3. BI Eras
Excessive Costs for Operations
Isolated Applications
Non-Overlapping Users
Isolated Development Teams
Simple Data Access
Departmental-scale Operations
Departmental-scale Administration
Conflicting Versions of the Truth
Multiple User Interfaces
Conflicting Development Teams
Repetitive Data Access
Excessive Costs for Admin
Single Version of the Truth
Single User Interface
Coordinated Development
Optimized Data Access
FTE-efficient 24x7 Operations
FTE-efficient Admin at Scale
5. Dashboards &
Scorecards
Enterprise
Reporting
Visual & OLAP
Analysis
Data Mining &
Predictive Analysis
Mobile Apps &
Alerting
• Ad Hoc Analysis
• Predictive Analysis
• Data Mining
• Visual Exploration
• Slice & Dice Investigative
Analysis
• Root Cause Determination
• Page-perfect Operational
Reporting
• Pixel-perfect Business Reporting
• Print-perfect Statements &
Invoices
• Dynamic Dashboards
• Operational Scorecards
• Metrics Management
• Mobile Applications
• Massive Information Distribution
• iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, email
• Exception-based Alerts
The 5 Styles of BI
6. The 5 Styles of BI
ANALYSIS
REPORTING
MONITORING
IncreasingAnalyticSophistication&UserInteractivity
Advanced Analysis
OLAP Analysis
Enterprise Reporting
Scorecards & Dashboards
Alerts &
Proactive Notification
Increasing Number & Range of Users
Information Analysts • Business Managers • All Workers • Extranets • Customers
5 STYLES OF BI FUNCTIONALITY USED TO REPORT, ANALYZE, AND MONITOR
8. Print-perfect Operational Reports
• Via Web and Print
• Easy Navigation Through Hundreds of Report Pages
• Parameter Prompting Lets Users Specify Report Content
Page-perfect Invoices
and Statements
• On-line Billing
Applications
• Statements
• Other Page Forms
Pixel-perfect Business Reports
• Created by Business Users, not IT
• Integrated Tables and Graphs
• Powerful Reports for Presentation or Publication
Enterprise reports
9. High-volume, high-efficiency
information distribution engine…
To E-mail To Printers To File
BI Platform
Reports & Dashboards
… that also allows delivering the right
information to the right person at the right time
Alerting
10. OLAP Analysis
Total Revenue and Costs
In Jan 2009 and Jan 2010
At Top 10 Revenue Stores
Single-click OLAP Manipulations Allow
People To Slice-and-Dice a Subset of Data To
View It from Many Different Perspectives
Relational OLAP Architecture Allows People To ‘Drill
Anywhere’ in The Entire Relational Database – Across All
Dimensions and From Summary Level To Transactional-level
Detail
Drill Anywhere with
Advanced Relational OLAP Analysis
Slice and Dice with
Basic OLAP Analysis
Geography
ProductsTim
e
Revenue for Laptop Computers
In 2010
At All Stores
Revenue for All Electronics
In 2009 and Q1 2010
At Stores in the NE Region
12. DETERMINE
WHO IS
LIKELY TO …
Achieve Revenue
Stay in Budget
Respond
Purchase
Defraud
Be Profitable
On Time
Note both Linear Prediction and Seasonal Prediction Lines
Typical Predictive Analyses
Based on Regression Techniques
Powerful Predictive Analyses
Based on Data Mining Techniques
Linear Regression
Logistic Regression
Tree Regression
Decision Tree
Clustering
Time Series
Association Rules
Neural Network
Rule Set
Support Vector Machines
Ensembles of Models
Predictive Analysis
13. Analytic Producers
AnalyticalComplexity
Analytic Consumers
UserScale
• Trained in modeling and coding
• Use a variety of tools
• Want their favorite tools
• Look for the truth
Analytical amateurs
Power users of BI tools
Want to use the right tool
Look for the business edge
Make the daily decisions
Some may be power users
Most need simple tools
Look for actionable information
Data Scientists Business Analysts Business Users
Back
Office
Front
Line
Advanced Analysis
15. Mobile
3. Information Functionality
• PDF, Video, ePub, web
• Graphic Design quality output
• Portals, Libraries, Boardbooks
2. Transactional Functionality
• Write to Databases
• Write to operational systems
• Submit new data
• Update existing information
1. Analytical Functionality
• Mobile BI
• Exploration and Manipulation
• Grids and Graphs
• Data Visualizations
Graphs Alerting Data
Visualizations
Data
Exploration
Desktop
Publishing
PDFs ePubs VideoBrowser
Content
Editable
Grids
Approval
mgmt.
