Sherry's BI Corner

I recently attended a 3-day workshop at Microsoft’s office in Tempe, Arizona. The focus is MS BI stacks, specifically MS Analysis Services, and Denali and Azure. It is offered by Pragmatic Works.

I am very impressed by everything and will share with you some of the notes I took in the next few posts.

Day 1 – SSAS

• Dimensional modeling
• Cube overview
• Dimension and cube editing
• Adding new Fact and Dimension
• MDX
• Using MDX in cube design
• Misc. (BI Wizard, Actions, etc.)

Day 2 – Data Mining

• Data mining basics
• Partitioning, deployment and aggregation
• Security
• User Interface (Excel, PowerPivot, PerformancePoint)
• User Interface (SSRS)
• Showcase Showdown!

Day 3 – SQL Server code name “Denali”

First Impression

My first impression of the workshop is that many of the MS BI tools are really meant for improving BA (Business Analyst) experience.

Day 3’s Denali and Azure introduction is primarily for DBA (DB admin) experience.

So where do SQL/BI developers stand?

I am not being sarcastic here. The reality is BI developers wear multiple hats all the time. But in some IT organizations, SQL/BI developers are perceived as being bad at database admin work, especially writing bad queries, and most of all being inadequate at business analysis.