Microsoft Business Intelligence

MSBI stands for Microsoft Business Intelligence. This powerful suite is composed of tools which helps in providing best solutions for Business Intelligence and Data Mining Queries. This tool uses Visual studio along with SQL server. It empower users to gain access to accurate and up-to-date information for better decision making in an organization. It offers different tools for different processes which are required in Business Intelligence (BI) solutions.

MSBI is divided into 3 categories:-

1. SSIS – SQL Server Integration Services – Integration tool.
2. SSAS – SQL Server Analytical Services -Analysis tool.
3. SSRS – SQL Server Reporting Services – Reporting tool.

“A visual always help better to understand any concept.”  Below Diagram broadly defines “Microsoft Business Intelligence (MSBI)”.

 Integration means merging of data from different data stores (i.e. it may be a flat file, Excel sheets, Sybase, Oracle, etc.), refreshing data in data warehouses and to cleanse data (e.g. -Date format may be different for different outlet’s database, so same format is made to make it even) before loading to remove errors. Now, you must be clear with the Integration concept. This is our Phase 1- “SSIS”.

Next step is to analyze the stored centralized data.  This huge data is then divided into Data Marts on which analytic process is carried on. Analysis services use OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) component and data mining capabilities. It allows to build multi-dimensional structures called CUBES to pre calculate and store complex aggregations, and also to build mining models to perform data analysis which helps to identify valuable information like what are the recent trends, patterns, dislikes of customers. Business analyst then perform data mining function on multi dimensional cube structure to look data from different perspectives. Multi Dimensional analysis of huge data completes the Phase 2- “SSAS”.

Now, the only thing left is to represent this analysis graphically so that an organization (Calvin Klein) can  make effective decision to enhance their revenue, gain maximum profit and to reduce time wastage. So, this is done in forms of Reports, Scorecards, Plans, Dashboards, Excel workbooks, etc. This data reports will tell the organization what is the revenue of Calvin Klein in specific time at specific place, where they captured the market, in which part they are lacking and needs to boost up and many other things which end users wish to look into. This reporting is done with a tool SQL Server Reporting Services and completes  Phase 3 – “SSRS”.