PaymentsGrids Mapping
Mobile Intelligence Apps are a Combination of Three Different Types of Mobile
Functionality
16. architecture delivers all 5 Styles of
business intelligence on a unified backplane of
common services and through a single Web and
Mobile architecture
Microstrategy
19. Intelligence Server
• Architectural foundation of the MicroStrategy platform, central contact point
to the metadata
• Dynamically assembles the metadata objects to create optimized, multi-pass
SQL queries for every major relational database, HiveQL queries for Hadoop
distributions, and MDX queries for multidimensional data sources
• It accesses and joins data from multiple data sources, such as data
warehouses, operational databases, multidimensional (cube) databases,
and even Web services and flat files
• Manages users,system security, data security, and user functionality access
• A clustering option is available with Intelligence Server that increases
scalability, and provides fault tolerance with automatic failover
20. I-Server Options
MultiSource Option
•Allows users to seamlessly report,
analyze, and monitor corporate data
across multiple data sources through a
single multi-dimensional view of the
business
•Employs a Multi-source Relational
(ROLAP) architecture that pushes
calculations and all data joins down to
the database utilizing the power of the
database management system
Clustering Option
•Intelligence Server that allows a
group of Intelligence Servers
running on separate machines,
called nodes, to work together as a
single logical system
•Provides high availability and high
performance for heavily-loaded,
mission-critical business intelligence
systems
21. Report Services
MicroStrategy Report Services is the enterprise reporting engine of the MicroStrategy BI platform.
With fully integrated reporting, analysis and monitoring as well as intuitive What-You-See-Is-
What-You-Get (WYSIWYG):
•Mobile Applications – highly interactive apps that deliver business intelligence, transactions, and
multimedia content to the mobile workforce
•Dashboards and Scorecards – highly visual, interactive, pixel-perfect displays that provide “at-a-
glance” view of the enterprise using gauges, dials, KPIs, and visualizations
•Visual Insight – visual exploration of data with a large library of interchangeable visualizations
and speed-of-thought filtering to help you spot outliers and anomalies in your data quickly
•Enterprise Reports – classic production reporting requiring print-perfect layout with data
organized and aggregated into hierarchies or bands of increasing finer detail
•Invoices and Statements – page-perfect layouts designed for billing applications and statutory
reporting
•Business Reports – any report format, usually combining graphs, detail data, and often
explanatory text,used to describe business performance
22. OLAP Services
• Adds in-memory data functionality to the standard ROLAP functionality of the
MicroStrategy BI platform.
• Creates and manages Intelligent Cubes, a multi-dimensional cache structure that
speeds up access to the data your users use most
• The analysts can manipulate report objects, create derived metrics, group rows, and
modify filter criteria on the fly
23. Intelligent Cubes
User Response Time
Terabyte
Database
Cache
Hit
ROLAP
Query
In-memory
ROLAP Query
NumberofReports
ROLAP
Cache
In-memory
ROLAP
Queries
In-memory
ROLAP Cubes
User Security &
Prompt Resolution
User Security &
Prompt Resolution
Cache EngineCache Engine
ROLAP DB
Queries
24. Database
Workload
0%
0:00a 3:00a 6:00a 9:00a Noon 3:00p 6:00p 9:00p 12:00p
ETL
Window
Average User
Wait Time (sec)
0
5
10
20
40
80
160
Wait Time
BEFORE
Wait Time
0%
100%
Database
Workload
3:00a 6:00a 9:00a Noon 3:00p 6:00p 9:00p 12:00p
Average User
Wait Time
0:00a
ETL
Window
0
5
10
20
AFTER
Intelligent Cubes
25. Enterprise
• Self- Subscription: End-users can subscribe
themselves to automatically receive any
MicroStrategy report or dashboard
• In any format: HTML, Excel, PDF, Flash,
CSV, Plaintext, Zip
• Deliveries can be through e-mail, networked
printers, or computer file folders
• Distributions can be triggered immediately
(Send Now) or based on schedules, on events,
or based on a personal alert condition
• Users can also Subscribe Others to receive
distributions within the workgroup,
department, or enterprise wide
• Every person can manager his/her subscriptions
Department
SubscribeOthers
Send Now On Event
On Schedule On Alert
Reports Dashboards
E-mailPrintersFolders
SubscribeSelf
Workgroup
Distribution Services
26. Transaction Services
• Provides write-back capabilities from Report Services documents, it writes-back to
ERP and other operational systems via Web services using XQuery; and to
databases via freeform SQL
• The predominant use is in Mobile BI Apps, and it also works from Web-based
DHTML documents.
• Allows users to perform any of the following three actions: update data, insert new
information, or delete existing records
27. Web
• MicroStrategy Web provides a powerful and user-friendly environment for interactive
analysis through any Web browser
• Contains report and dashboard viewing, formatting, exporting, pivoting, sorting,
drilling, and ad hocquerying to WYSIWYG design and creation. Using advanced
Web technology including xHTML, CSS, AJAX,Flash, and JavaScript
• All of its functionality through a cookie-less, zero-footprint Web client without using
ActiveX or Java Applets resident in or downloaded to the Web browser
28. Mobile
MicroStrategy’s platform for mobile apps enables organizations to build a wide variety
of essential mobile apps:
•Business intelligence – view corporate data through interactive, visual dashboards
•Transactions – enact data-driven decisions from BI data, or input information for
surveys and operational systems
•Multimedia content – distribute presentations, brochures, and videos to employees,
customers, and partners
29. Office
• Delivers MicroStrategy reporting and analysis to Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and
Word using Web services
• For business users who want to use Microsoft Office for their BI interface
• Office offers outstanding offline analysis capabilities, once back online,
MicroStrategy Office refreshes the files with the latest data with just one mouse click
while preserving the analytical and formatting work
30. Development Tools
• Web Professional: Web WYSIWYG design and creation, easy to use business
user focused
• Desktop: An advanced development and analysis interface for creating BI
applications intended primarily for analysts, power users, and application
developers, Desktop is an equally powerful BI interface for the most advanced
analysts who aggressively investigate the data to uncover valuable insight.
