SQL Server DenaliBI on Your Terms

Andrew J. Brust, Founder/CEO Blue Badge Insights

Code Camp NYC 2011

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Who Am I?

• Founder, CEO, Blue Badge Insights• Microsoft Regional Director, MVP• Organizing team, Code Camp NYC• Co-chair Visual Studio Live!

Co-moderator, NYC .NET Developers Group– http://www.nycdotnetdev.com

• Founder, MS BI User Group NYC– http://www.msbinyc.com

• brustblog.com, Twitter: @andrewbrust

Column and Blog

Book

Agenda

• SQL Server BI – High Level• PowerPivot and Excel Services• Analysis Services Tabular Mode• Project “Crescent”• Overview: Master Data Services

and Data Quality Services

SQL SERVER BI OVERVIEW

Microsoft Business Intelligence

Business User Experience

Data Infrastructure and BI PlatformAnalysis ServicesReporting ServicesIntegration ServicesMaster Data ServicesData MiningData Warehousing

Business Collaboration PlatformDashboards & ScorecardsExcel ServicesWeb based forms & workflowCollaborationSearchContent ManagementLOB data integration

Familiar User Experience Self-Service access & insightData exploration & analysisPredictive analysisData visualizationContextual visualization

Business Collaboration Platform

Information Platform

SQL Server 2008 BI Components

But Wait, There’s More!

• R2: PowerPivot• R2: Report Parts in SSRS• Denali: Analysis Services Tabular mode

– And corresponding improvements in PowerPivot• Denali: “Crescent”• Denali: Data Quality Services

POWERPIVOT AND EXCEL SERVICES

Self-Service BI with PowerPivot• Excel + Analysis Services + SharePoint• Enables the working in Excel but mitigates the

“spreadmart” pitfalls:– Use Analysis Services (AS) as a hidden engine

• Instead of no engine

– Share via SharePoint, accessible by all AS clients• Instead of “deploying” via email

– Formal data refresh on server• So data doesn’t get stale, and users don’t have to make effort at

updating

– Allow IT to monitor• So it’s not all rogue

– Provide path to more rigorous implementations• Can be upsized to Analysis Services

Column-Oriented Stores• Imagine, instead of:

• You have:

• Perf: values you wish to aggregate are adjacent• Efficiency: great compression from identical or nearly-

identical values in proximity• Fast aggregation and high compression means huge

volumes of data can be stored and processed, in RAM

Employee ID Age Income

1 43 90000

2 38 100000

3 35 100000

Employee ID 1 2 3

Age 43 38 35

Income 90000 100000 100000

Data Import• Relational databases

– SQL Server (including SQL Azure!), Access– Oracle, DB2, Sybase, Informix– Teradata– “Others” (OLE DB, including OLE DB provider for ODBC)

• OData feeds, incl. R2/Denali Reporting Services, Azure DataMarket, ADO.NET Data Services (Astoria)

• Excel via clipboard, linked tables• Filter, preview, friendly names for

tables/columns

Calculated Columns and DAX• Formula-based columns may be created• Formula syntax is called DAX (Data Analysis

eXpressions).– Not to be confused with MDX or DMX. Or DACs.

• DAX expressions are similar to Excel formulas– Work with tables and columns; similar to, but distinct from,

worksheets and their columns (and rows)• =FUNC('table name'[column name])• =FUNCX('table name', <filter expression>)• FILTER(Resellers,[ProductLine] = "Mountain")• RELATED(Products[EnglishProductName])• DAX expressions can be heavily nested

PowerPivot Guidebook

Table tabs

View data in Excel

Calculatedcolumnentry

DAX formula bar

Relationship indicator

Import data fromalmost anywhere

Sort and filter

Sort one column by another

What’s New?KPIs

Measures

Data and Diagram views

Measuregrid

Measureformula

Diagram ViewDefault Aggregations Special Advanced Mode

Reporting Properties

Hierarchies

Hide specific columns and tables

Create relationshipsvisually

Measures

KPIs

Perspectives

PowerPivot Client

Excel Services• A component of SharePoint Server 2007/2010;

requires Enterprise CAL• Allows export of workbook, worksheet, or

individual items to SharePoint report library– Works great for PivotTables and Charts!– Also for sheets with CUBExxx formulas or conditional

formatting-driven “scorecards”• Content can be viewed in browser

– Excel client not required– Drilldown interactivity maintained– Rendered in pure AJAX/HTML– Parameterization supported

PowerPivot Server• Publish to Excel Services• Viewing and interacting• Data Refresh• Treating as SSAS cube

– URL to .xlsx as server name•Db name is GUID-based; best to discover it

– Use Excel, Reporting Services as clients• And now “Crescent” too…more later

The IT Dashboard

Increase IT efficiency:Familiar Technologies for Authoring, Sharing, Security, and ComplianceCustomizable IT DashboardVisualize usage with animated charts

Simplify management of SSBI content using

IT Operations Dashboard for SharePoint

PowerPivot Server

ANALYSIS SERVICES TABULAR MODE

Analysis Services Tabular Mode• SSAS Tabular Mode is the enterprise/server

implementation of PowerPivot• You must have a dedicated tabular mode

SSAS instance• BI Developer Studio (BIDS) does PowerPivot

– Implements equivalent tooling to PowerPivot Window– Can create an SSAS Tabular database project by

importing an Excel workbook with PowerPivot model• SSAS tabular models support partitions and

roles

SSAS Tabular Project in BIDS

SSAS tabular projectmenus and toolbar

Measure grid and formula bar

Reporting properties in Properties window

DirectQuery Mode• In DQ mode,

model defines schema, but is not used for data

• Queries issued directly against source

• Similar to ROLAP storage for conventional cubes

SSAS Tabular Mode

PROJECT “CRESCENT”

What is Crescent?

