQL Server 2008 R2”

Check my session link here

There is still a month for the event and there are more than 1200 participants confirmed. If you are near Portugal you cannot miss this!

Regards, Pedro.

BI Conference - Predictive Analytics World

2010-01-20T12:29:00.006Z

Business Analytics is a subset of a Business Intelligence framework, even if some players like SAS, started changing their strategy killing Business Intelligence term and starting a new one: Business Analytics… Why companies like SAS with a flag of Innovations are always creating new concepts and creating more confusion on adding new buzzwords!? Are they creating new way to resolve problems? Are they creating new products!? Of course not… I’ll publish soon an article about this subject and about all the controversy this position has created on the web.

The main purpose of this post it’s to write about the Predictive analytic world conference. This conference will take place on February 16-17 at San Francisco and unfortunately, and again, I’ll not be present on the event because once again it’ll be held in USA and I’m little far in Portugal… maybe during this year I’ll go to other event for my PhD research.

“Predictive Analytics World is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners. This conference delivers case studies, expertise and resources to achieve.

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics. Hear from the horse's mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modelling, and what kind of business impact it delivers”

But never forget one thing… the future will never be like the past. Although of course it’s worth trying, and planning should be done based on facts and less on intuition. Read the Black Swan book, a good overview of how successful predictive models can be.

Use the following discount code to get 15% off a two day Conference pass:

Code: PEDRO010
(workshops are not included)

BI Books - My Suggestions...

2010-01-16T13:28:00.035Z

Following the request of many families :-), today I’m writing about my favorite books. In particular those I have read, those I'm reading right now, and those I’ll read soon relating to Business Intelligence world.

I have dozens or even hundreds of scanned or digital books, but there is nothing better and more motivating, than reading a book in the traditional format. All the books I have scanned into my computer, I never read them even after the print... the motivation is not the same and for that reason I always preferred to buy. The prices in Amazon website are cheap and even more, if you choose Amazon partner's stores. (In the images below you have each respective price attached)

The following books relate to the concept of Business Intelligence in general and how it fits with all its subsystems. The strategy, the processes, the people/knowledge and also something about the technological component. For those who follow the world certification in BI (CBIP), these books are essential for the examination in "Business Analytics":



The following books show the way to implement a successful Data Warehousing project. They were written by one of the greatest evangelists of Data Warehousing... (Ralph Kimball). These books focus on the dimensional modeling applied to multiple business scenarios and a complete life cycle that DW projects should follow. For those who follow the global certification in BI (CBIP), these books are essential for the examination of "Data Warehouse":



I also suggest more technical books which are more focused on Microsoft BI tools. These WROX books are very well structured, very easy to read and very helpful to understand better and fast. I’ll highlight the following books:



The following books are books very too simple and clearly explaining more deeply on what is behind this fantastic world of Data Mining:

Future purchases...

Currently Reading...
I am currently reading a book that promises to be very interesting. Not only by the positive feedback it has received, but also the important contribution of the author in TDWI/CBIP resources, that I’m always followed with great interest.

Keep tuned to this post because I'll be updating it with all the books I'm reading and some that have not put here yet! I hope I’ve helped you selecting your next book.

Regards, Pedro

BI Guest Corner – Technology vs Information

2010-01-13T00:20:00.006Z

Last week I was browsing for some contents on the web and I found a very interesting blog and post from Sofia Neto. I asked her permission to publish a very interesting and short post about technology and information… take a look:

“The technological revolution occurring in organizations since the mass use of Information Technology does not always achieved the expected results.

Several projects find themselves reduced to failure, since many managers and employees consider the systems complicated to implement and understand.

According to Davenport, the "fascination with technology has made us forget the main purpose of information: information." In fact, you don’t need sophisticated technological equipment, complete and powerful programs, if the user is not interested in information that these computers process and make it easier to access.

This brings us immediately to the urgency of the study of the users information behavior and understanding of their information needs. But also, for the struggle between "Technology and Information” for the podium of the importance.

In this battle, Davenport shows that only when the information (creation of users) they will leave information systems truly efficient. "Information and knowledge are essentially human creations, and will never be able to manage them if we do not take into account that people play in this scenario, a key role."
“
This post was kindly contributed by Sofia Neto, who is a Portuguese Information Manager and writes about Information Management and Information Management Systems at her blog

BI Recognition - Sharepoint MVP award

2010-01-06T01:14:00.007Z

Dear friends,
Today I’ll dedicate this post to a friend that recently achieved a MVP Sharepoint Award. MVP is an award that Microsoft gives to all those special persons that help people that are constantly helping people on specific subjects. Maybe someday it’ll be my turn… but for now, I just want to congratulate André for his accomplishment. I deal very well with the success of all my friends, mainly those like André and Jorge Paulino, that are always sharing knowledge with communities. I truly believe that Portuguese guys have a lot of knowledge to share with the world, despite most portuguese people think the opposite (portuguese people in most cases think that what is being done in Portugal is always bad… but persons like me, André Lage (MVP), Jorge Paulino (MVP) and several hundreds of portuguese people are fighting against them)

Andre has a similar life history to mine… he took his IT degree on “Universidade Portucalense” some years ago (like me) and moved away from his city (from Oporto to Lisbon like me) looking for better challenges.

Andre in the first person after receiving this award:
“
First: Recognition
Second: never give up.
Third: To assist, in every sense of the word
Four: do not make the title as a goal, but a mission
Fifth: As Microsoft says "Your Potential. Our Passion"
“
Andre has 30 years old, born in Porto (Portugal) and took his Information Management degree on “Universidade Portucalense” between 1999 and 2004. He’s a System Architect, Technical Leader and Consultant on SharePoint Corporate Portals in Sybase, SBS Portugal, with international focus. Andre has an extensive curriculum where his major steps are the support to several Sharepoint communities, the Codeplex Community contributions, speaker on Sharepoint 2010 webcasts and the contribution to BI Resort community and this MVP award. Check is blog here.

I hope to refer several other friends in future posts!

Regards, Pedro.

BI Dissertation – Master degree done!

2009-12-29T20:10:00.016Z

Finally I got my master degree on Decision Support Systems/ Business Intelligence. It was almost 2 years and half and finally I defended my dissertation yesterday. I want to thank all those people who always encouraged me to “fight” for this and special thanks to my supervised Dr. Orlando Belo (Universidade do Minho – Portugal), Steve Vanstone (Bonds University – Australia) and Dr. Chong (Chinese University of Hong Kong – China). (Check out the previous post I wrote about the dissertation here)

Check below the abstract of my dissertation that I’m thinking to translate to English for sending to all those people around the world that gave me feedback about their works and some support to my dissertation.

Abstract
"In the current economic environment, the value of information is increasingly important in the habits and customs of each citizen. Prices per barrel of oil, Euribor rates, equity indexes, inflation rate, among others, arrive everyday at our homes through the media. Their study is increasingly important, especially by the need to identify their impact on our daily quotidian.

