1. Evolved BI
with SQL Server 2012
(formerly known as “Denali”)
Andrew J. Brust, Founder/CEO Fairfield / Westchester
Blue Badge Insights SQL Server User Group

2. Who Am I?
• Founder, CEO, Blue Badge Insights
• Microsoft Regional Director, MVP
• Organizing team, Code Camp NYC
• Co-chair Visual Studio Live!
Co-moderator, NYC .NET Developers Group
– http://www.nycdotnetdev.com
• Founder, MS BI User Group NYC
– http://www.msbinyc.com
• brustblog.com, Twitter: @andrewbrust
• Redmond Roundup Plus dispatch? Just text the word
“bluebadge” to 22828

3. Column and Blog

4. Book

5. Agenda
• SQL Server BI – High Level
• PowerPivot and Excel Services
• Analysis Services Tabular Mode
• PowerView (formerly “Crescent”)
• Overview: Master Data Services
and Data Quality Services

6. SQL SERVER BI OVERVIEW

7. Microsoft Business Intelligence
Business User Experience Familiar User Experience
Self-Service access & insight
Data exploration & analysis
Business Collaboration
Predictive analysis
Platform
Data visualization
Dashboards & Scorecards
Business Collaboration Platform Contextual visualization
Excel Services
Databased forms &
Web Infrastructure
workflow
and BI Platform
Collaboration
Analysis Services
Search
Reporting Services
Information Platform
Content Management
Integration Services
LOB data integration
Master Data Services
Data Mining
Data Warehousing

8. SQL Server 2008 BI Components

9. But Wait, There’s More!
• R2: PowerPivot
• R2: Report Parts in SSRS
• 2012: Analysis Services Tabular mode
– And corresponding improvements in PowerPivot
• 2012: PowerView
• 2012: Data Quality Services

10. POWERPIVOT AND EXCEL
SERVICES

11. Self-Service BI with PowerPivot
• Excel + Analysis Services + SharePoint
• Enables the working in Excel but mitigates the
“spreadmart” pitfalls:
– Use Analysis Services (AS) as a hidden engine
• Instead of no engine
– Share via SharePoint, accessible by all AS clients
• Instead of “deploying” via email
– Formal data refresh on server
• So data doesn’t get stale, and users don’t have to make effort at
updating
– Allow IT to monitor
• So it’s not all rogue
– Provide path to more rigorous implementations
• Can be upsized to Analysis Services

12. Column-Oriented Stores
• Imagine, instead of:
Employee ID Age Income
1 43 90000
2 38 100000
3 35 100000
• You have:
Employee ID 1 2 3
Age 43 38 35
Income 90000 100000 100000
• Perf: values you wish to aggregate are adjacent
• Efficiency: great compression from identical or nearly-
identical values in proximity
• Fast aggregation and high compression means huge
volumes of data can be stored and processed, in RAM

13. Data Import
• Relational databases
– SQL Server (including SQL Azure!), Access
– Oracle, DB2, Sybase, Informix
– Teradata
– “Others” (OLE DB, including OLE DB provider for
ODBC)
• OData feeds, incl. R2/2012 Reporting
Services, Azure DataMarket, ADO.NET Data
Services (Astoria)
• Excel via clipboard, linked tables
• Filter, preview, friendly names for tables/columns

14. Calculated Columns and DAX
• Formula-based columns may be created
• Formula syntax is called DAX (Data Analysis
eXpressions).
– Not to be confused with MDX or DMX. Or DACs.
• DAX expressions are similar to Excel formulas
– Work with tables and columns; similar to, but distinct
from, worksheets and their columns (and rows)
• =FUNC('table name'[column name])
• =FUNCX('table name', <filter expression>)
• FILTER(Resellers,[ProductLine] = "Mountain")
• RELATED(Products[EnglishProductName])
• DAX expressions can be heavily nested

15. Import data from
almost anywhere
PowerPivot Guidebook View data
in Excel
Sort one column
by another
Calculated
column
entry
Sort and filter
DAX formula bar
Relationship
indicator
Table tabs

16. What’s New?
Data and
Diagram views
KPIs
Measures
Measure
grid
Measure
formula

17. Perspectives
Default Aggregations Special Advanced Mode
Diagram View Reporting Properties
Hierarchies
Hide specific
columns and tables
Create relationships
visually
Measures
KPIs

18. PowerPivot Client

19. Excel Services
• A component of SharePoint Server 2007/2010;
requires Enterprise CAL
• Allows export of workbook, worksheet, or individual
items to SharePoint report library
– Works great for PivotTables and Charts!
– Also for sheets with CUBExxx formulas or conditional
formatting-driven “scorecards”
• Content can be viewed in browser
– Excel client not required
– Drilldown interactivity maintained
– Rendered in pure AJAX/HTML
– Parameterization supported

