Voice of the DBA

Tag: Business Intelligence

  • Pop Tarts and Hurricanes

    The second most dold item at Wal-Mart before a hurricane.

    What do people buy most of before a hurricane? Wal-Mart determined that batteries are the number ones sales item before a hurricane, but the second most sold item was surprising: pop-tarts. That’s the type of intelligence that can come from analysts asking the right questions about their customers and then IT delivering systems that can help them get an answer.

    More and more companies are starting to deal with big data. Big data is usually seen as extremely large sets of data. Those data sets  often exceed the capability of what a single database server can handle, and place a strain on existing IT infrastructures, especially when there is an explosion of new datab types. Hadoop is an open source framework that’s designed to deal with large sets of data and help with the processing and analysis of these large data sets.

    Microsoft recently added support for Hadoop to SQL Sever. Granted it’s only in the Parallel Data Warehouse, which is a highly specialized version of SQL Server integrated with specific hardware. However I am sure this will eventually make its way to other editions over time.

    Update: I made a mistake, there is a connector for non PDW SQL Server 2008 R2 instances.

    I don’t know if I would recommend learning Hadoop, but the techniques of processing large sets, and performning analysis on big data is important., Even more important might be the writing of well performing T-SQL code that will be used. I’d recommend you read about ways to write better code, and learn to integrate those skills into your daily work. You don’t always need them, but you often don’t know that when you are writing the code.

    It doesn’t take much more effort to write better code the first time, but it does take more effort to learn to do so. It’s an investment in your career that you ought to be regularly working on to become one of those talented people that is in demand in the future.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • The Face of BI for SQL Server

    Donald Farmerannounced recently that he was leaving Microsoft for QlikView. For many people, Donald has been the face of BI for Microsoft. His many talks on all aspects of the platform have entertained and informed thousands of SQL Server professionals all around the world. However I am sure that many of us will continue to learn from Mr. Farmer in his new role at QlikView.

    Many people outside of Microsoft were sad to see Donald leave, including me. However I support and understand his decision, and I know that there is still an amazing team at Microsoft that will continue to work with the SQL Server BI pros everywhere.

    I felt the same way when others have left the SQL Server team in the past. Some have been good spokespersons or speakers. Donald Farmer leaves a hole that will be hard to fill, but we still have Amir Netz, among others.  Amir is someone that I would always recommend you go see speak, even if you’re not interested in the topic. Like Donald, Amir is entertaining and has an infectious enthusiasm that makes you enjoy the technology.

    There are plenty of other talented people working on SQL Server, and I am sure that we will find some other great speakers to help us learn more as SQL Server continues to evolve in the future.

    Steve Jones

    (originally published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72200/ )

    Podcasts

  • Skunk Works

    The SR-71 Blackbird cockpit

    The abstract at the top of this article is great: “Using SQL Server, you can build a BI platform without getting your organization’s top brass involved.” Not that I condone you going off on your own to do work without any communication with others, but funding and starting a BI project can often get shot down when too many resources are involved. It might be just as likely is the approval to tackle a long project often gets bogged down because too many people and too many objectives are involved.

    The release of SQL Server 2008 R2 didn’t excite me very much because I have always been a core database engine person and this version mostly had BI improvements. I like the database engine, T-SQL, and working with OLTP systems. However I do see the value in building BI systems, and the enhancements made to the SQL Server platform, mostly in SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS with Powerpivot, mean that you can build an incredibly powerful application to work with business data without stepping outside of BIDS and SSMS.

    A skunk works project is a great way to try out BI ideas, and make some useful prototypes that end-users can take advantage of. If you find that you have built something useful, then you can approach upper management with a request for more resources to build a better system. I would not go this alone, however, without at least getting some approval from your manager to spend time and resources to build something. I’d also be sure that you implement good security practices; after all, if you use production data, you need to be sure it is protected at the same level as the production systems.

    Steve Jones

    (originally published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72180/)

    Podcasts

    * Video Podcast – 17.1MB WMV
    * Video Podcast – 13.7MB MP4
    * Audio Podcast – 3.2MB MP3

  • Data Scientists

    Would you like to be a data scientist? In some sense I think that many of us working with SQL Server are amateur data scientists. Whether it’s building a report, or just writing code to summarize data, we are working with data in a scientific way.

    What is data science? It’s not really a science, but instead it describes the field of analyzing data and the tools used. It’s primarily used with more traditional sciences to make sense of the vast quantities of data that are accumulated and used to support or debunk some hypothesis.

    Many of us as data professionals have some experience in managing data and manipulating it, but not a lot of formal knowledge in statistics or heavy math. Just reading the recommendations of what might be needed become a data scientist reminds me of a graduate level curriculum, but I’m not sure most of us need that much schooling.

    However I do think that as a data professional that is looking to add strategic value to your company’s applications and trying to stand out, it makes sense to beef up your analytics skills. Finding ways to spot trends and patterns can be very valuable to finding new opportunities in business, and those talents are based on sound statistical analysis techniques.

    Steve Jones

    (Originally published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72171/)

    Podcasts