Desktop provides a full range of analytical functionality for reporting, datamining
and predictive analysis, statistical analysis, financial analysis, mathematical
analysis, set analysis, and time series analysis
• Architect: Rapid development tool that creates the metadata objects that map
the physical structure of a database to a logical, object-oriented model of the
business. Architect employs a graphical interface and editors to link the
enterprise’s business model to the physical database tables and columns
• SDK: Primarily used for integrating MicroStrategy functionality into other existing
systems
31. Administration Tools
• Object Manager: Comprehensive development environment is a change
management tool that manages the application development lifecycle by
assessing the impact of changes to the application, and migrating these changes
across development, testing, and production environments
• Enterprise Manager: Enables analysis of resource utilization, project
performance, user statistics, and trends to facilitate performance tuning and
resource planning
• Command Manager: Enables script-based administration and maintenance of
objects, security, and system configuration for large user communities using
textual commands
• Integrity Manager: Automates the detection of inconsistencies and errors so that
business users can rely 100% on the accuracy of their information. It compares
each dashboard or report, comparing its data, SQL, graph, Excel, PDF output
• System Manager:Replacing manual, multi-step BI administrative processes with
automated workflows
32. Interactive Reporting, Analysis, Scorecards & Dashboards Alerting & Proactive
Notification
Relational Data Warehouses
Oracle
DB2
SQL Server
Sybase
Teradata
Informix
NonStop
Netezza
Cube Databases
SAP BW
Hyperion Essbase
Microsoft AS
TM1
Operational DBs and
Non-Relational Data
(Excel, CSV, ERP)
Design &
Administration
MicroStrategy
Narrowcast Server
E-Mail Printers
File
Servers
MicroStrategy Web
MicroStrategy
Mobile
Mobile
Devices
Web Browsers
Web
Services
Portals
MicroStrategy
SDK
MicroStrategy
Architect
MicroStrategy
Desktop
MicroStrategy
Command
Manager
MicroStrategy
Integrity
Manager
MicroStrategy
Enterprise
Manager
MicroStrategy
Object Manager
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server
MicroStrategy
OLAP Services
MicroStrategy
Report Services
MicroStrategy Multisource Option
MicroStrategy
Transaction Services
MicroStrategy Clustering Option
MicroStrategy Mobile
Microsoft
Office
MicroStrategy
Office
MicroStrategy
Distribution Services
MicroStrategy Web
Services
MicroStrategy
Health Center
Logical Architecture
35. • The aim is to reach a single version of
truth
• Is comprised of multiple layers of well-
defined objects, with each layer serving
as the foundation upon which to build
the next
• Enables the sharing of these objects
across MicroStrategy reports by
providing a central repository for all
object definitions and maximal
reusability
Reports, Scorecards, Dashboards
Report
Components
Business
Abstraction
Data
Abstraction
MicroStrategy Metadata
Metadata
36. DATA SOURCES
Access all corporate data source
Schema neutrality, Database Optimizations
DATA ABSTRACTION
Insulate business constructs from data sources
Tables, Attributes, Facts, Hierarchies, Transformations
BUSINESS ABSTRACTION
Build reusable report components
Metrics, Filters, Prompts, Templates, Custom Groupings
REPORT DESIGN
Assemble insightful, visually appealing reports
Layout, Format, Calculations
Metadata Layers
37. DATA SOURCES
Access all corporate data source
Schema neutrality, Database Optimizations
DATA ABSTRACTION
Insulate business constructs from data sources
Tables, Attributes, Facts, Hierarchies, Transformations
BUSINESS ABSTRACTION
Build reusable report components
Metrics, Filters, Prompts, Templates, Custom Groupings
REPORT DESIGN
Assemble insightful, visually appealing reports
Layout, Format, Calculations
Data Abstraction
38. Tables
Represent the physical tables from the database
Facts
Represent numeric information that are the basis of business measures
and key performance indicators
Attributes
Represent descriptive information that provide context and define the
summarization level of calculations
Dimensions (Hierarchies)
Represent logical groupings of attributes that describe the business
model
Transformations
Provide time period comparisons for business measures
Data Abstraction
39. DATA SOURCES
Access all corporate data source
Schema neutrality, Database Optimizations
DATA ABSTRACTION
Insulate business constructs from data sources
Tables, Attributes, Facts, Hierarchies, Transformations
BUSINESS ABSTRACTION
Build reusable report components
Metrics, Filters, Prompts, Templates, Custom Groupings
REPORT DESIGN
Assemble insightful, visually appealing reports
Layout, Format, Calculations
Business Abstraction
40. Business Abstraction
Metrics: These are business measures and key performance indicators
Filters: Qualify the report content and identify the subset of the data
warehouse to be included in a report
Templates: Define report format; specify the attributes, metrics, and
display properties contained in a report
Prompts: Allow users to choose the information to be displayed in a
report on the fly
Custom Groups: Define arbitrary groupings of attribute elements in a
report, and represent data groupings that do not exist in the
data warehouse itself
41. Subscription
Preference
Part of a
Security Profile
Parameter or
Prompt Selection
Included in
Another Filter
Included in
a Metric
Included in
a Report
Alert
Criterion
Example:
Top Stores
Filter
Object Reusability
44. DATA SOURCES
Access all corporate data source
Schema neutrality, Database Optimizations
DATA ABSTRACTION
Insulate business constructs from data sources
Tables, Attributes, Facts, Hierarchies, Transformations
BUSINESS ABSTRACTION
Build reusable report components
Metrics, Filters, Prompts, Templates, Custom Groupings
REPORT DESIGN
Assemble insightful, visually appealing reports
Layout, Format, Calculations
Report Design
45. Reports
• Report is a specific business user question abstracted as a set of
attributes, filtering conditions, metrics, and sub-totals, and sent to the
data-warehouse for processing.