The application of Data Mining (DM) techniques, in an attempt to predict the movement of the stock market, has never been a very well accepted, mainly by economists and the academic world. It is an area of high complexity, and the fact that it involves money, mean that their research, especially successful, is not made public. However, these techniques exist, and are increasingly used not only in financial markets, but also in practically all other activity sectors.

This dissertation begins by making an approach to the complex world of the stock market, in an attempt to demystify it a little. Subsequently, based on investment rules normally applied by practitioners, it’s presented a model of an artificial neural network, which provides in a daily basis, the decision to buy, hold or sell a particular asset, supported by a decision support system to monitor and analyze the evolution of the made decisions."

Keywords: Decision Support Systems, Data Mining, Knowledge Discovery in Data, Business Intelligence, ETL, Data Warehousing

I also added some screenshots of dissertation presentation I made yesterday… if you’ll be curious about the data mining model results, just tell me and I will translate all slides.

I hope you enjoy this. Regards,
Pedro.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T14:00:00.004Z

It is time to relax with the family and take care of those who truly love us and be forever on our side!
Merry christmas to you and to all your family.
Pedro

BI Tools - First Look to Excel 2010

2009-12-19T00:02:00.019Z

Create Dashboards never been so easy ... the new version of Excel 2010 (Beta) is really amazing. Exploration of a multidimensional cube has never been so intuitive and simple like it is now. The image below shows a simple dashboard that I made in this new version in 20 minutes for the Northwind database sample...

There still are some features to improve in this version, anyway, the new features promise to make the life of the decision maker easier... and now, I sincerely believe that the democratization of business intelligence is beginning, and finally Business Intelligence will soon be available to all employees of an organization. And all because Excel is the best known tool in the world, where almost users who use a computer, know what Excel is and what Excel do. Many BI Vendors know it, and began to build few years ago, add-ins for Excel in order to take advantage of some previous limitations of Excel. And a question arises ... will these small businesses survive the constant improvement of Excel? Only time will tell whether they will be able to adapt or not with new solutions... I really hope so, becausee this small companies do a big important job… and Microsoft knows that!

As the most interesting features from Excel 2010, I highlight the slicers, the “sparklines”, and the possibility of creating Named Sets through Excel. The Slicers lets you visually filter the data in a PivotTable and quickly extract exactly the data you're looking for. Slicers can be moved and resized like charts and graphs. And each slicer could be connected to several pivot tables… for me it’s really amazing this feature. The “sparklines” is a copy of some products made before by XLCubed (check the SQL Bits session where XLCubed presented “Microcharts”) and it’s in a very early stage. And the last feature that I highlight today, is the possibility to create named sets from Excel, grouping a set of items and several other features like customize MDX statements of a pivot table.

I hope this post was helpfull to you.
regards, Pedro

BI Guest Corner - Prospecting Like a Prostitute

2009-12-12T00:07:00.005Z

I like too much learning through analogies, and for that reason today I come with a very interesting and comic analogy, created by Erik Luhrs who deserves a reference in this corner. In business Intelligence, (the main subject of this blog), sometimes we forget that all the work that is done in a business intelligence system has a main purpose… get more money (value) through good decisions that came’s in actions focused in the customers. And in this video, you get a fundamental lesson that you should always follow, target your audiences!!! And target your audiences with analytics…a sub-system of Business Intelligence System.

“Sometimes the greatest lessons are in the places you’d never think to look. In this video Erik Luhrs will show how workers in “the world’s oldest profession” still have some sales lessons to teach even the most professional and polished salespeople of today”

BI StepByStep - SSIS Calling a WebService (Option 1)

2009-11-30T22:56:00.013Z

Dear Friends,
There is lot of issues in the EE and MSDN communities relating to calling a webservice from SSIS. For that reason, I decided to write a new technical paper concerning to the subject.

And as I told before, technical papers and discussions, will be posted on the BI Community (http://www.biresort.net/)

And you can also directly download each paper from here:

SSIS Area

StepByStep - SSIS Moving huge amount of files

StepByStep - SSIS Using Package Configurations

StepByStep - SSIS Extract data from multiple Excel worksheets

StepByStep - SSIS Calling a WebService with Web Service Task (Added 30-11-2009)

I hope It can help you!

Regards.

BI Certifications - CBIP/TDWI Certifications done!

2009-11-12T21:03:00.048Z

I started writing this post on the return trip to Portugal. It was a very enriching and experience trip, which I reached one more objective I had in mind for more than two years. I passed the four exams and got the specialization in Business Analytics and Data Management provided by The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI - www.TDWI.org)

To whom I dedicate this achievement...
I'd like to dedicate the achievement of this goal, besides of course my family and girlfriend who accompanied me on this trip to Germany, two very special persons. Firstly, to Mrs. Maria José Trigueiros for all messages and follow that gave me along the master. Secondly, to my master adviser Mr. Orlando Belo, who accompanied me on a daily basis during the dissertation. These two persons, directly and indirectly supported me in the last two years, and for sure without them, it would be difficult to maintain my motivation and strength to deepen my knowledge in this amazing world of Business Intelligence.

The exams…
Relating to the exams, what I felt was that in fact, the level of difficulty is high and mainly because there is less than a minute to answer to each question. There are 110 questions to be answered in 90 minutes ... Each question has 4 possible answers, where two of them are usually very similar and can be confusing ... When the "mother" language is not English, is even more complicated because some questions and their answers are long.

Fortunately, I was lucky to begin with the apparently the less complicated exam to make, and it allowed me to understand the time management that should be looked at, in order to do other exams. To get an idea, in the first exam when I had only 5 minutes to finish, I had 20 questions to answer... it was an authentic stress and the last question was answered over the last second ... There's no time to think and go back to review the answers ... that is, or you known the answer and quickly respond to a question, or it will be better to go ahead to next question!

It is difficult to describe the best way to prepare for the exams ... Normally the scope of a normal exam it’s a well-defined scope and the issues are related to the context and usually reading a book or two is enough. But in CBIP/TDWI exams it is quite different... you need to have a real-world experience and read several (many) books. But for the preparation and bibliography to make the CBIP exams, I’ll prepare/describe in a future post.

I made and passed in four exams: Information Systems (core), Data Warehouse (core), Business Analytics and Data Management that turns me a specialized professional in Business Analytics and Data Management. The more complicated exam was the Information Systems which is too much technical and detailed.

TDWI Germany Centre...
It all started at 8:00 in the morning of last Friday (06-Nov-2009)... in the TDWI Germany centre, located about 30 km’s from Cologne (Germany) where I was accommodated with my girlfriend Joana. The facilities of the centre are very good and the staff really fantastic, especially Simmone and Mr. Guenter Fuhrmeister, CEO of SIGS DATACOM (TDWI Partner) ... They both received me very well and they greatly reduced my stress caused by so many tests on the same day. In addition to all the sympathy and coffees, snacks, drinks, and others... they offered me an amazing book that I will start reading during this week, wrote by Frank Buytendijk. (Click on the book image to preview the book)

The Cologne city...
Cologne (German: Köln) is Germany's fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than 10 million habitants. It is one of the oldest cities in Germany, having been founded by the Romans in the year 30 BC.
Cologne lies on the Rhine. The city's world famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishopric of Cologne. The University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln) is one of Europe's oldest universities and internationally renowned for its economics department.

