Microsoft Business Intelligence Architecture
From inception to implementation, RDX is able to provide a full set of administrative services that supports the entire Business Intelligence Life Cycle. RDX’s business intelligence subject matter experts (SMEs) are able to quickly analyze and improve existing architectures, as well as partner with customers to design, build and implement new custom-tailored architectures that meet each customer’s unique needs. Learn more about the business benefits of Business Intelligence and RDX's BI service offering.
Operational Systems
During the infancy of business computing systems, the main focus was to design and implement applications that performed operational tasks to support daily business operations. The result was the implementation of batch and online transaction processing systems that performed a fairly standard set of business related operational tasks.
The Data Warehouse Is Born
Technology and business professionals realized that by accumulating and combining data from the various operational systems into a central data store, they would be able to provide historical and current data to end users that would enable them to make more informed, and higher quality, business decisions. A new database type, the data warehouse, was born. This new database was quickly followed by data marts that were designed to allow the analysis of more specific and granular information.
New architectures, database storage types, analytical tools and processes were created to facilitate the transformation of raw data stored in data warehouses and data marts into useful business information. The term “Business Intelligence” was coined to identify this collective group of activities and technologies.
Benefits Of Business Intelligence
Operational systems generate a huge amount of raw data that contains a wealth of unutilized, or underutilized, information. Business Intelligence allows that raw data to be transformed into information that provides a clearer view of the entire organization’s business processes and improves both the speed and quality of business decisions.
These two factors provide the following benefits:
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Increased sales
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Reduced costs
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Improvements in internal process quality
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Improved customer retention
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Better relationships with suppliers and partners
Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Offerings
RDX provides a complete set of customizable services for Microsoft's SSIS/SSAS/SSRS and Power BI products. From architecture design to report/dashboard creation and mature system monitoring and administration, RDX is able to provide 100% of the support services required to help you transform raw data into actionable insight.
Power BI
Microsoft describes Power BI as an end-to-end solution for building and presenting analytics to end users. Power BI provides a set of tools that covers the entire analytics life-cycle – from connecting to dozens of different data sources, performing data preparation, building robust visualizations and facilitating both traditional and ADHOC analysis from desktops and mobile devices.
SSIS, SSAS and SSRS
The SQL Server database is the foundation of Microsoft’s SSIS, SSRS and SSAS BI product set. The database provides a data integration platform (SSIS) that facilitates the integration of disparate data stores and the cleansing of transferred data. Integrated data analytics features (SSAS) allow the accumulated data to be transformed from its raw state into useful information. The database provides processes (SSRS) that allow the information to be easily accessed and visualized by desktops and mobile devices.
Monitoring The Business Intelligence Infrastructure
In order to ensure continuous 24 x 7 availability for all Business Intelligence components, RDX has customized its monitoring product to support the Microsoft BI platform. Our wide offering of monitoring agents allows RDX’s Database Operations Center (DOC) to monitor every component of the Business Intelligence architecture, including databases, middle tier servers and other hardware devices. The RDX DOC technicians start at a high-level screen that shows the status of key systems and devices, with indicators that highlight database availability, performance, disk/CPU/memory utilization, response time and more. Historical information is transferred to a database repository for historical reporting and trend analysis.