• Consist of two components: a template and a filter. A template, which
consists of attributes and metrics, is an abstraction of the fields
requested by the user where as a filter is a condition imposed.
• Reports are fully interactive allowing users to toggle between grid and
graph mode, rearrange report layouts by pivoting rows, columns and
pages, change the formatting, sort the columns,add subtotals, and
create new calculations in the report.
46. Documents
Documents are a compilation of reports or datasets, with a highly
formatted display. Documents are built with attributes and metrics from
different reports or datasets in a single interface. MicroStrategy classifies
documents into 3 categories:
•Mobile Apps: Mobile app uses a document object at its core, and is built
on top of the one of the number of Mobile specific document templates
•Interactive Dashboards: Dashboards combine large numbers of reports
into a document into a layout provides interactive, visual way to consume
information about business performance
•Enterprise Reports: These reports are very detailed and typically have
hundreds of pages, with different levels of subtotaling
47. Visual Insight
• A Visual Analysis is a presentation of large data volumes as intuitive
data visualizations
• Instead of looking through rows and columns of data, a user can see
their data in a visual format and quickly derive insights by adding
attributes and metrics onto the visualizations
48. Business Users Create
Prototype Dashboards
IT Creates Dashboards from
Prototypes and Publishes
Frontline Workers Gain
Valuable Business Insights
Amplify Business Insights Throughout the Enterprise
Business User & IT
Over the preceding decade, most companies have deployed BI applications as departmental solutions, and have accumulated a large collection of disparate BI technologies as a result. Each distinct technology supported a distinct user population and database, within a well-defined “island of BI”. At first these islands of BI satisfied the early needs of the bsuiness, but this early succes in departmental deployment has sowed the seeds of new problems
BUILD SLIDE
Successful applications always expand. They gain more users, more analytic scope, and access more data. The second era of BI is hallmarked by BI applications which have expanded to the point where they are no longer isolated islands. Instead, they overlap in user populations, overlap in data access, and overlap in analytic domain. As a result, CIOs are now faced with an untenable situation. The enterprise is getting conflicting versions of the truth. The quickly growing business user population is distinctly unhappy about being forced to use multiple different BI tools. And the CIO is wrestling with an ever accelerating maintenance burden to keep all of these disparate systems from tripping over one another in terms of definitions, data access, security, administration, and operations.
BUILD SLIDE
The next era of business intelligence is one where a single BI architecture delivers a single version of the truth through a single user interface to all people in the enterprise. It can access all of the data, administer all of the users uniformly, eliminate the repetitive data access, reduce the administrative effort, and reduce the time to deploy new BI applications. Such a BI architecture must exhibit two dominant characteristics to fulfill this role. First, it must offer the full range of BI functionality available in the myriad of existing products so that it can adequately replace them. And second, it must be “Industrial-strength” so that companies can confidently deploy applications across the enterprise.
• Era 1: Isolated Departmental Islands of BI Are an Initial Success
Many companies deploy BI applications as departmental solutions, and in the process, have accumulated
a large collection of disparate BI technologies as a result. Each distinct technology supported a specific
user population and database, within a well-defined “island of BI.” At first, these islands of BI satisfied
the initial needs of the business, but early success in departmental deployment sowed the seeds for new
problems as the applications grew.
• Era 2: Overlapping Disparate Islands of BI Have Become an Enterprise Liability
Successful applications always expand. The second era of BI is hallmarked by BI applications that have
expanded to the point where they are no longer isolated islands. Instead, they overlap in user populations,
data access, and analytic coverage. As a result, organizations are now faced with an untenable situation.