(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne)

The party...
At the end it was the party where my princess Joana was waiting for me at the in Cologne... we started enjoy this fabulous city with some of the advices given by Simone. We were focused mainly in the shopping area and near the Rhine river. It is a beautiful city with an intense movement of people not only in the shopping area, but also in the restaurants and bars area. We attend, almost every day, to a Cuban bar where we drank exotic drinks as capiroska, mojito and others!

My sensation is that I’ll return to Germany to take the other CBIP specializations very soon... I hope this post was helpful to you.

Regards,

Pedro

BI Certification - CBIP Exams

2009-10-20T00:43:00.009+01:00

Dear friends,
Passed almost a month after the last time I wrote here ... In fact last month has been very hard… and the next also promised with several projects in mind. And one of these projects that I've been thinking for more than 2 years… is the world Business Intelligence certification (CBIP) provided by TDWI.

The TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute™) was founded in 1995 and provides education, training, certification, news, and research for executives and information technology (IT) professionals worldwide.

Next 6 November 2009, I’ll be in Germany to take the CBIP exams for at least one of the 5 key specialities.

– Leadership & Management
– Business Analytics
– Data Analysis & Design
– Data Integration
– Administration & Technology

I’ll try 3 specialities exams, plus 2 other exams that are required and common to all specialities:

Information Systems
Data Warehousing

I have a lot of subjects to write… I’ll promise (once again) that I’ll be more often writing here…
Regards,
Pedro

BI Certifications - Microsoft Certification Discounts

2009-09-15T23:43:00.010+01:00

It’s show time!!!… Microsoft announces that will be offering until the final of this year a discount up to 25%, in their exams. There are two certification Microsoft paths in Business Intelligence area, the MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) and MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional) that are under discount… don’t hesitate… schedule right now the exam through this link

I’ll do the SQL 2008 exams in the first week of November 2009… join me!

Certification on SQL 2005 version

Exam 70-445 (MCTS BI)

Exam 70-445 + Exam 70-446 (MCITP BI)

Certification on SQL 2008 version

Exam 70-448 (MCTS BI)

Exam 70-448 + Exam 70-452 (MCITP BI)

Regards,

Pedro

BI Conference - Business Analytics Summit

2009-09-12T01:12:00.007+01:00

Next November 2009 (12-13) will take place a promising conference about business analytics. Unfortunately, and mainly because I’m in Europe, I won’t be there, although I must share the event with you. The organization, the speakers the content promises and if you are in USA or be there in these dates you cannot miss it…

The Business Analytics Summit focuses on the key issues involved in the implementation of Business Analytics such as data integration, KPIs, reporting and more. There are an increasing amount of companies investing in Business Analytics for improved decision making, organizational performance and a competitive edge. In a time of economic downturn the key to growth (or survival) is making the right decisions. Adequate decisions will be found wanting in 2009.

Ben Satchwell, Conference Director at Business Analytics News, says “The current economy has made businesses realize that business analytics is no longer a project they can continue to look at from afar. We are very excited about working with Information Builders Inc on the Business Analytics Summit as our goal is to have leading players from each set of stakeholders in the industry involved – and Information Builders very much fit the mold of the high end companies that will have a presence at the conference.”

Take a look at the official websites:

http://social.businessanalyticsnews.com/

http://www.businessanalyticsnews.com/usa/

The total amount for the summit is $1595, but Ben Satchwell (Conference Director) offer $400 discount for all the visitors of this blog, so…

Contact me to get a $400 discount code

BI Training - Free remote BI Sessions

2009-09-04T23:24:00.018+01:00

This month is being hard for me because I’m writing my master thesis… and the deadline is in the final of this month… and for that reason I’m not writing so often. Almost two and a half years writing in this blog and there's a new idea... in addition to send my BI messages/opinions through writing, I'm thinking to contact via video/audio with all you that visit this blog and make it alive with all the comments and suggestions. At the moment I’m only formalize the intention and hoping to receive feedback for all you.

In brief I’m describing below the session plan:
What?

Business Intelligence training focused on learning the concepts and using the Microsoft tools that are more flexible than other players in the market.

Why?

To share knowledge, make new friends and also to train my oral english language.

Who?

For all the persons that usually visit and support this blog with comments and sugestions. (For portuguese people I’ll prepare soon a on-site training)

When?

I will try to do it on October or November of this year 2009 after finishing the master BI thesis and after the 20h00 (Portuguese time... because I have a job…)

How much?

Free

How attend?

Through Office Live Meeting that you can use to engage audiences in online meetings, training, and events. I need to make some tests to this software, even appoint a date for testing it with all the registered users.

Registration?

In order to know the number of interested users, please fill the registration form in the link below. (The number of users are limited)

Registration form

I’ll be waiting for you.

BI Tools - Microsoft beating the BI market

2009-08-10T23:27:00.018+01:00

Today I finally received an e-mail from Microsoft announcing the release of the CTP version (Community Technology Preview) for SQL 2008 R2 ... and I'm really excited to take the first look and for sure tomorrow I’ll download it ... I'm still focused on my master thesis, any way I will try to "play" a little this release and give a little feedback to you.

I truly believe that today Microsoft made a big step to beat all the competitors. Microsoft doesn’t have several decades of proved work, but has few years that are being improving and investing a lot in the Business Intelligence “world”

But why as an independent BI consultant I believe in Microsoft?

1. Because Is open to the communities/and world in spite of almost other players that they follow a strategy to hide all information and knowledge from their products

2. Because Is a buyer in the market… Examples are the acquisitions of Datallegro, ProClarity, Mobicomp (mobile), Zoomix (data quality), Teradata… and for example partnerships with Dundas, Panorama…

3. Because in a near future BI will be for all users (to the masses) and not only for a few group of decision makers. Today BI is spread in all organization for operational, tactical and strategy areas. Nothing better than improve the capabilities of an existent product in the market that everybody knows what it is, and what it does… simple EXCEL.

4. Because almost the players (SAP, SAS, Microstrategy…) in the BI market provide very expensive tools that are not possible nowadays… Some years ago they could set these expensive costs, because in that time these tools could provide competitive advantage… today even open source solutions are available in BI…

Last decades this BI players was trying to convince the end users and decision makers that they need new applications/interfaces to analyze, monitor and plan their business, but they were wrong, and mainly because Microsoft enter few years ago in this market. The end users and decision makers doesn’t want to know what is behind excel… only wants to see their KPIs no monitor, analyze, plan and control their business in their preferred tool… EXCEL.

