¿Dynamic Systems Development Method para DWH?
Source: Sistemas Decisionales, algo mas que Business Intelligence [link]
Después de descartar SCRUM mi siguiente metodología candidata es DSDM, y creo firmemente que dentro de las metodologías ágiles puede ser la adecuada, a ello me ha llevado mi gran intuición y el white paper llamado “DSDM and Data Warehousing” que yo con pocas pistas enseguida pillo el concepto. ;-D
Veamos un poco de que se trata esto de DSDM
DSDM se ha desarrollado teniendo como ideas fundamentales:
· Nada es construido a la perfección a la primera.
· La vieja regla del 80-20 es cierta ( el 80% de las funcionalidades del proyecto se realizan con el 20% del tiempo, y el 20% restante, los detalles, consumen el 80% del tiempo restante)
· Es improbable que alguien conozca todos los requisitos del sistema desde el primer día.
De estas ideas nace una metodología cuyas principales características son:
· Un proceso iterativo e incremental
· Un equipo de desarrollo con el que el usuario final trabaja conjuntamente.
· Estudio de la viabilidad. Lo primero que se evalúa es si DSDM se puede o no aplicar al proyecto.
· Estudio del negocio. Se estudia el negocio, sus características y la tecnología. Debe crearse el Plan de Prototipado (base del DSDM).
· Modelado funcional. En cada iteración se planea se refinan los procesos funcionales del negocio sobre el prototipo
· Diseño y construcción. Aquí es donde se construye la mayor parte del sistema. El prototipo se vuelve apto para su utilización por parte de los usuarios
· Implementación. Pasamos de un prototipo a un sistema de producción. Se entrena a los usuarios para que lo usen..
En el gráfico queda mas claro (pulsad sobre el para ver mas grande)
Ahora el siguiente paso que tengo que dar es estructurar una metodología de reingenieria de DWH basada en DSDM y probarla.
Excel 2007 PivotTable with calculated members
Today I had a big trouble with one customer.
We migrated an AS2000 solution to SSAS2005, making a lifting to dimensions just to consolidate into attributes what were indipendent dimensions in the old cube.
One of the old dimensions contained only one “dummy” member, and a series of calculated members. With Excel 2003, you had no troubles in selecting only the calculated members you wanted from those available. With Excel 2007, the user experience is bad.
First of all, you need to change PivotTable options to enable the display of calculated members (check PivotTable Tools / Options / Options / Display / Show calculated members from OLAP server). When you do that, you choose to get all calculated members available from a dimension/attribute. Now, if you have 100 calculated members into an attribute, chances are that you want to select only one or two of those members. Unfortunately, Excel 2007 shows you a list of disabled checkbox that cannot be used to select only the members you want.
I found only one workaround to this: use the “Convert to formulas” command into OLAP Tools menu and then delete all unwanted members.
I understand the reason for this behavior: Excel 2007 generates a MDX query using the AddCalculatedMembers function, that returns all calculated members.
However, I hope that this will be fixed in a future release and possibly with a Service Pack, because it’s a breaking change (at least from the user point of view) from the previous version.
Cross-posted from SQLBlog! - http://www.sqlblog.com
Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide
Source: Chris Webb's BI Blog [link]
EII as a Filesystem
Source: Clickstream [link]
BI EE 10gR3 - Go Get the software
Source: Oracle Business Intelligence Blog [link]
From the Oracle downloads page, click on “Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition” in the “Middleware” section, accept the “Oracle Technology Network Developer License Terms”, and you shall be on your way to downloading the product software. The software is available on “Microsoft Windows” and Linux (x86 Red Hat Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux, and x86 SUSE) initially, with Solaris, HP,
Online tutorial for BI EE
Source: Oracle Business Intelligence Blog [link]
Ok, so someone is going to take me to task for calling it a ‘tutorial’ because the correct term to use is “OBE” - Oracle By Example. To quote from the Oracle documentation site, “Oracle by Example (OBE) tutorials provide hands-on, step-by-step instructions on how to implement various technology solutions to business problems. OBE solutions are built for practical real-world situations, allowing
The ABCs of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) - ITIL - CIO
Source: OLAP/BI/IM stuff [link]
Which SF Writer Are You?
