BI Certification – Microsoft MCTS 70-448 Exam

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!

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

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

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

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

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! For those interested in doing more charity work, check out Social Work Degree.

I'll keep you informed about book published date!

BI Tools - Cumulative Update #8 for SQL 2008 R2

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!

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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Add your email address in the box at the right side menu

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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