In the coming weeks Microsft will also launch CTPs in the Project Gemini (Excel and Sharepoint) and in the Project Madison (massively scalable data warehousing).

BI Technical Papers Step-By-Step

2009-08-07T00:08:00.010+01:00

As you may already noticed, I’ve started this blog (two years ago) with several practice issues, and when I started my BI master degree (also two years ago) I realized that the theory and the concepts are fundamental to have enough capabilities to face all the issues independently of the tools you are using. I’m a practice and theoretical person and just because I think that one depends on the other. It’s difficult? Yes it is, but for me is the single way to understand and align each one.

And for not fill this blog too much, I decided to publish more technical and practice posts at the Business Intelligence community that I’m co-founder with several other BI professionals. These technical posts will be created and published in www.BIResort.net in a format Step-By-Step paper in order to help better not also the more technical persons, but also those persons that are starting to work in this amazing world of Business Intelligence.

I’ll focus in several key areas, but for now I only made three papers in SSIS/ETL area. I’ll start on areas like SSAS/OLAP, SSRS, EXCEL 2010, and others… follow this post through the link in the right bar.

Follow all the papers from this link:

http://biresort.net/blogs/pedrocgd/archive/tags/StepByStep/default.aspx

And you can also directly download each paper from here:

SSIS Area

StepByStep - SSIS Moving huge amount of files

StepByStep - SSIS Using Package Configurations

StepByStep - SSIS Extract data from multiple Excel worksheets

I hope I can help you!

BI Education - BI Graduations in Portugal

2009-07-17T14:58:00.019+01:00

Today I will talk about two universities that marked me a lot and currently are betting strong in the Business Intelligence area... These two universities are located in two different cities and separated by 300 km between Porto (North) and Lisbon (South). The reason for this post is not only because they are the main universities in Portugal going in deep Business Intelligence area, but also the contribution they gave me all my life since 1995.

I have great affection towards these two institutions, both have a very important role in my personal and professional development. At “Universidade Portucalense” (UPT) I finished my degree in 2001 while in the “Instituto Universitario de Lisboa” (ISCTE-IUL) I am currently finishing my dissertation included in my master BI degree began in 2007.

UPT – Universidade Portucalense

The UPT prepared me for life with its entire rigor, exigency and the indescribable quality of the teachers. In this University nothing failed ... everything worked ... I dare to say that this university has the better organization and installations.
I was at the age of responses to WHY… Why I need to study? Why I need to learn some contents? Why…Why…?

ISCTE-IUL – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

The ISCTE-IUL helped me to improve my skills and to be more organized, more focused on the benefits and objectives to be achieved. Also helped me to understand the others and myself.

I was at the age of responses to HOW… How can I be a better Professional? How can I do the things more efficiently? How…? How…?

In UPT time the contact to the teachers was very difficult… otherwise today you can catch them by email or by mobile… It’s the evolution… The old and current students should be proud of these two universities that after so many years are still here helping us to be better professionals.

If you want to improve your competencies or start a new path, the registrations for business intelligence graduations are open. Visit the universities websites:

BI Conference - SQL Bits & Tech-Ed Europe 2009

2009-07-15T21:39:00.004+01:00

Just to let you all know that some interesting events are coming… and the dates for the two events that I’m currently writing are... next November 2009.

SQLBits (19-21 November 2009)

Thursday 19th Pre-conference Training Day

Friday 20th SQL 2008 & R2 Conference Day

Saturday 21st Free Community Conference

“This is the biggest event yet, with 3 days of top quality SQL Server content. It starts with the pre-conference training day on Thursday 19th, more details coming soon. We have had a lot of feedback about weekday versus weekend during previous events so this time we have added a paid conference day on the Friday 20th, with a SQL 2008 and R2 theme. Finally we have the free Saturday community day, with speakers from around the world covering all manner of SQL Server topics.” By SQLBits

Tech-Ed 2009 Europe/Berlin (9-13 November 2009)

Business Intelligence Track

“Now more than ever, your business needs a quick means of getting the right information to the right people so that they can make smarter, more informed decisions. Microsoft’s Business Intelligence solutions enable you to do just this. The Business Intelligence track offers sessions covering how to integrate, analyse, and report on all of your corporate data easily using the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform, end-user tools, and analytics applications. Learn how to build custom, robust Business Intelligence solutions using Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 and 2008 (Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services), Microsoft® Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 (Monitoring, Analysis, and Planning) and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system (Microsoft® Office Excel®, Excel Services, and Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server technologies) and how to easily manage them” by Microsoft

I’ll try to be in the both events. If you are thinking to attend one of these events, let me know to organize the trip or to meet you there!

TDWI - The importance of BI Standards

2009-07-04T01:20:00.007+01:00

As you have noticed from previous posts, I appreciate a lot all the work that is being doing by TDWI ... not only for their great organization but also for its importance in the creation of standards that everyone can follow and speak the same "language". As I have already said earlier, I am currently preparing for the global certification of TDWI Business Intelligence in Germany ... when I feel prepared I take a flight and go to Germany and make the exams… of course with my princess because Business Intelligence only makes sense to me with the unconditional support of my princess Joana.

But not moving too much from the main reason of this post, I want to share with you some interesting posters from TDWI that you should print. Attention… follow this mind map or other posters from TDWI but not be a fundamentalist… you don’t need to follow all this approaches in details, because each project is different and the requirements as well.

TDWI's BI Usability poster visualizes all the elements that contribute to making a BI solution "usable." The mind map clusters the attributes into four categories, each of which has multiple branches that support related attributes. The four categories of usability are: Change Management, Architecture, Support and Analysis/Design.

The poster also depicts the dynamics of BI growth and decline using a model from systems theory. The model shows that usability is one of several key leverage points that BI managers can use to alter systems dynamics and move a program from a negative reinforcing loop to a positive one.

Request your free copy

Also take a look to other posters from TDWI:

Master Data Management

Business Intelligence Maturity Model

Regards,

Pedro

Two Years Blogging - Thank you!

2009-06-30T23:56:00.001+01:00

Passed two years and two months and this blog is still alive! The tendency is always to grow following my ambition and motivation on Business Intelligence area. Thanks to my familly, to my fantastic girlfriend that always supported me, and to all the persons that directly or indirectly stimulated and keeping the blog alive with comments and suggestions.

My option to write this blog in English, following Google analytics dashboard, confirm that it was a fantastic decision, because most visitors are coming from outside Portugal

This place will continue to be a meeting point for all those persons that has the same passion as me for Business Intelligence. Some more technical post will be on www.BIResort.net community that I’m co-founder.

Thank you!

BI Future - Microsoft Surface Demos

2009-05-27T23:53:00.010+01:00

The post today is not much to write ... images and videos of the attached links, speak for themselves ... is a future increasingly close to the present that I want to have the pleasure of being alive to watch it! Microsoft Surface ... really promises because is a tool that will make the difference in the near future ... today, is still quite expensive to have the opportunity to try this tool, but I’ll be waiting to watch it in the first seat.

