Gaining Insights – Part I - By Sanjay Jotwani

Introduction

We live in a digital world!! Every interaction is a “transaction”, and recorded into the computer’s storage.

So, what is the primary need of capturing this transactional data?

·         Proof of Interaction

·         Grain for Business Analysis

·         Case for Predictive Analysis

As we have digitized every piece into a bit, the challenge faced today is more in terms of

·         Volume of Data and,

·         The disparate forms of Data in a Domain.

As mentioned, data has a purpose to serve; the major is that of participating in analysis, leading to the intelligence required by the business to make informed decisions.

In this multi part blog series, we will try to cover the need, along with the design & implementation practices for a Business Intelligence Application.

The Framework for Business Intelligence

A Business Intelligence Application, from a layered architecture perspective would be represented as shown in Figure 1.

This framework is conceptual, and technology agnostic.

Figure 1.

1.       The Data Integration will result in the Consolidated Data Storage

2.       Data Analysis and Rich Visualization such as decomposition trees will use this Consolidated Data

3.       The Consolidated Data can be termed as Data Warehouse OR Data Mart.

 In the next blog, we will explore the Application Data Layer.

Until then; Cheers!!

Silverlight, WPF at forefront of DevExpress plans

.NET component and application framework maker Developer Express will place a greater emphasis on Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) this year, according to its 2010 road map, announced on Tuesday.

DevExpress' Silverlight components will deliver full design-time support for Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend 3. Upcoming Silverlight 3 controls will include charting, data editing and a scheduler. A Silverlight 4 printing control will also be introduced.

"We feel we are late to the party, but then again, Silverlight is changing a lot," said DevExpress CTO Julian Bucknall. Aside from controls, the company is integrating Silverlight into its eXpressApp Framework, he added.

Some of its upcoming WPF controls will include final versions of DevExpress' pivot grid and layout manager, data editor, ribbon, report view, and scheduler.

DevExpress' embrace of Silverlight and WPF comes at the expense of Windows Forms development. Bucknall said that WinForms controls are being deemphasized, but development will continue with more chart types, VS 2010 and Client Profile support for controls, as well as new user interface styles to match the appearance of Windows 7 and Office 2010.

VCL (Visual Component Library) controls will be likewise updated with additional views and similar user interface options for the Microsoft stack.

DevExpress will continue to forge ahead to update its existing ASP.NET controls, and it will begin to deliver new controls that exploit the new capabilities that will be introduced by .NET 4.0, Bucknall said. He is being more circumspect about developing components for ASP.NET's Model-View-Controller pattern, but the company will introduce a navigation bar and tab control nonetheless.

Lastly, new editions of the company's next IDE productivity tools, including CodeRush and Refactor Pro, will be released later this year around the time that VS 2010 ships, Bucknall said. "There were big changes in Visual Studio 2010," he added.

By David Worthington

SPTechCon focuses on 2010, embraces MOSS 2007

New features and functionality in SharePoint 2010 will be the focal point, but SharePoint Server 2007 instruction will be plentiful at SPTechCon—the SharePoint Technology Conference—being held Feb. 10–12 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport in Burlingame, Calif.

SPTechCon, produced by BZ Media LLC, which owns SD Times, will feature more than 80 workshops and technical classes spanning three full days. The 39-member faculty features some of the brightest minds in SharePoint today, including a Microsoft Certified Master in SharePoint as well as numerous Microsoft MVPs and a host of experts with very specific knowledge about all aspects of SharePoint.

The first day will feature full-day workshops for people just getting started with SharePoint. “SharePoint 101” sessions will be offered for developers, IT administrators and business users. Other workshops include “Become a SharePoint 2010 Power User,” "SharePoint Site Planning: Get it Right the First Time,” and “15 Things Developers Should Know About Migrating to SharePoint 2010.”

The opening keynote will again be presented by Tom Rizzo, Microsoft’s director of SharePoint. Rizzo, who delivered the keynote address at the two SPTechCon events in 2009, will speak on the delivery of SharePoint 2010. A second keynote will be given by Ted Pattison, a SharePoint consultant who recently founded Critical Path Training.

A special session called “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know (About SharePoint)” gives Microsoft’s SharePoint partners an opportunity to present important information to conference attendees in an entertaining, lightning-talk style, while “Pizza and Answers” gives attendees a chance to talk to our expert faculty members in a very informal setting.

By David Rubinstein

Aster Data expands SQL for map/reduce

Aster Data has built a business out of map/reduce, and the release today of a thousand new SQL query building blocks—what it calls "functions"—is designed to give business users access to map/reduce computed analytics.

Whereas open-source big data solution Hadoop, for instance, is based entirely on its own implementation of map/reduce, as well as a set of homegrown query structuring frameworks like Pig and Hive, Aster Data wants to use SQL right from the start. Sharmila Shahani-Mulligan, executive vice president of marketing at Aster Data, said that this is a significant advantage over Hadoop.

“Hadoop lends itself more to batch-type processing. Most of our customers are running analytics on a daily basis with the expectation of results returned every few minutes," she said. "It's not real-time, but it's near real-time.

"The second advantage is SQL map/reduce. We are literally targeting the business analyst with SQL using full map/reduce underneath.”

Map/reduce is the framework for processing huge amounts of data, and it is the basis of the Apache Hadoop project, as well as of Big Table, which runs Google's search engine. Using map/reduce, huge stores of data can be processed, and the results can be combined into a cohesive set of information.

Stephanie McReynolds, director of product marketing at Aster Data, said the new sets of query-building tools aren't limited to business users. “We introduced many new business analyst-ready functions," she said. "[These] functions address particular business issues, like path analysis for website traffic.

"We also have a series of packages for power users. These are for people building their own SQL map/reduce applications. They want to use Java or C functions to get ahead. These are smaller building blocks."

Shahani-Mulligan said that Aster Data's analytics can be tweaked and queried by business users, a major advantage over Hadoop. She said that many business users already know SQL, which cannot be said of Hive or Pig. She said that with Hadoop, developers likely need to be called in to implement any analytics batches that need to be run, but with Aster Data, the business users can do that themselves.

“With almost any of our [customers] you talk to, one of the big appeals has been that their existing business analysts can work with functions and don't have to use a new language," said Shahani-Mulligan. "This is why we came out with SQL map/reduce. Some of them also have Hadoop, but it requires you to do constant programming in map/reduce versus having a simple-to-use interface."

By Alex Handy