The enterprise is getting conflicting versions of the truth through the multiple disparate BI systems, and
there is no way to harmonize them without an extraordinary ongoing manual effort of synchronization.
Equally problematic is the fact that business users are forced to use many different BI tools depending on
what data they want.
• Era 3: Enterprise BI Standardization Delivers a Single Version of the Truth with Lowest Total Cost of Ownership
The third era of business intelligence is one where a single BI architecture delivers one version of the truth
through a single user interface to all people across the enterprise. It can access all of the data, administer
all of the people, eliminate repetitive data access, reduce the administrative effort, and reduce the time to
deploy new BI applications. This is not just a vision of Enterprise Business Intelligence. Many companies are
successfully achieving this new era of business intelligence with MicroStrategy technology.
A BI system is composed of several key components.
The BI platform sits between business users you see at the top of this slide who consume the information, and all of the data sources your see at the bottom.
The role of the BI platform is to interpret and harmonize all of the complex data across all of the different databases so that users and IT personnel can design reports and interact with data without requiring that they have any knowledge of the underlying technical complexities and inconsistencies that might exist in the databases.
The BI platform provides a user interface to business people with which they can interact with their company’s data in any of 5 different ways – which we call the 5 Styles of BI. The five styles of BI are listed in the diagram and include: Reporting, Dashboards, OLAP Analysis, Advanced or Ad-hoc Analysis, and Pro-active Alerting. Many BI tools support one or two of these styles of BI within the same architecture, but with the MicroStrategy architecture, you can get all 5 Styles of BI within the exact same user interface and all built on the exact same building blocks (called metadata).
And at the right you see that the real value of a BI platform is that it allows companies to create and deploy very many BI applications composed of reports, dashboards, and other analytic workflow… some of which are created by IT professionals, some are created by analysts, but ideally, the majority are created by average business people in the normal process of doing their various jobs.
Over the last 10 years or so, BI has evolved from simple reporting and analysis to 5 more concrete styles of BI. These styles came about because of an increase in the number and range of users who are accessing data. The requirement for more interactivity with data has also increased along with the need for more advanced analytics. Out of these requirements, the 5 Styles of BI were created. The 5 styles include…(quickly walk through each style).
The graph shows how every style is placed based on number of user and user interactivity
Show offline example: Claims Dashboard, Ca
Dashboards often provide at-a-glance views of KPIs (key performance indicators) relevant to a particular objective or business process (e.g. sales, marketing, human resources, or production).[1] The term dashboard originates from the automobiledashboard where drivers monitor the major functions at a glance via the instrument clusterlifornia Population, Category Manager Dashboard. Dashboard are interactive
Enterprise reports are the very detailed reports that are the mainstream of reporting applications today. These highly structured, densely populated, multi-page reports are designed to convey large amounts of operational performance data. These reports are often organized hierarchically and may use banding to make them more readable.
The need to be Print-perfect so business people can take them to meetings. They need to be pixel-perfect so any format and be achieved as is especially the case with business reports. And they need to be page-perfect so that they are ready for high production printing such as with bills and statements.
Show example pds Retail and Manufacturing (under Enterprise reporting folder)
High volume, high efficiency engine allows to distribute the information to many people
In order to avoid spamming users with reports every day or every hour, alerts can be configured so they are notified whenever there is something that requires their immediate attention
OLAP stands for On Line Analytical Processing. OLAP allows business people to easily display specific slices of data by performing any of the common OLAP functions of pivoting, paging-by, sorting, filtering, and drilling. OLAP is the foundation of mainstream analysis in organizations today because it is simple for users to understand.
Basic OLAP - Basic OLAP
With Basic OLAP technology, people perform these functions on a limited subset of data called a cube. With other BI technologies, these cubes are static physical databases, whereas with MicroStrategy, they are dynamically generated multidimensional caches. You can see in the diagram at left that users can view many different slices business performance:
In the top slice, the user is viewing Laptop computer revenue for 2010 and for all Stores
BUILD SLIDE - Relational OLAP Analysis
Another approach to OLAP is Relational OLAP. Relational OLAP doesn’t limit you to slicing and dicing within a cube. Instead you are able to access information anywhere within your data warehouse, from the highest levels of data summarization, down to the lowest layers of transactional detail.
Ideally, BI vendors would offer both approaches to OLAP analysis.
Differentiator – Enterprise Class ROLAP Engine
The Best In Class Approach Is:
ROLAP architecture with sophisticated caching.
Advanced ROLAP engine which allows people to drill anywhere.
ROLAP engine that is optimized for each relational database.
(++) Which Is Important Because:
Systems don’t fail or slow down even during peak usage.
Any question can be answered at any time.
Other Alternatives In the Market Are:
Some other tools store data in proprietary data storage mechanisms.
Other ROLAP tools don’t have database-optimized ROLAP engines or caching engines.
Other tools only allow you to drill within pre-defined subsets of your data warehouse, or along pre-defined drill paths.
(--) Which Are Less Optimal Because:
Proprietary data storage mechanisms tend to not scale as well as relational databases.
