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SQL Server 2008 R2 BI Technologies

SQL Server 2008 R2 BI Technologies

SQL Server 2008 R2 unveils groundbreaking new technologies and tools, specifically targeted at empowering users, assisting in seamless, secure sharing and collaboration, and increasing IT and BI developer efficiency. Innovations, such as Master Data Services, Report Builder 3.0, and PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010, don’t just tackle typical enterprise BI challenges—they change the game.

The SQL Server 2008 R2-based data infrastructure and BI platform comprise five key SQL Server technologies:

  • The main purpose of Integration Services is to implement a scalable enterprise data integration platform with Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes to load data from a wide array of data sources into the organization’s data warehouses.
  • The Relational Engine implements the relational data store and database management system for data warehouses.
  • Master Data Services, a new member of the SQL Server family, enables organizations to implement a Master Data Management (MDM) system for central management of master data models, entities, and hierarchies across all information systems in the enterprise.
  • Reporting Services offers a full range of tools and services to create, deploy, and manage reports and report-based data feeds.
  • Analysis Services provides the OLAP and data-mining platform to analyze large quantities of multidimensional data based on OLAP cubes and PowerPivot workbooks.
Particularly important for team and personal BI scenarios are the improvements available with Reporting Services and Analysis Services. By using Reporting Services, an organization can encapsulate enterprise information systems through report-based data feeds so that Excel users can more easily import the data into their self-service BI applications, s. Analysis Services, on the other hand, provides the basis for server-based analytical processing. In addition to standard Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP), Relational OLAP (ROLAP), and Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP) storage modes, the SQL Server 2008 R2 version of Analysis Services supports (when installed as a service in SharePoint 2010) the new VertiPaq™ mode to allows you run PowerPivot workbooks In-Memory in a SharePoint 2010 farm. <br>



PowerPivot for Excel 2010

PowerPivot for Excel 2010 supports intuitive authoring, analysis, and publishing by means of the following key features:

  • User interface customizations - PowerPivot implements its own assembly to enhance the Excel user experience through ribbon customizations and spreadsheet templates, and overrides the default PivotTable field list to implement its own task pane.
  • VertiPaq engine for advanced data analysis - VertiPaq makes the most of multi-core processors and gigabytes of memory to process enormous quantities of data with incredible speed. Processing millions of rows takes about the same time as thousands.
  • Column-based compression - VertiPaq compresses the data users import into a PowerPivot workbook with efficient column-based compression algorithms and maintains its database in a custom XML part directly in the Excel workbook.
  • Broad support for data sources - PowerPivot users can enjoy broad support of data sources to load and combine a great variety of data for massive analysis on the desktop, including relational databases, multidimensional sources, cloud services, data feeds, Excel files, text files, and data from the Web.
  • Data Analysis Expressions - By using DAX in addition to standard Excel features, PowerPivot users can quickly create advanced workbook applications. These applications can rely on data relationships between tables as in a database, include calculated columns and measures, and aggregate over billions of rows. In many cases, PowerPivot for Excel 2010 can establish the table relationships automatically.
  • SharePoint integration - PowerPivot users can share data models and analysis seamlessly and securely, and because the solutions are in SharePoint, server-based refresh cycles can be configured to ensure the data remains current automatically.