Business Intelligence Software pros and cons (sharepoint, microstrategy)

my management are starting to make noises about data mining and business intelligence so I thought I'd try to get ahead of them to guide any decisions. Currently they are talking about using MS Sharepoint or Microstrategy software but there seems to be a lot of other BI applications available. If you've worked with any please can you let me know what you think, particularly the downsides of the product you know.

I'd also be interested in any thoughts/links about the design of data warehouses. I'm familiar with std SQL databases but what are these 'cubes'.

I expect we'll get expert help when needed but beginnings are delicate times and I'd like to be more familiar with the subject before irrevocable decisions are made.

Thanks, Patrick

EDIT: I don't really know our requirements. Our paren开发者_运维技巧t company is making some money out of BI and for various reasons we may be better positioned to take advantage of this market. Our role (the in house developers) is likely to be writing a few reports once the data warehouse is in place. So what tools will be easiest to use to develop reports? Any background knowledge I can pick up to help evaluate/understand propositions from people we bring in to do the hard stuff would also be useful and interesting (I'm scouring the web but a few links from those who already know the field would speed things along).

I wouldn't call Sharepoint a business intelligence or data mining application. It's simply a web publishing tool, Microsoft's proprietary answer to Wordpress/Drupal/Mediawiki. I don't have much experience with it, but Pentaho is a better example of a business intelligence application.

Your question is FAR too big for SO.

• Datawarehousing is an entire career... asking for our "thoughts" won't be productive.
• Cubes are a complete database technology, it's like asking what are these 'compilers'.
• BI is an entire career. It is as nuanced and complex as web design or any other speciality.

I totally appreciate your proactive nature but you're really asked for 10 years of experience in an hour.

What I would strongly suggest reading the The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit

This covers all decisions in creating a DW which is the heart of any good BI implementation.

Edit

While your developing a BI strategy, you'll be making a lot of decisions. Some of the least among them is toolset. While some have suggested that Microsoft is "behind", and I'm counted squarely as not a fan of M$, it works just fine for a vast majority of business in the world. If you're not Fortune 1000, shelling out Millions for Microstrategy may be overkill. But either way these decisions pale in comparison to the ones you'll make about what business impact your BI should accomplish, will you build a Kimball style DWH or an Enterprise Data Warehouse... etc.

Biased Opinion here

Don't fall for anyone selling Data Federation BI. the toughest part about BI is getting a complete understanding of what the data is and conforming it so it can be reported coherently. That is impossible to achieve by ONLY building a metadata layer.

Sharepoint and Microstrategy do quite different things. Microstrategy is a BI solution whereas SharePoint is primarily a content management server. I think you need to pin down more precisely what your requirements are.

If you already have SQL server 2008 standard or enterprise, then you already have SSAS, SSIS, SSRS -- it is all included in installation.

Thing to understand is that integration (SSIS) and Analytics (SSAS) services are independent applications which do not have to be installed together with SQL server. They are simply shipped as "added value" with the installation of the SQL server.

For example, you can install SSAS on your laptop and start data-mining today. You can also use SSAS and dimensional modelling to create cubes -- so called Microsoft data warehouse -- but you do not have to. You can build a data warehouse using plain Kimball or Inmon methodology, using a "standard" relational database.

If interested in data-mining, SSAS does not take much memory, and as most data-mining packages works best with flat tables. There is also an add-in for Excel, so you can do some mining directly from Excel -- need to have SSAS and the add-in installed.

Weka (Pentaho) is quite good for data mining and available as a freebie download - so you can try that.

In other words, you do have quite a few options to start data-mining, or building a DW without having to dish out extra M$.

For reports, you should already have report server (SSRS), and if you prefer open source, check out Pentaho and Jasper.

P.S. No matter what marketing people claim, Sharepoint has nothing to do with BI, really.

There is no secret that when it comes to choosing the best Business Intelligence suite, it all depends on your requirements. Large number of BI suites is available in market with their individual pros and cons. As far as SharePoint is concerned, it is a Microsoft web application platform and not a BI tool. MicroStrategy is a US based company providing BI, mobile software and cloud based services. Their BI product offering is named as MicroStrategy Analytics Platform.

Pros of using MicroStrategy BI platform include:

• Powerful in schema and SQL design
• Stable platform
• Easy administration
• Secured platform

Cons of using MicroStrategy BI platform include:

• Slow development process

• Low on graphics

• Less community support