Non-optimized ROLAP engines require more resources (CPU, memory, network).
Not all questions can be answered at any time by the business user.
Additional Notes for Reference:
The advantages of Relational OLAP are mostly obvious:
People can investigate the data freely… without being constrained to just the data contained within a cube
People can “surf” anywhere in the data warehouse… without the need to create new ad-hoc reports
Normal business people can serve themselves with data ... without requiring assistance from IT
Summary
Having heard this, it should probably make you wonder why other vendors’ technology is not also based on Relational OLAP. The simple reason is that Relational OLAP technology proved to be very difficult for software vendors to perfect. It took MicroStrategy a decade of concerted work with customers, theoretical work, and many patents to produce a highly scalable, high performance Relational OLAP technology. Other companies spent this past decade investing in the easier cube-centered technology instead, and are just now realizing that customers’ requirements are rapidly evolving to need Relational OLAP capabilities.
BROCHURE TEXT
MicroStrategy provides both Basic OLAP analyses for simple analytical needs, as well as full Relational OLAP for more freeform analysis and more extensive investigation.
Both forms of OLAP allow business people to easily display specific slices of data by performing any of the common OLAP functions of pivoting, paging-by, sorting, filtering, and drilling.
MICROSTRATEGY DELIVERS ALL ANALYSIS REQUIREMENTS – FROM SLICE-AND-DICE TO INVESTIGATIVE ANALYSIS
Providing Simple Speed-of-Thought OLAP Analysis to Business Users | MicroStrategy delivers quick insights to business users via Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). OLAP is the means by which a user examines data across various dimensions and hierarchies. With MicroStrategy, business users look for patterns, trends, and exceptions and intuitively change their views of the data through simple slice-and-dice analysis. MicroStrategy’s OLAP functions allow business users to understand and predict business events without being trained on analytic techniques.
Open Up the Entire Data Warehouse with Relational OLAP Analysis | MicroStrategy uniquely delivers complete investigative analysis. MicroStrategy’s renowned relational OLAP (ROLAP) capabilities open up the entire depth and breadth of the data warehouse for full investigative drilling, down to the transaction-level of detail as necessary. With MicroStrategy’s “drill anywhere” capability, business users can surf anywhere in the data warehouse to see new sets of
data, reducing the need for formal report creation or the help of IT personnel, and improving user comprehension of data.
The first is Data Discovery. And a good way to think about Data Discovery is Self Service 2.0. Let me explain.
Slide
Data discovery is an emerging style of BI that empowers Business people to conduct their own analysis without help from IT. For business people it is a brand new BI experience from going from data to Business insight.
You start with data. That data can be IT managed data from database or it can be your own data in spreadsheets. It’s up to you.
<build>
You start by familiarizing yourself with the data. You can look into the data and begin to understand any relationships.
<build>
Next, you can apply visualizations to that data to help you discern patterns, problems, and trends.
<build>
You can apply your own analysis to this by filtering the data, creating new calculations, and adding views of the data.
<build>
But truthfully, the data discovery process is not so linear. At any time you can add new visualizations, add new combinations of data, and refine your data analysis.
<build>
Until you arrive at the business insight.
Data Discovery is an exploratory and iterative process. That exploratory process is highly visual. A good way to describe it is Visual OLAP. It’s a better way for many people to understand data than the classic OLAP tabular format. And business people can do all this on their own without help from IT. At the same time, IT can make sure this can securely deploy at scale and with high performance.
This is an emerging trand pushed by bigdata, it needs a data scientist
There are three types of roles within the analytics sphere. There are those who produce the analytics versus those who consume them. This provides to be a challenge for those in a corporation. This is because the data scientists utilize complex and technical skills to create analytics for the consumers. However, while business users and consumers want to gain the insight, they want to avoid the technical jargon and complexity that often comes with such data analytics.
Show a mobile app
The platform provides all 5 Styles of BI uniformly through a wide variety of user interfaces, including mobile phones, tablets, Web browsers, Enterprise Portals, Microsoft Office, E-mail, Microsoft Windows workstations, network printers, and file servers
The integrated backplane is the heart of the MicroStrategy architecture. It provides the common services of
metadata, prompt generation, scheduling, in-memory data, shared caching, security, user management, query
generation, query governing, and administration. More importantly, it is the core engine which supports each
of the 5 Styles of BI as plug-n-play “service modules” that can be mixed and matched in any combination.
These modules include MicroStrategy Report Services for pixel perfect reporting, Mobile apps, dashboards and
scorecards, MicroStrategy OLAP Services for speed-of-thought slicing and dicing, MicroStrategy Distribution
Services for alerting proactive notification functionality, and MicroStrategy Transaction Services for data input
and write-back capabilities. MicroStrategy ROLAP and analytics are always an integral part of the core engine.
