BI Seminar - Microstrategy BI Tools

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

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

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

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. Those taking computer classes on web development will benefit from the new ideas that will be presented in this event

"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. Those taking computer classes on web development will benefit from the new ideas that will be presented in this event

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

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

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

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

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… The benefits and challenges of six sigma certification in relation to BI is discussed below. 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

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

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