Source: Clickstream [link]
BI EE Documentation now available
Source: Oracle Business Intelligence Blog [link]
The “Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Online Documentation Library 10.1.3.2″ (you would be surprised how easily this rolls off your tongue once you repeat it a few hundred times) is now available for viewing (HTML) and for downloading (ZIP - 14.5MB) from the Oracle Technology Network.
This below is a screenshot of the doc library home page.
While the “Documentation” tab
Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide
This is the paper we waited for a long long time: the Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide is available for download from MSDN downloads. This paper is 120 pages of really precious informations. I don’t have time to read all now, but I have found that Appendix C mention the Aggregation Utility, that should be included in AS2005 SP2 samples when it will be released, but it is not available in the December CTP.
Great news, now we need the SP2 to be shipped!
Cross-posted from SQLBlog! - http://www.sqlblog.com
Gartner Research Note on BI
Source: Oracle Business Intelligence Blog [link]
The “Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q07″ is available for viewing here. Oracle has been been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platform report for 1Q07.
You can see other analyst reports on “Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing”on Oracle’s Industry Analyst Reports page.
Also see my earlier posts on the topic:
Product Awards for Business Intelligence & Analytics
Source: Data Doghouse - performance management, business intelligence, and data warehousing [link]
Oracle’s BI Suite Reborn?
Source: BI this week [link]
The revamped BI Suite incorporates analytic technology from the former Siebel Systems Inc., which Oracle acquired 16 months ago.
Sales Force Automation, SaaS-Style—It’s Xact-a-Mundo
Source: BI this week [link]
If you haven’t yet heard of SaaS BI startup Xactly, consider yourself duly informed.
MicroStrategy’s Dashboard Splash
Source: BI this week [link]
Call it a fashionably late, but nevertheless feature-complete arrival.
Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide is live
Source: Mosha Pasumansky [link]
Finally, after many iterations, discussions, heating debates, editings, reviews etc - it is finally done. Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide, sporting 121 pages in the dense Word document is officially published today. The Performance Guide for AS2000 proved to be very popular and useful resource. With so many important changes in Analysis Services 2005, and with adoption numbers much bigger than AS2000 ever saw - the similar guide for 2005 version was badly needed. Well, the wait is over now. Elizabeth Vitt who is well known Analysis Services expert, teacher, author and frequent conference speaker, took upon herself the task of authoring this document. People listed as subject matter experts are best of the best from the Analysis Services product team - T.K. Anand, Sasha Berger, Marius Dumitru, Eric Jacobsen, Edward Melomed, Akshai Mirchandani, Mosha Pasumansky, Cristian Petculescu, Carl Rabeler, Wayne Robertson, Richard Tkachuk, Dave Wickert and Len Wyatt. I was honored to be included in the list, mostly contributing the the chapters about MDX performance. Actually, I am not completely happy about my personal contributions, as I feel that the section about MDX performance is weaker than the rest of the document, but, hey - MDX and the calculation engine are the most complex parts of Analysis Services - it’s hard to get them right. Anyway, this guide is a big deal, and anybody serious about Analysis Services 2005 should download it and read from end to end. Enjoy the reading !
Download location: http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/5/e/85eea4fa-b3bb-4426-97d0-7f7151b2011c/SSAS2005PerfGuide.doc
Amazon S3 Not Perfect After All
Source: Clickstream [link]
Estudio Gartner sobre Integracion de Datos (ETL)
Source: Todo BI: Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, CRM y mucho mas... [link]
Esto se puede traducir en mayores tiempos de carga, mayores costes de almacenamiento, peores rendimientos, mayores costes de mailings, publicidad, etc… todo un despilfarro realmente.
Nosotros somos de la opinión de que un buen sistema Business Intelligence comienza con una correcta estrategia ETL.
Hemos hablado de ello aquí en TodoBI: Evaluar productos ETL es dificil
En este reciente estudio de Gartner parece mostrar que el mercado ETL esta muy decantado por Informatica e IBM, pero hay que tener en cuenta que se ha vuelto un mercado muy apetecible y, por ejemplo, Oracle, tras la compra de Sunopsis, va a jugar un papel muy importante.
Cabe destacar de este estudio de Gartner, que es posible que pronto se quede anticuado por los previsibles cambios que se avecinan en el sector, debido a la aparición de nuevos y fuertes competidores.