Watch the following videos ... the previous is obligatory... do not lose the opportunity to see what awaits us...

In leisure...

In the Ellit Model Management... and in a bookstore object recognition...

In patient consultation... and in Super Bowl security...

The future promisses...

BI News - Data Mining for Terrorists Is Urged

2009-05-21T22:21:00.008+01:00

I found an interesting article that I want to share with you about Data Mining.

The article was Published at "The New York Times" on October 7, 2008 by Eric Lichtblau

WASHINGTON — "A federal panel of policy makers and scientific experts urged a government-wide evaluation Tuesday of programs that sift through databases looking for clues on terrorism, to determine whether the programs are effective and legal. The federal government has made aggressive use of so-called data-mining tools since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as counterterrorism officials in many intelligence agencies have sought to analyze records on travel habits, calling patterns, e-mail use, financial transactions and other data to pinpoint possible terrorist activity.

The National Security Agency’s program for wiretapping terror suspects without warrants, the screening of suspicious airline passengers and the Pentagon’s ill-fated Total Information Awareness program, shut down by Congress in 2003 because of privacy concerns, have all relied on aspects of data mining.

But in a 352-page government study released on Tuesday, a committee of the National Research Council warned that successfully using these tools to deter terrorism “will be extremely difficult to achieve” because of legal, technological and logistical problems. It said a haphazard approach to using such tools threatened both Americans’ privacy rights and the country’s legitimate national security needs.

Mining through data patterns has been shown to work in commercial settings to predict what kind of toothpaste people may buy and what kind of movie they are likely to rent, or to detect casino card-counters or those engaged in credit card fraud.

But there is little evidence to confirm that the techniques work to actually find terrorists, despite the growing use in the last seven years, committee members said. Part of the problem, they said, is that the sample of known terrorists and actual attacks is so small that it is difficult to establish patterns of suspicious behavior.

The push to accumulate enormous amounts of information has also produced the risk of “a huge number of false leads” that could implicate people with no actual connections to terrorism, the committee said.

“More data does not mean better data,” said William J. Perry, the former defense secretary who was co-chairman of the panel, with Charles M. Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering. "

Read entire article here

BI Conference - Tech Ed 2009, SQL Server 2008 R2

2009-05-17T19:55:00.012+01:00

Last year Microsoft shared information about Kilimanjaro at the company’s second annual Business Intelligence Conference, which kicked off on October 6 in Seattle. Kilimanjaro is set to include self-service analysis tools (codenamed “Gemini”) that Microsoft is saying will allow information workers to better “slice and dice data and create their own BI (business intelligence) applications and assets to share and collaborate on from within the familiar, everyday Microsoft Office productivity tools they already use.”

But last week at TechEd 2009 conferences, Microsoft announced SQL Server 2008 R2, which you might recall as previous code of Kilimanjaro. What? You thought Kilimanjaro was SQL Server 2010? Well, if you Google it, you'll see that many others think the same, and in fact there are announcements from very significant sources over the last few months talking about SQL Server 2010. So the information now is that there is no SQL Server 2010. "Never was." That the BI and self-service tools that were part of the release were actually the R2 release. That "Kilimanjaro" always referred to R2. The next full release of SQL Server will follow the R2 release by about 24-36 months. You can expect to see full release of R2 in the first half of next year - CTPs should follow later this year for testing.

I understand that Microsoft, like any company has to adapt its strategy when the world is currently in a big financial problem. In my opinion, Microsoft will be easier to convince customers to upgrade a SQL 2008 to SQL 2008 R2 than convince SQL 2008 to SQL 2010... well ... but starting to be many products, many names, many service packs, many cumulative packages, many functionalities ... truly begin to create confusion in people, that usually have great difficulty accept the change. I hope at least, that Microsoft does not change the format and design of the next version of Excel which is expected to have many more capabilities than Excel 2007. We shall see ... I am very curious about the improvements on the analytical tools and on the "Master Data Services"

Also, their advertising video is pretty funny (the introduction part). You can also sign up to receive notifications of the CTP. You can see it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/r2.aspx
Regards, Pedro

BI Resort - The BI Community

2009-05-10T02:03:00.006+01:00

Finally I will present to my friends and to all those anonymous people that visit my blog, the BIResort comunity. I’m one of the founders of a BI community here in my beautiful country, Portugal! The community has the name of BI Resort, and we all wish to be a place to share knowledge, experiences and organize events about BI.

The founding members of this community work in Microsoft's partner companies, but could be many other professionals with an interest in "this world". The first step is taken, and we hope to have all your support to make this initiative a success. For my part, I promise to be present here for long… I have this blog for two years and have not lost my breath in this long journey.

If you feel curious to know something more about the Business Intelligence ... If you feel you can help someone to solve theoretical or practical problems ... if you had an experience in this area that could be shared... If you think it could be interesting bring to Portugal some communicators in this area ... if you think you can help make this world better ... then participate in this community. The doors are open to all! As we progressed, more details on objectives in the short, medium and long term will be shared with you.

For those who can create a blog in this community, contact me. It'll be an honor! I'll be waiting for your visit, not only here in my blog, but also in the www.BIResort.net

From Portugal to the rest of the world through this BI comunity!

For a better world!

OFF-TOPIC - Britains Got Talent 2009 - Susan Boyle

2009-04-21T23:28:00.005+01:00

I rarely put posts out of context here, but I think Susan Boyle deserves a moment in this blog. Susan has 47 years, is unemployed and wants to be a professional singer... Watch the video and then see my first comment about it...

BI Guest Corner – BI Becomes Military Intelligence

2009-04-16T23:52:00.004+01:00

Today, I will start a new type of posts… and I’ll call it BI Guest Corner.

I will publish articles directly from visitors of “our blog”. Feel free to send me an article or some subject do you think that will be interesting and related with Business Intelligence… For example if you are currently attending a Master BI Degree or if you are involved in an interesting project, why you don’t share with us your experience? Feel free… this blog is for you and for the people that has passion on this… I'm proud that this blog receive about 80 different visitors per day... Thanks for your attention!

This article was written by Katie Wilson and I really love this article… Thanks Katie!

BI has been used for a while now in helping corporations collect, analyze and make sense of their vast amounts of data so that they’re able to make more informed decisions that benefit their organization. It’s time for a change of arena though, and the tools of business intelligence are being used intelligently by the U.S. Department of Defense to help track and monitor injured military personnel who are transported for medical care to various places around the world depending on their locations.

The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fueled the necessity for such a system, which is why the U.S. Transportation Command has sought the services of Information Builders’ WebFocus business intelligence tools. The Transcom Regulating and Command and Control Evacuation System (Trac2es) allows the monitoring of military personnel who need medical attention while they’re in transit so that the necessary arrangements can be made for them when they reach the location of the medical facility. This allows for more effective and personalized treatment depending on the condition of each wounded or sick man.