MicroStrategy customers can add various “service modules” to the core engine to incrementally extend its
functionality. Each service module is designed to build on one another, adding new functionality to each
other when used in combination. This means that a customer can add the OLAP Services module to the
engine, and all previously-built grid reports automatically become Intelligent Cube™ reports, and inherit a wide
range of new functionality. In addition, a customer can add the Report Services module, and be able to re-use
all the previously-built grid and cube reports as datasets for the new pixel-perfect document. Furthermore,
the Transaction Services module can be added to enable data input and write-back functionality on Report Services documents and dashboards. And finally, it means that a customer can add the Distribution Services
module, and immediately use any grid reports, intelligent cube reports, and document reports as the basis
for e-mail alerts and proactive notifications.
An organic, platform of 17 distinct products that dynamically assemble, and re-assemble these objects
in response to any business question or user action.
Every MicroStrategy BI application requires at a minimum:
1. Development products to build business abstraction objects in the metadata: MicroStrategy Architect
and Desktop.
2. Core server to manage users, security, database communications, report formatting, and distribution:
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server.
3. Interface products to run reports and manipulate the results for investigative analysis: MicroStrategy
Mobile, Web, Office, or Distribution Services
With in-memory ROLAP, some selected portions of the global virtual cube are populated with actual data as ROLAP Cubes (Intelligent Cube); as you see presented here in the drawing.
BUILD
Because the in-memory ROLAP Cubes operate below the User Security and Prompting layers, they are able to serve a very wide variety of requests and user profiles.
So ROLAP Cubes have flexible query characteristics of databases, but because the ROLAP Cubes reside in main memory, they have the performance characteristics of caches.
On the performance graph on the right you can see the addition of a new performance curve for the in-memory queries. These in-memory queries have replaced a large number of database queries and delivered their data with much faster response times.
Introduced with MicroStrategy 9 last year In-Memory Cubes can reduce the computational distance for many reports.
In-Memory Cubes have query characteristics like databases, but because the Cubes reside in main memory, they have the performance characteristics of caches. This technology is designed to overcome the limitations of Caching, opening up the technology to a wider range of reports. In-Memory Cubes provide 1-3s wait time to a range of 40%-60% of reports in a BI application.
These superior performance characteristics make In-Memory BI the best option to improve performance significantly
Now here’s the huge effect of the In-memory operation on the Database Workload.
These huge spikes in user activity show up where the volume of report requests overloads both the Intelligence Server and the Database.
In-memory adds some batch processing to the end of the ETL window as the Cubes are created with the updated data…
…but the workload is greatly reduced as huge numbers of reports can now hit the Cubes instead of the database.
Beginning in 1996, MicroStrategy embarked on a massive software development effort to re-engineer its highly scalable architecture so that it could support all 5 Styles of Business Intelligence. By 2000, MicroStrategy delivered MicroStrategy 7 which laid the foundation for this vision, and explicitly supported
the two most difficult styles of BI: 1) Advanced Analysis, and 2) Alerting. By mid-2002, MicroStrategy added In-Memory to the platform and further enhanced this in 2009.
In 2003, MicroStrategy added Enterprise Reporting and Scorecards & Dashboards. Data Mining was added in 2005. MicroStrategy released its Mobile
App for Apple iOS phones and tablets in 2010 and for Google Android devices in 2011.
PRESENTATION NOTES:
In order to achieve development efficiencies, a modeled environment breaks the essential components of BI applications into a metadata. The metadata is reusable and object orientated. From a small number of base objects, you can create all the reports you need.
Introduce the concept of a business model and hence, logical model.
Introduce the concept of a layered MD – and Say how in a layered MD, the business model is abstracted into a logical model of three layers (schema, business abstraction and reporting layers)
In short, the logical Model is a representation of the Business Model.
Data abstraction objects map the physical data model of the data source into a logical business model using business terms and rules. Data abstraction objects serve as the building blocks for business abstraction objects and, ultimately, for all reporting, analysis, and monitoring
Explain each Key component briefly and highlight the reusability of these objects
Table – nothing but a logical presentation of the physical database table
Fact – A fact is a table column, or an expression combining multiple columns, that contains quantitative raw or aggregated values such as amounts, counts, quantities, forecasts, and other measurable business calculations
Attribute – Attributes are defined by a column or columns in one or more tables, and provide meaningful qualitative context to facts. Attributes are commonly displayed on reports. They also serve to set the aggregation levelfor calculations in a report, and for filtering the data that is retrieved from the data warehouse. Examples of attributes are regions, stores, customers, and months.
Dimensions or Hierarchies logical groupings of the attributes. Talk about the Time Hierarchy because that Hierarchy is the easiest to understand and is common to all organizations. E.g. Year Quarter Month is a logical grouping that form the Time dimension. Also, highlight how Year and Quarter form a Parent child relationship and how Quarter and Month are also the same. e.g. Year 2006 4 Quarters (Q1-Q4 2006) Each Quarter has three months (Q1 2006 Jan, Feb, Mar 2006) etc.
Hierarchies:
A hierarchy is a logical group of attributes that defines a relationship between them. A hierarchy describes an
ordered path through the attributes from a summarized level to more detailed levels. Hierarchies are used to
browse data, and provide a navigation path when drilling from one attribute to another on a report.
