Author Archives: achandler

The Oracle Business Intelligence Stack

By achandler | April 24, 2009

Yesterday, I attended a seminar covering the Oracle BI landscape. My aim was to come out of this session with a clearer idea of how Oracle products correspond to the Microsoft BI stack. My impression going into this seminar was that Oracle had many, many applications bundled under the BI umbrella. Nevertheless, I was surprised [...]

Posted in Microsoft, Oracle | 1 Comment

Introduction to Analysis Services

By achandler | April 10, 2009

This post is intended to introduce Analysis Services 2005/2008 foundational concepts.
SQL Server Analysis Services is a component included in the Microsoft SQL Server product, and its use is fully covered under the same license (which applies to Integration Services and Reporting Services as well). Like the database engine, SSAS has a range of features stratified [...]

Posted in Analysis Services, Microsoft, SQL Server, Warehousing | Leave a comment

MS BI News Roundup

By achandler | January 27, 2009

Two big pieces of news on the Microsoft BI front:

Performance Point Server is being dismantled. After the next service pack, MS will cease develop of the product as its own entity. The Monitoring & Analytics capabilities will be bundled into the enterprise version of SharePoint. The Planning application looks to be dead in the water, [...]

Posted in Analysis Services, Microsoft, SQL Server | Leave a comment

Partitioned Fact Tables

By achandler | December 4, 2008

Once tables grow into the millions of records, they become candidates for partitioning. Table partitioning offers many benefits, particularly in warehouse environments. Since data is split into smaller units of storage, backups can target filegroups with a higher rate of change. Systems with multiple CPUs see improved query performance as partitioned data leads to greater [...]

Posted in ETL, Warehousing | Leave a comment

A Warehousing Overview

By achandler | July 31, 2008

Data warehousing is a big subject. This overview is intended to cover some of the most representative issues on a high level: the nature of OLAP systems, star schemas, facts and dimensions, and differing perspectives (Inmon vs. Kimball) on warehouse design.
OLTP vs. OLAP
OLTP systems are the operational databases supporting applications. They are highly normalized, and [...]

Posted in Data Modeling, Warehousing | Leave a comment