The system includes tools for decision support, reporting and analysis, and when information regarding location and medical needs are fed in, it facilitates medical and military personnel to make better and more informed decisions. This will enable patients to receive the best medical care in the shortest possible time.

The system also allows the tracking of military personnel who have not been injured in the line of duty but who need medical attention anyway and are able to take commercial flights to get to the location of the medical facility.

The goal of the system is to improve the treatment that the injured receive and to keep the military high command informed about their condition. Besides this, it also helps improve planning for the future so that mistakes can be eliminated and patient care made more effective.

Trac2es is a multi-user system that is used by around 2,500 personnel including doctors, nurses, medical clerks and military leaders.

This post was contributed by Katie Wilson, who writes about the accreditation for online universities. She welcomes your feedback at KatieWilson06 at gmail.com

BI Conference - Self-Service BI with Rafal

2009-04-09T23:32:00.013+01:00

Finally I found some time to describe the session that Rafal, following Microsoft invitation, held here in Portugal. As I already wrote in previous posts, Rafal in their specialty is the best in the world. A simple and objective way to show the concepts of Business Intelligence reconciled with several practical demonstrations are fantastic. Of course I attend these moments with great intensity, because they contribute, not only to continue learning, but also to mark and remember these moments. I will describe, in my opinion, the more relevant key points of the presentation.

The first point was approaching the concept of BI as a tool for self-service, where users are rewarded by a high level of autonomy for their daily needs for information.

The second point was the interesting and comical suggestion to be followed by consultants, when they want to sell their Data Warehousing solutions... they should not try to sell a Data Warehouse, but try to sell KPI's... this advise should be follow because the managers do not understand much of these technologies and are more attracted by KPI for making a mapping between their business and technology

The third point was the OLAP off-line functionality, which although this functionality already exists since Excel 2003, only now is beginning to gain more strength with the increasing importance that Excel is having nowadays. (These offline/Local cubes can be browsed by most OLAP client tools)

The fourth point is on the increasing quality of data mining Microsoft products. The feeling is that there is still a little more to move on this matter to “fight” against some competitors such as SAS (Enterprise Miner)... But it promises ... and in my BI thesis I'll show until where

The fifth and final point to highlight is the explanation of the strategy for Microsoft Performance Point Server product... especially on the discontinuation of the Planning module and the inclusion of the monitoring module through SharePoint product... soon will be called the Performance SharePoint Services.

I hope you have left with the feeling of having been present

Regards,
Pedro

BI Discussion - Concepts Oriented vs Tools Oriented

2009-04-03T17:27:00.015+01:00

Today I will talk about an issue that I think it matters to all IT professionals... which is until the point that we should guide by the concepts and tools? There surely a point of equilibrium between the two and for that reason I’m opening this discussion to hear from you.

The recent discontinuation of the performance point server Planning module by Microsoft, was alerting me to an important problem that starts becoming increasingly important, mainly for high increasing of globalization.

In our day to day during the work or during the leisure time, we should give more importance to the concepts or to the tools? Well ... it seems a simple question to answer ... but in fact there are many professionals in this area of BI that are very targeted to the tools ... which on the one hand can give an advantage to acquire a unique know-how, but on the other hand, is somewhat to isolate that knowledge, which could bring great disappointments fruit of great changes and development of technology that is easy to aware. Who guarantees us, that tools like SAS, Microsoft, Microstrategy, Cognos, SAP ... will not be used less or simply disappear?

So, I’m increasingly seeking knowledge through concepts, for example acquired during my master BI degree at ISCTE (MSIAD), which started in 2007. So many of you ask me ... then why are you an unconditional fan of Microsoft tools? And I say that for the simple reason of being a company with a strategy geared to the communities, for customers and for students, and has tools for easily accessible, portable, flexible and a great community always ready to help ... (where you can find me at the MSDN forums or in Experts-Exchange)

With Microsoft, is easy to implement concepts in practice with their more intuitive and simple tools, because besides the risk of opting for Microsoft to be lower due to its policy of acquisitions really strong (For example the acquisition of Panorama, ProClarity, some Dundas funtionalities, DataAlegro, Mobicomp, and some day Yahoo...) there is a lower risk in terms of knowledge ... because in spite of wasting long time learning the tools, we can release time for learning the concepts that it’s for me one of the keys to success.

An interesting research from DM Review can give you a better perception about the most used tools and the reasons to be on the top… take a look here

And since we talk about keys to success, I would ask you another question... What in your perspective, the other keys to success? Do you have discovered it yet? Well ... unlike the previous question, this is undoubtedly not easy to answer ... in my opinion, the other keys to success are with no doubt the motivation and the professionalism that we show in our day to day.

By Motivation I mean focused on ourselves and in what encourage us day to day, to be better and better.

By Professionalism I mean:

Our image to others. Reflects the level of consistency, punctuality and the capacity to assume our mistakes and errors
Be organized Reflects the capacity to be organized. As my project management teacher told us in the classes, if you are not organized, how you are able to convince the others that you can organize or manage their projects?

Help me identify the keys to success! Leave your opinion... This is just my first draft...

MSIAD - Stock Market with Data Mining (BI Thesis)

2009-03-28T16:51:00.010Z

I was a little absent this month in preparation for my thesis ... I promise to write more often now! Yesterday was my first battle on my dissertation, which I think it was well reached. Naturally, any research in this complex world of stock markets, in this case of applying data mining techniques, requires first understanding the financial world... I tried to demystify the complex stock market world... His movement, the factors that influence decision making, forecasting and the investor that feeds this whole game markets... and it was presented yesterday

After understanding the stock market as I did, I‘ll now focus on the application of Data Mining techniques (initially only with neural networks) and the implementation of a strategy that will be based from all rules made public by some researchers. That is, I will create a decision support system that in addition to track my portfolio of shares, it’ll generate the final output of the day that will be a buy, sell or hold signal.My strategy will assume the loss and also fix a limit on earnings. I do not need to be monitoring the stock market during the day, because I will use Stop Loss functionality in all investments that fire automatically an order of sale if the price of some share will excess my defined limit (applied only if I’m on the market)

In this matter, I'll then begin to examine in more detail the research of Dr. Chong from Chinese University of Hong Kong, that he’s the only economist, investor and researcher I know at the moment and who kindly offered me help and sent me all Articles that he has done. Dr. Chong is in the photo at right. Check his website at :

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eco/staff/tlchong/tlchong3.htm

I already have done ETL processes to import historical data from a group of stock in my folder and a Datamart that stores the data in the form of information. It’s time to deepen into practice and return in May for a short presentation to be evaluated again. I assume the risk of this project that it’s very ambitious and attractive to me.

With nothing to lose! Regards!