In MicroStrategy, hierarchies also serve as placeholders for an attribute in a report, with the specific attribute
being determined at run-time. There are two types of hierarchies:
• System Hierarchy
The system hierarchy is a direct map of the logical table structure stored in the metadata, and shows the
true relationships between all attributes in the reporting application. There is only one system hierarchy for
each MicroStrategy application.
• User Hierarchies
MicroStrategy allows a greater range of hierarchical paths than those found in the physical database.
User hierarchies define relationships between attributes based on the business rules of the reporting
application, and they guide user analysis or provide shortcuts to common analytic workflows. Attributes
can be reused in different user hierarchies.
Transformations – they are the most complex and are used to provided time period comparisons of facts. E.g. compare this year revenue to last year revenue. YTD or MTD etc.
Transformations are reusable business abstraction objects that are embedded primarily in metrics for time
comparison calculations. They automatically display information for changing dates and time periods
without constantly needing to redefine metadata objects. For example, many reports display current period
information along with prior-period and period-to-date information. In this example, transformations handle
the variable time periods automatically regardless of when the reports are executed within the same object
definitions. Two types of transformations are supported in MicroStrategy:
• One-to-one transformations compare one period to another, for example, “Last Month” and “This Month
Last Year”.
• Many-to-many transformations define period-to-date and last-in-period metrics, for example “Month-toDate” or “Last Four Weeks”.
Business abstraction objects define the business terms and rules. They serve as the building blocks for other business abstraction objects and for all reports, analyses, and documents.
Metrics:
Metrics represent business measures and key performance indicators. Metrics consist of facts, attributes, or
other metrics combined with a formulaic calculation. This formula may include aggregation functions such as
“Avg” , “Sum” or “Count,” arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /) or other advanced functions (e.g. data mining,
financial, mathematical, OLAP, statistical). A metric can contain 3 additional properties:
• Dimensionality
Metric Dimensionality determines the level of aggregation of a metric. The default aggregation level is
based on the attributes contained in a given report. The aggregation level of a metric can be changed
to force aggregation at a specified level. This flexibility is especially useful if business metrics need to be
calculated at the same level regardless of the level of reports that use them.
• Filter
Metric Filters determine any restrictions on the data used in the calculation. A metric filter may be defined
as an embedded component of the metric or as a link to existing filters, maximizing object reuse, and
reducing administration.
• Transformation
Transformations may be associated with a metric to enable time series analysis as described in the next section.
Filters:
A filter specifies the conditions that data must meet to be included in a report or metric. Filters limit the data
that is extracted from the data source, and focus the data presented to the end user. A filter is essentially
a logical expression that combines any metadata object, mathematical and comparison operators, and
constant values and lists.
Filter expressions can be combined using Boolean operators and nested to create sophisticated conditional
clauses. For example, to retrieve data for New York and San Francisco for the fourth quarter of 2012, the
filter would be:
(City=’New York’ OR City=’San Francisco’) and Quarter=’20125Q4’.
Templates:
A template specifies the layout and formatting of the data on a report. Attributes, metrics, custom groups,
consolidations, and prompts can be placed in rows, columns, or pages on the template grid. There is no
theoretical limit to the number of objects that can be placed on a template. Besides being able to define
the presentation characteristics, such as font, color, alignment, and number formats, additional report
characteristics such as subtotaling, metric thresholds, and graph properties are also stored in templates.
Prompts:
Run-time prompts provide report input parameters that control most aspects of a report, and give the
user significant ad hoc reporting capabilities. Prompts enable the personalization of reports from a single
report definition, reducing the number of objects stored in the metadata repository. There are four types of
prompts in MicroStrategy:
• Filter prompts provide filtering criteria at runtime, and qualify the data set from the data warehouse that
will be included in the report results.
• Object prompts let users choose which attributes and metrics to include on a report at run-time. They can
also be used to build metadata objects, particularly metrics, providing enormous flexibility from a single
report definition.
• Value prompts allow the input of alphanumeric and date values that specify constants for filtering criteria
and metric calculations.
• Level prompts dynamically control the aggregation level (dimensionality) of metrics.
This represents tremendous savings in terms of development and maintenance overhead, because I can define an object only once, and reuse it as many times as I want
For instance if I create a filter, I may use this filter on:
So the benefits are twofold:
First I save on development overhead since I don’t have to build several copies of the same object
Second, If I ever have to make changes to this filtering criteria, I only need to change/update objects in one place only! So I save on maintenance overhead too.
A quick show throug the 300+ out of the box Microstrategy function
A possible interaction between business users and IT could be through the use of VA by the business users as a prototype instrument, in an agile development way IT collect this prototypes and develop dashboards that will be published to the crowd.
VA dashboard could be even published directly
Probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812. Beginning at the Polish-Russian border, the thick band shows the size of the army at each position. The path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in the bitterly cold winter is depicted by the dark lower band, which is tied to temperature and time scales. Exquisitely printed in two colors on fine archival