Business Intelligence: Pronunciation: 'biz-n&s in-'te-l&-j&n(t)s

a.k.a. BI. A generic term to describe leveraging the organizations internal and external information assets for making better business decisions.

Online Analytical Processing

Contrast to OLTP
An intuitive multidimensional data model makes it easy to select, navigate, and explore the data.

An analytical query language provides power to explore complex business data relationships.
Pre-calculation of frequently queried data enables very fast response time to ad hoc queries. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services is a robust OLAP tool

 Provides data for Business Analysis Process Integrates data from heterogeneous source systems

Organizes data into subject-specific groups

Optimized for extraction and querying

 A logical and physical subset of the data warehouses presentation area A flexible set of data, based on the most atomic data possible Data Marts can be tied together using drill-across techniques

Data Marts can be connected to the data warehouse bus

The bus refers to the standard interface that allows separate Data Marts to coexist usefully

A Data Mart can be a standalone stovepipe application

 Extract, Transform and Load Prepares source data for the data warehouse Transforms data from relational form to a dimensional Provides data quality assurance Publishes data to the appropriate fact or dimension structures

 Dimensional Data Modeling

De-normalized relational data modeling Characterized by having one central fact table Many surrounding dimension tables that denormalize the descriptions of the fact table One or more Star Schemas to represent a subject-area within a data warehouse or data mart

Example

 Defines hierarchs by using multiple dimension tables

More normalized than a single dimension table

Supported by MS Analysis Services

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The fact table is the heart of the star schema
Typically holds 95% of the space used by the star schema Designed for growth Fact tables are never updated, only appended to Two types of fields, Keys and Measures Fully additive, semi additive and non-additive measures

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Example

 The fundamental unit for data storage and retrieval in an OLAP system Cubes are made up of Dimensions and Measures MS OLAP cube can have up to 64 dimensions Column, Rows, Pages, Sections & Chapters vs. Column & Rows The source data of the cube is a star schema Virtual cubes are very similar to a view in SQL Server ROLAP, MOLAP and HOLAP are the storage behaviors for cubes

 Multi-Dimensional Expression Language Used to query OLAP cubes

Can be used to develop custom Business Intelligence applications