Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Large and long-term solutions have their place, but they are not always necessary. Many companies can
benefit immediately from small, quickly designed, and quickly developed solutions. We even go as far as to say
that most BI solutions will easily fit this pattern.
A number of changes in IT over the past decade have allowed small BI solutions to become viable. The
computers and the software that we run on them are more powerful and less expensive. Something as simple as
a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, for example, can now work with millions of rows at once, allowing you to create
very simple BI solutions starting with that tool alone. Microsoft's SQL Server, which has always been reasonably
priced, can now work with many terabytes of data, run distributed queries among a collection of servers, and
comes with powerful BI tools such as Integration Services, Analysis Services and Reporting Services, at no extra
cost. To see what we mean, compare earlier versions of Microsoft Excel and SQL Server. You will see that the cost
to purchase these tools, without all of these new features, was roughly the same in the 1990s as it is today, not
even taking into account the difference due to inflation.
The combination of more powerful computers and inexpensive software add up to a big win for small to
midsize businesses. These businesses can now afford to perform BI tasks that traditionally only their larger
competitors were capable of.
The following examples give an idea of how small BI reporting solutions can provide a big win to any type of
business:
•
Monthly sales reports for a gift shop
•
Reports on a development team's projects over time
•
Reports that track medication dispensed within a medical clinic
•
An auto part store's inventory reports
•
Reports that track support calls to a call center
Considering how reporting solutions can be beneficial to companies with 10 employees or 10,000
employees, it is no wonder that BI is such an expanding aspect of our IT industry.
Rapid Application Development for BI Solutions
Once you have established the need for BI solutions, how do you successfully plan, start, and complete them?
Although there is no single answer, experience has shown that completing simple, fast, and extensible solutions
are the most likely to provide the best cost-to-benefit ratio.
One of the more popular ways to initialize the development process is by using the techniques associated
with rapid application development (RAD). In RAD, you start with a short planning phase, followed by a short
development phase working on a simple prototype. You then test your prototype for accuracy, consistency, and
performance. Once the testing phase has passed, the next step is to release the prototype for comments and
prepare to start the next iteration of your solution. This next version of your solution takes comments about the
existing features into account and extends the previous solution with new ones. The cycle continues, providing
increasing benefit to your users over time.
RAD will not work for all projects, but it will work for a majority of them. This is one of the more successful
techniques in the industry today; therefore, we focus on building solutions based on this methodology.
Moving On
In this chapter, we have outlined the steps needed to create a BI solution and discussed the subject matter
covered in this topic. In Chapter 2, we take a more in-depth look at the entire process by building a very simple BI
solution. We start with gathering solution requirements and end with a simple, functioning prototype BI solution.
It is time now to get your hands dirty and start work!