• Ad hoc reporting. Really!• Analysis, data Exploration• Data Visualization• In Silverlight, in the browser, in SharePoint• Feels a little like Excel BI• Is actually based on SSRS

– Crescent makes a special RDL file– And wraps it in an RDLX

Crescent Data Sources

• Crescent works only against PowerPivot/SSAS Tabular models– DirectQuery mode supported, however

• For PowerPivot, click “Create Crescent Report” button or option on workbook in SharePoint report gallery

• For SSAS tabular model, create BISM data source, then click its “Create Crescent Report” button or option– BISM data sources can point to PowerPivot workbooks

too, if you want.

Crescent! In the browser, in Silverlight

Ribbon, like Excel

Field list, like Excel

Variety of visualizationsand data formats

Data regions pane,like Excel

Text and Viewing Text boxes edited asif in Office

Maximize one chart, or put whole report in preview or full-screen

Crescent Basics

Constraining Your Data In Crescent

• Tiles– A filtering mechanism within a visualization

• Highlighting– Selection in one visualization affects the others

• Slicers– Similar to Excel against PowerPivot

• True Filters– Checked drop-down list; very Excel-like– Right Hand Filter Pane, similar to SSRS and Excel

Services

Crescent Filtering

Scatter/Bubble Charts

• Allow for 3 measures by up to 4 dimensions

• One dimension is “playable” through a slider or animation

• Excellent way to visualize trends over time

Small Multipliers

• Multiple charts within a chart, in columns, rows, or a matrix

• Allows for visualizing an additional dimension

• Think of it like a clustered chart with each series shown individually

Advanced Properties

• Setting the representative column and image tells Crescent how to summarize your data, and show stored images

• Other properties tell it about key attribute, default aggregation and more

• For SSAS tabular models, “Direct Query” mode tells Crescent to get data from relational data source instead of columnar cache

Crescent Advanced Features

Vocabulary

• MOLAP: Multidimensional OLAP• UDM: Unified Dimensional Model• Cube: Unit of schema in a dimensional

database

• VertiPaq: PowerPivot/SSAS’ column store engine

• BISM: BI Semantic Model• Tabular: A column store-based model

– Because it uses tables, not cubes

Apollo

• Implementation of VertiPaq columnar storage engine for SQL Server relational databases

• Use it by creating a column store index– CREATE COLUMNSTORE INDEX index ON table (col1, Col2, …)

• Can ignore it too:– OPTION (IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX)

• Significantly increases performance of star join queries (i.e. aggregating queries with dimension lookups).

• Not as good as SSAS, but better than plain old GROUP BY

OVERVIEW:MASTER DATA SERVICESAND DATA QUALITY SERVICES

Microsoft’s Master Data Management (MDM) tool

• Examples:– Sales states, countries, currencies, customer types– Customers, products– Think of “lookup tables” or just think of dimensions!– Slowly changing non-transactional entities in your data

• What gets stored:– Schemas– Any hierarchies– The data!

• Other features:– Collections, business rules, security, workflows– Versioning

Other Facts• Result of acquisition of Stratature• v1 was an ASP.NET application; UI is “different”• New in v2:

• Now Silverlight-based; UI is still “different”• Excel add-in for data entry; creation of entities and attributes• Perform matching with DQS before loading

• Includes .NET and Web Services APIs for reading/writing data and creating/editing models

• Does not integrate with Analysis Services tools even though many of its features and concepts mirror those of dimension designer

• Catalog kept in SQL Server database• Deployment packages can be created, shared and deployed

Objects in MDS

• Models– Entities (like tables or SSAS dimensions)

•Attributes (like columns/fields or SSAS attributes)–Common attributes are Name and Code

•Attribute Groups–Used to taxonomize attributes within tabs in UI

•Members (like rows/records or SSAS members)•Hierarchies (like SSAS hierarchies)

–Derived or Explicit

•Collections (like SSAS named sets)

– Versions– Business rules– Workflows

Data Quality Services

• Data Cleansing Tool• New to Denali• Result of Zoomix Acquisition• Uses Artificial Intelligence algorithms

detect invalid data and perform matching (for de-duplication)

• Allows manual intervention, too• Can integrate with MDS and SSIS• Cleaner data = better adoption of your BI

project

DQS Concepts

• Knowledge Bases– Domains

• “semantic representation[s] of a type of data in a data field…[contain] a list of trusted values, invalid values, and erroneous data.”

– Mapping• Data Quality Projects

– Cleansing (i.e. correcting)• Validate Using Reference Data Services and Use Azure DataMarket

(or 3rd party providers)

– Matching (i.e. de-duping)– Confidence– Profiling, Monitoring

Questions?

• Now?• Later?

– Andrew.Brust@BlueBadgeInsights.com– @andrewbrust on Twitter– www.brustblog.com

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