Pedro

BI Conference - SQL Bits IV and Rafal Lukawiecki

2009-02-25T21:18:00.012Z

SQL Bits IV

SQL Bits IV is coming… and this time it will be in Manchester, 28 of March…Unfortunately, I will not go to Manchester because I will have to expose my master BI dissertation on the day before (27th of March), but I will attend to it on-line!

My friend Tomislav Piasevoli will be responsible for the session “Universal calculated measures in MDX queries”… I will try to purpose one session in the next event... maybe about my master BI dissertation.

Rafal Lukawiecki

Microsoft are hosting a one-day seminar presented by Rafal Lukawiecki for IT Managers and BI practitioners wanting to improve decision making and getting the valuable business insight by using Microsoft solutions at the Microsoft Offices in London and Lisbon. As I told before in this blog, Rafal is the best communicator of the world, if you are near Lisbon or London, you cannot miss it.

In Lisbon (Portugal), March 24th

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032402504&Culture=pt-PT

In London (UK), March 26th

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032403569&Culture=en-GB

Regards,

Pedro

BI Education - Master's Degree Business Intelligence

2009-02-04T19:29:00.017Z

I was contacted by dozens of people about information’s on Master's Degree in Business Intelligence and for that reason I share with you a research in this area. The world is currently in recession and nothing is more important to be on the top and improve each day your skills and keep in touch with new technologies and new concepts.

In my case, the master degree on BI started on September/07 changed my life and created a rhythm of work that I was not prepared before it. I’m now prepared to attack on several fronts: on my daily work and several projects in my free time (experts-Exchange, MSDN, my blog, and 2 other projects that I will share with you later)

Many of us are tools oriented but there’s nothing more important than understanding the theory and the work which is already done by others (because we don’t want to invent the wheel again). Everything that arises, arises from something and is where I focus my goals.

Samuel Quintanilla Galvez is from Peru, and he did a research about masters in Business Intelligence and decided to share it with us. We hope this information could be usefully for all who loves BI like me and Samuel.

Samuel on first person: “I did a research about BI and DWH courses too (courses not related to any particular tool or provider), courses that I could take from here, Peru. Some of them are in-classroom, but others are online, and could be very useful for you or maybe your friends. Attach the result of my research. I'll probably take the "Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Specialized Studies Program" in the University of California, Irvine

(http://unex.uci.edu/certificates/it/data_warehousing).

The program can be taken online or on campus, and cost $2,270. I think it's a very attractive program, but I might be wrong, that is why I'm looking for opinions from experts or from people with much more experience than me, before enroll to the program..."

Alex Whittles is currently attending the master BI degree at Sheffield Hallam University (UK), and I hope he could give us some feedback about. No Alex?! ehehe
For whom that wants to see the excel file (I don’t know how to attach here) please send me an email.
Regards,

Pedro

Data Mining and Neural Networks (NN)

2009-01-28T20:38:00.005Z

Dear Friends,

This is my first post of 2009... happy new year!

I have been absent this month because I’m writing the second chapter of my master's thesis. Anyway, today I’ll write a bit of neural networks, which are on of the most important and useful Data Mining techniques.

But what is a neural network? A Neural Network (NN) is a system composed of many simple processing elements operating in parallel which can acquire, store, and utilize experiential knowledge. As I told you before, I’m very fascinated with Data Mining and the intelligence we can get from it. You can use it in Financial Markets (is the theme of my master dissertation), on insurance, or medicine, on retail, on all activities!!! The topics below explain better where you can apply NN, the learning methods, types and an Arquitecture that a NN could has.

NN Applications
-Classification
-Clustering
-Function approximation
-Prediction

NN Type
- Static (feed forward)
- Dynamic / Back-Propagation (feedback)

NN Arquitecture
- Single layer
- Multilayer
- Recurrent
- Self-organized

NN Learning Methods
- Supervised (network has inputs and their corresponding outputs)
- Unsupervised

In Data Mining classes directed by Professor Dr. Duarte Trigueiros, I did a practical excel exercise (homework) in order to better understand NN functionalities. I’ll share it with you today and feel free to contact me to get a copy of excel file. The excel files has the formulas behind and could be interesting if you think to improve your knowledge on this.

Initially, weights are random and the output of neural network will be compared to desired output. If same, reinforce patterns and if different, NN will adjust weights.

The dataset should be divided for training and testing, which in this case, because the NN is a supervised with back-propagation, the training dataset has the output classified and a better model will be created. After the model is created, the test dataset is considered as the input and the model could be evaluated.
Regards,
Pedro

Hotel Atlantis The Palm, Dubai Holidays

2008-12-31T13:29:00.043Z

After almost two months, I finally have time to describe my holidays in Dubai and in one of the better hotels in the world, Atlantis the palm ... I was staying in this hotel before the official opening, and I must tell you that is really a dream while a little illusion. Check the video of the grand opening at the official website:

Dubai is one of the seven United Arab Emirates and is investing heavily in tourism since it is expected that the main source of wealth, oil, runs out in about 5 years ... Everything that is done in Dubai is done to be always the best in the world ... the world's tallest building, the largest artificial island in the world, the best hotel in the world, the best instance of SKI of the world ... everything! They are building the world map in the islands where the connection to earth will be made only by boat, airplane or helicopter. And it is no coincidence ... because in this way is to boost the aviation industry and boating industry ... because as you can see below, the cars industry in Dubai is well positioned...

Visit the website of company that is responsible for all this amazing constructions, which the owner is the shake, to better understand the greatness of what is being created. Where Vision Inspires Humanity http://www.nakheel.com/en

I will not comment further because the images speak for themselves.

The Atlantis by night

The Atlantis friends

The Atlantis from room

The Atlantis Room

The Atlantis Beach

The Atlantis Oceanarium

The Atlantis swiming pool

The Dubai Burj Al Arab

The other world in Dubai - The construction workers

The Ski Dubai
http://www.skidxb.com/

The Desert, the Safari and the Dinner

The Dubai Old Castle

The Dubai Cars

The Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi Muslim Church

The Hotel also has Dolphin Bay, Aquaventure, Lost Chambers…
Today Tom Cruise reserved the entire Hotel for him and his friends to the new year party… uuaahh…

Happy new year!!!

SQL2008 - Free Hosted Trial Offer

2008-12-27T15:44:00.001Z

Dell, MaximumASP and the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) have partnered together to offer a free SQL Server 2008 account on a securely hosted environment. This offer allows anyone to try SQL Server 2008 today without downloading and installing the software.

Thanks to Ella, I knew this news and immediately made my registration.

This feedback, participantion and the free hosted environment, it'll be important for me because I will focus my BI dissertation using Microsoft tools, mainly SQL 2008.

For further details visit Ella’s blog.

Regards!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T13:19:00.002Z

It is time to relax with the family and take care of those who truly love us and be forever on our side!

Merry christmas to you all.

SSIS - Script Component as Source From SQL

2008-12-17T23:52:00.018Z

I’m not writing about technical issues for a long time ... but I’ll start to diversify more the content of this blog. Today I’m writing about script component in SSIS that people ask frequently in Microsoft forums and in http://www.experts-exchange.com/.