Destaca, como de costumbre el poco caso que hace Gartner a las soluciones ETL Open Source, a pesar de que se estan convirtiendo en altenativas reales como el caso de Kettle y Talend.
Por ultimo, destacar que dentro del listado de productos de Integración de Datos, aparecen nuestros amigos gallegos de Denodo. Nos alegramos que su producto vaya teniendo cada vez mas acogida y repercusión.
Como sabéis, podéis ver mas Estudios de Mercado en nuestro Portal.
Personalization in BI: Selective Dissemination and Targeted Retrieval of Important Information
Source: Cyril on Business Intelligence [link]
Personalization in BI grows in significance with the near universal recognition that passive reporting, designed for the masses by supposed experts, is limited in its utility. Action oriented reporting is preferable; it always has been. However, many business analysts do not recognize that selective dissemination of information, aka personalization, is a pre-requisite if reporting is to stimulate action. Only specific people can or need to take action, and common sense tells us that they must be targeted.
See, for example, the article by Neil Raden.
Two sorts of personalization apply in a BI context:
Push and Pull
Each can be applied to external or internal recipients.
The focus of this blog is on selectively pulling information, predominately by internal people. This is the principal aim of action oriented BI, directing valuable information (and only valuable information) to executives and professionals that assess a situation and/or take action as a result. This is not to say that other aspects of BI, such as keeping people informed as to status of the business, should be ignored. But these objectives are far less vital than supporting executvie actions.
I leave discussion on the much more fraught selective information push situation to others. Determining what information will be of interest to a customer or supplier and pushing this category of stuff to them can be a valuable marketing tool, or (more likely IMHO) a PR disaster. We always hear of Amazon.com and its success with cognate book promotions, but books are easily categorized in a universally accepted manner; most other items are not so easily classified , and the implications for inappropriate information push can be dysfunctional.
Any discussion on the effectiveness of BI for improving the quality of executive decisions (and what other purpose might it have?) must have regard to the actual decision making process. The theory of this process is well established, notably by Herbert Simon. Many researchers have also considered the relationship between this process and the information required for its operation. In this context I particularly value the work of Stafford Beer and Henry Minzberg.
Information that enables effective decision making belongs to one of two categories, and both are essential if decisions are to be optimal:
It helps the executive find problems and opportunities – situations that need a response.
Stafford Beer calls this Attenuation information, and I have discussed this in detail earlier
It helps the executive solve problems he/she has found (or been told about)
Beer calls this Amplification information, also discussed in this blog earlier
But I diverge.
Returning to the personalization theme; selective dissemination is vital in the problem finding context.
Obvious candidates include:
- Alerting the executive to important exceptions, out-of-specification performance, unusual situations, adverse forecasts of key indicators, and unacceptable (or advantageous) trends.
- Equally, if not more, critical is soft information (opinions, comments, assessments, etc. that portend problems, or throw doubt on the accuracy of factual information.
Targeted information retrieval is also vital to support problem solving.
- The solution process that needs supporting includes diagnosis of the severity of the problem (what will happen if nothing is done), identifying possible alternatives and assessing their implications.
- During a decision making process executives must be able to retrieve important, valuable, information as distinct from the routine stuff. This applies to both factual and soft (tacit) information. In this context, the latter includes ideas about problem implications, suggestions for potential solution alternatives and recollections about what we did last time this happened.
The key word in both these situations is “importance”.
Alerting to, and targeted retrieval of, useful information implies that some assessment must be made of the significance of a data item, either using an automated rule system, or a personal assessment.
Truly this is the stuff of business intelligence. Without importance classification all information is equal, but obviously this is not reality.
Selective dissemination and targeted retrieval, the basis of all personalization, depend therefore on the BI context being able to distinguish information importance as well as its subject, topic, or data class.
Importance, in turn, depends on two characteristics: urgency and value to the business.
I have experimented over 20 years with different retrieval/alerting procedures for corporate BI systems, using both automated and human importance assessment. I’ll detail this experience in the next post.
Sending test cases to support
Source: Pete-s random notes [link]
Strive to create small test cases for support - sometimes no data, just the DDL and the table stats are all that is needed