Business Intelligence Support Capabilities
One of the primary goals for RDX is to assist its customers in leveraging technologies to achieve core business objectives. As a result, RDX has created a robust Business Intelligence support offering that includes the following services:
Power BI Services:
- Strategic Planning
- BI Assessments/Roadmaps
- Planning and Design
- Proof of Concept
- Power BI Service Configuration
- Power BI Gateway Installation
- Power BI Dashboard Design
- Data Source Design
- Cube Design
- MDX Development
- SSIS ETL Integration
- SSAS/SSRS Interfaces
- Azure Analytical Services
- Power Pivot/View/Map/Query
- Data Access & Transformation
- Data Modeling/Administration
- Internal Content Pack Creation
- SAS Content Pack Config
- Power BI Report Creation
- Mobile Optimized Reports
- Report Publishing/Refreshing
- Complex DAX Formulas/Queries
- DAX Performance Optimization
- Power BI Alerts
- Security Administration
SSIS, SSAS, SSRS Services:
- Strategic Planning
- BI Assessments/Roadmaps
- Planning and Design
- Proof of Concept
- BI Architecture Design
- Existing Architecture Evaluation
- Requirements Gathering
- Data Warehouse/Data Marts
- Data Modeling (OLTP/OLAP)
- Kimball/Inmon Methodology
- Data Modeling/Administration
- ETL Design and Administration
- MDX and OLAP Cube Design
- BI Stack Installation
- Feature Installation
- New Project Development
- TSQL, MDX, DAX Coding
- SSIS Package Creation
- SSAS Object Design
- SSRS Report Creation/Tuning
- 24/7 BI Environment Support
- Monitoring/Problem Resolution
- Restores/Refreshes
- Change Management
- Security Administration
Basic Administration Skills:
- 7x24x365 Support of SQL Server BI Stack Environments (SSRS, SSIS, SSAS)
- Backups of SQL Server BI Environments (SSRS, SSIS, SSAS)
- Monitoring Strategies for Business Intelligence Environments
- Emergency Recoveries of Data Warehouses, Data Marts, and SQL Server Business Intelligence Environments
- Ensuring Recoverability of Data Warehouses, Data Marts and SQL Server Business Intelligence Environments
- SQL Server BI Stack Installation, Configuration, Migration,Upgrades and Patches
- Restores and Refreshes
- Object Creation and Management
- Change Management
- Security Administration and Maintenance of SQL Server
- Business Intelligence Environments
- Effective and Efficient Critical Response
- Regulatory Compliance Support
- Health Checks/Assessments of Data Warehouses, Data Marts,SQL Server Business Intelligence Environments
High Availability Skills:
- Scale Out Deployments
- Report Server Database Mirroring
- Multi-Instance SSIS Configuration
- AlwaysOn Availability Groups
- Design and Support Report Server Encryption Key, SSAS, SSIS and SSRS Configuration Backup Plans
Security:
- Report Server User-Driven Filtering
- Analysis Server Hierarchy and Dimension Security
- SSIS Package level Encryption
- Database User, OLAP Roles, SSIS Proxy, Report Server and Security Administration
- SSRS Encryption Key Management
Development Support:
- T-SQL, MDX, DAX Development and Tuning
- ETL Strategy, Development, Optimization, Troubleshooting, Maintenance
- Creation and Optimization of SSRS Reports
- Creation and Optimization of SSIS Packages
- Creation and Optimization of SSAS Cubes
- Formal or Informal Code Reviews
- Creation and Tuning of SSRS Reports
- Creation and Tuning of SSIS Packages
- Creation and Tuning of SSAS Cubes
Strategic Skills:
- Data Warehouse and Data Mart Analysis, Design and Implementation (Complete Project Support)
- Data Modeling (Kimball, Inmon, OLTP, OLAP, Data Marts/Warehouses)
- Dashboard Design and Implementation
- Requirements Gathering, Documentation, Milestone and Process Management
- Partitioning Strategies Including Sliding Windows Partitioning
- Create SSAS Cube Measure Group Partitioning
- Align Table and/or Sliding Window Partitioning with SSAS
- Cube Measure Group Partitioning
- Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Architecture Consultation
- Data Modeling for Forward or Reverse Engineering
- Archival Strategies Including Implementation and Maintenance
- SharePoint (SSRS Related)
- Hardware Architecture for Data Warehouse Environments
- Strategies for Heterogeneous Data Warehouse ETL Environments
- Strategies for Automation Including Refresh Jobs Removing Sensitive Information
- Design and Implement Analysis Services Multi-Dimensional Cubes and Tabular Models
- Data Cleansing
- OLTP and OLAP Server Consolidation Recommendations
- Power BI
