The Data Model Resource Book volume 3

Sometimes I spent lots of time for finding the best way to design an ideal data model that could be comprehensive enough to cover all the prospective needs. But you couldn't always do your best, because your knowledge is depends on our experience.
It was previous week that I was looking at lots of books in Tehran Book fair. When I was looking at Wiley's books, a book grabbed my attention suddenly. It looked like a book that I have always been looking for. I believe The Data Model Resource Book volume 3 is a must book that a person who is in charge of database designing or data warehouse designing must have read.
I strongly recommend this book to all my friends who love database designing and data warehousing.
See table of contents and more details about it at Amazon.

Business Intelligence 2.0

Business Intelligence which consists of Dashboard Systems and Decision Support Systems has grown up during long time. Most systems that BI developers have been developed are belonging to Dashboard Systems which are used for demonstrating KPIs and revealing what has happened before. Decision Support Systems which are very depends on using Data Mining advantages for being implemented, have developed much fewer than Dashboard Systems.

BI 2.0 not only focuses on these systems, but it also changes the ETL way that we used to. Developing more Service oriented Applications, and the fact of having service-oriented data sources will change the way that we are using for gathering and cleaning data. Moreover, the needs of considering Business Processes and Business Rules, which exist in BPEL and BRMS, for performing ETL process would change this industry a lot.

I think the next generation of BI has a lot of challenges which are very interesting to study.

Aggregations

Designing appropriate aggregations in SQL Server Analysis Services is a big issue that a BI developer must consider carefully. When I read Performance Optimization chapter of Professional SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 with MDX, I felt that I should study designing aggregation in more detail if I wanted to get a good performance on Enterprise Data Warehouse.

Although "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Performance Guide" has been published in February 2007, I find it today! It describes some important tips in detail.

If you haven't read it, don't miss it.

Change data capture

Identifying and extracting changed data from source tables was replete with lots of efforts; it also requires designing the databases in an appropriate manner for keeping the changed data within tables or log files. The concept of “Change data capture”, a set of software design patterns used to determine (and track) the data that has changed in a database, helps designers to overcome the difficulty of solving such problems.

Fortunately, SQL Server 2008 implemented a mechanism to enable DBAs for automating this process like what we could consider in Oracle 9i which is called “Capturing Change”.
By using this new feature we could specify a log table in which the changes in data could be tracked. These changes are insert, update, and delete. SQL Server 2008 handles the required operation to store the appropriate data.

The following links are very helpful for understanding this new feature which could make ETL process more easily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_data_capture
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645937(printer).aspx
http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/03-nov/o63tech_bi.html

One Year Blogging Anniversary

It was last august that I started writing within this blog. I started blogging just for making notes on all thinks that I learn about Business Intelligence. I think it is a good idea to write about what we are learning and doing because it makes it possible for us to judge about ourselves and compare each year efforts with other years.
Although it played the role of technical diary for me, it led me to get familiar with a lot of friends such as Pedro, Ella, and others. It was definitely the best experience that I had because I could find friends, and expand my knowledge and consider others’ opinions and roadmap.
I want to apply for a master degree this year, and I hope that I can find a proper master degree. I get the IELTS, and I am currently search for universities while I am contacting with their teachers for perceiving more about their courses. Hard Working and all these activities make writing a bit difficult for me, but I will try to continue blogging, especially now that SQL Server 2008 has released ;)
I am very eager to study about accounting, cash-flow, budgeting, ERP, supply chain management, and etc because I think an in-depth knowledge of these topics could help me to analyze KPIs better.

Thanks you

Best wishes,
Amin Jalali

Microsoft DreamSpark

Microsoft created this site for students in order to access the Professional Developer and Designer tools at no charge.It is very helpful that you can download and use softwares like "Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition", "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition", and etc at no cost.

https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com

Market Basket Analysis

Some time ago, one of the Accounting Division’s staff asked me to reveal if the last decision of the Bank about introducing new participation papers were successful or not; also, he asked me to specify what percent of its sales were because of changing other deposits.
It was a hard job, because we had not any clear idea on how to deal with this matter! It had done, but I kept thinking about solving this problem via Business Intelligence Solutions rather than executing complex queries on databases.
When I was reading “The Data Warehouse Toolkit Second Edition”, I realized that it is very similar to “Market Basket Analysis” concept, and after doing some search it began to sink in.
Indeed, I found it out that it could be done via association algorithm of the Data Mining. This subject is about the market basket analysis, and finding the association of products based on their sales, in order to offer new discount for increasing the sales.
For instance, you can imagine that when you find it out that the toothpaste and toothbrush were sold together in most situations, it could be a good starting point for designing new promotion!