To access the SQL Server or other sources, there are some standard components provided with the SSIS that I always suggest for almost the cases, but for some complex issues that require some customization, this post could be useful. If you understand the script component logic, and know some .net programming, you can get data from any source.

1. Open Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), and create a new package.

2. Add a dataflow to your controlflow (There is a script task in the controlflow, but I’ll write about Script Component inside dataflow)

3. Create the table Contry for this example

4.Create and configure ADO.NET connection with the name “cmSQL_ADONET”

5. Configure the script component setting the script connection to the connection created in the previous step, and add the columns you need to the SSIS pipeline

6. Open the design script to add the customized code and try to understand the logic of the component. You have five main procedures: AcquireConnections, CreateNewOutputRows and ReleaseConnections, preExecute and postExecute. In this example, I only use the first three procedures but you are free to use the procedures you want.

7. You can see the results from the pipeline grid view.

This example is not dificult, but its the first step to give you more complex packages that I'll try to show you in a future post. If you want the code of this package, let me know and I send you by email instantly.

Regars,

Pedro

BI Financial Markets with Data Mining

2008-12-15T22:59:00.009Z

I have been a little absent due to the preparation of my Master's thesis in Decision Support Systems (DSS or BI), and it’s with a great pleasure that I share with you the theme that I will investigate during next year. This research project will be focused in the behaviour of financial markets through the use of Data Mining techniques. It’ll combine the technology through the creation of ETL processes, a Data Mart and Data Mining techniques, with the financial markets knowledge.

And the reasons that led me to choose this theme, are without doubt, the fascination for the mysterious world of financial markets, the fascination by data mining techniques (that are for me the true intelligence of a BI solution) and the need to create a DSS that enable the understand the impact of movements in financial markets in the budget of each one of us
Many of us invest money in the stock market through mutual funds, pension savings plans, through the brokerage firms and others ... but do we know what they are doing with our money? Could we trust on institutions that are investing our money? I think it's time to be ourselves the owners of our money and define what we want to do with it.

We have to know the right moment to subscribe, transfer or redeem financial products offered by various financial institutions, or even whether we should invest ourselves (in a long term and in a diversified way, we have high probability of good profits) in financial markets or put the money from under our beds.

And despite the banking sector is the most regulated in the world, still occurs several big frauds that could put in risk the survival of a company or even put in risk our savings... after several scandals in Portugal, France (Société General), and United States of America, today a new one…

Bernard Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman and founder and president of a New York firm that invested funds for wealthy individuals, hedge funds and other institutions, was charged with operating what he told employees was a long-running $50 billion Ponzi scheme in what may be one of the largest frauds in history. Bernard Madoff was arrested today at 8:30 a.m… and some of his clients are BBVA, o HSBC, o Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Agricole and Banesto.

How can a former chairman at the world's largest stock market with 20,000 listed companies have entered into schemes of fraud? Are these same markets efficient? There is much speculation and a lot of confidential information (inside trading) that is used to always generate profits for the same persons in the markets...

Aren’t you tired of being a spectator? I will use my arms (Data Mining) to understand better the financial markets and react to it with logic and not following the panic or the movements of the masses…

I never invested directly in stocks because I respect the stock market, however I was investing for few years in mutual funds that I earned about 20%... but I had the happy idea of leaving the market when I heard on the radio some advertising to subscribe mutual funds... which led me to think that people were entering into the market by “marketing” rather than the real value of companies... this one lesson that I learned by myself…

BI Reporting - Dundas for Microsoft Products

2008-11-19T13:53:00.010Z

Dear Friends,

Today I will try to explain which Dundas components is included with the “new version” of SQL 2008 Katmai. I used new version in commas because Microsoft is preparing another new version for 2010 with the name Killimanjaro.

Dundas makes our job easier with a complete line of data visualization tools for Microsoft technologies. These award-winning products includes charts, gauges, maps and calendars for Microsoft .NET, SQL Reporting Services and SharePoint

I always avoided 3rd party components, not only because is needed extra payment but also because in the companies I worked they doesn’t accept 3rd party installations. But Dundas has a big potencial in data visualization with hundreds of components, and for that reason Microsoft include it in the new 2008 products. But I was a little disappointed because only a few components are included with these Microsoft 2008 products… Only the gauges… that is very useful for balanced scorecards and other type of reports that has KPI’s… but if you want to add some dundas charts, maps or calendars, you must pay! Bbbbrrr…

For SQL Reporting Services 2008, I made a simple’s screenshots to make you more familiar with Dundas AddIn. (left image the free features and the right image the payed features)

If you need to do some specific and complex charts or gauges and have some budget, Dundas is a very good solution. Go to www.dundas.com and download a trial version that comes with a lot of examples.

I will try to write some words about other excellent 3rd party components that I heard for the first time in the ‘SQLBits’ conference last September in London, the XLCubed that acquires BonaVista Systems, the developer of MicroCharts.

Regards!

Pedro

BI Conference - SAS Forum 2008 - Special Session

2008-11-13T00:24:00.011Z

SAS conference took place two weeks ago, but only today I finally got sometime to dedicate this post to my master BI colleagues Fernanda Romão, João Guerreiro, Paulo Batista e Pedro Cardoso.

They presented a BI session in SAS forum 2008 with very high quality. They apply data mining techniques on predicting European funds that must be assigned into educational purposes investments.

They are excellent master colleagues and very good friends. They deserve all the best and the opportunities to prove their high level skills. Below I show you some photos that I took to them!

Regards!

Pedro

BI Future - The coolest demo in the history of BI

2008-10-21T23:16:00.007+01:00

Dear Friends,
The session about BI Future that tokeplace in Business Intelligence World conference in Seattle, was really amazing. Follow the link and check the Kristina Keer demo... I hope to be here when this come true...

Although this technology is somewhat futuristic you can quickly begin to see the value and intuitiveness of combining data in a highly visual and interactive context.

Ping back from:
http://blogs.msdn.com/bi/default.aspx

Regards!

BI Education - ExpertExchange Guru Certification

2008-10-04T23:38:00.009+01:00

Experts Exchange has about 90.000 members around the world, and is currently the best place to share knowledge with the comunity.

In the overall I’m in 1908 position…

Yesterday, it was another important day in my career, I finally achieve the Guru certification on SQL Server 2005 zone. It was six months since my first certification answering questions regarding Business Intelligence issues with Microsoft Tools. (SSIS, SSAS, SSRS, MDX…)

As I told you before, there are 9 different ranks that you could achieve, I’m now in the 7º rank, but I will try to achieve the higher… maybe I will wait some years but I will try!

I knew some fantastic people in Experts Exchange (EE) website, and I found some weeks ago, two Portuguese guys that are also answering questions but in .Net development zones. For each certification, EE will send you a t-shirt as a gift…

Join us in this world!