20. PowerPivot Server
• Publish to Excel Services
• Viewing and interacting
• Data Refresh
• Treating as SSAS cube
– URL to .xlsx as server name
•Db name is GUID-based; best to discover it
– Use Excel, Reporting Services as clients
• And now PowerView too…more later

21. The IT Dashboard
Increase IT efficiency:
Familiar Technologies
for
Authoring, Sharing, Sec
urity, and Compliance
Customizable IT
Dashboard
Visualize usage with
animated charts
Simplify management of SSBI content using
IT Operations Dashboard for SharePoint

22. PowerPivot Server

23. ANALYSIS SERVICES
TABULAR MODE

24. Vocabulary
• MOLAP: Multidimensional OLAP
• UDM: Unified Dimensional Model
• Cube: Unit of schema in a dimensional database
• VertiPaq: PowerPivot/SSAS’ column store
engine
• BISM: BI Semantic Model
• Tabular: A column store-based model
– Because it uses tables, not cubes

25. Analysis Services Tabular Mode
• SSAS Tabular Mode is the enterprise/server
implementation of PowerPivot
• You must have a dedicated tabular mode SSAS
instance
• BI Developer Studio (BIDS) does PowerPivot
– Implements equivalent tooling to PowerPivot Window
– Can create an SSAS Tabular database project by
importing an Excel workbook with PowerPivot model
• SSAS tabular models support partitions and roles

26. SSAS Tabular Project in BIDS
SSAS tabular project
menus and toolbar
Measure grid and
formula bar
Reporting properties
in Properties window

27. DirectQuery Mode
• In DQ
mode, model
defines
schema, but is not
used for data
• Queries issued
directly against
source
• Similar to ROLAP
storage for
conventional
cubes

28. SSAS Tabular Mode

29. POWERVIEW

30. What is PowerView?
• Ad hoc reporting. Really!
• Analysis, data Exploration
• Data Visualization
• In Silverlight, in the browser, in SharePoint
• Feels a little like Excel BI
• Is actually based on SSRS
– PowerView makes a special RDL file
– And wraps it in an RDLX

31. PowerView Data Sources
• PowerView works only against PowerPivot/SSAS
Tabular models
– DirectQuery mode supported, however
• For PowerPivot, click “Create Crescent Report”
button or option on workbook in SharePoint report
gallery
• For SSAS tabular model, create BISM data
source, then click its “Create Crescent Report”
button or option
– BISM data sources can point to PowerPivot workbooks
too, if you want.

32. PowerView! In the browser,
in Silverlight
Ribbon, like Excel
Variety of
visualizations
and data formats
Field list, like Excel
Data regions pane,
like Excel

33. Text and Viewing Text boxes edited as
if in Office
Maximize one chart, or
put whole report in
preview or full-screen

34. Constraining Your Data In
PowerView
• Tiles
– A filtering mechanism within a visualization
• Highlighting
– Selection in one visualization affects the others
• Slicers
– Similar to Excel against PowerPivot
• True Filters
– Checked drop-down list; very Excel-like
– Right Hand Filter Pane, similar to SSRS and Excel
Services

35. Scatter/Bubble Charts
• Allow for 3 measures by up to 4 dimensions
• One dimension is “playable” through a slider or
animation
• Excellent way to visualize trends over time

36. Small Multipliers
• Multiple charts within a chart, in
columns, rows, or a matrix
• Allows for visualizing an additional dimension
• Think of it like a clustered chart with each series
shown individually

37. PowerView

38. Advanced Properties
• Setting the representative column and image
tells PowerView how to summarize your
data, and show stored images
• Other properties tell it about key attribute, default
aggregation and more
• For SSAS tabular models, “Direct Query” mode
tells PowerView to get data from relational data
source instead of columnar cache

39. Apollo
• Implementation of VertiPaq columnar storage
engine for SQL Server relational databases
• Use it by creating a column store index
– CREATE COLUMNSTORE INDEX index ON
table (col1, Col2, …)
• Can ignore it too:
– OPTION (IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX)
• Significantly increases performance of star join
queries (i.e. aggregating queries with dimension
lookups).
• Not as good as SSAS, but better than plain old
GROUP BY

40. DATA ALERTS

41. What are Data Alerts
• Feature of SSRS (and not PowerView)
• Created by user, not report developer
– Actions -> New Data Alert
• SharePoint-based
• Scheduled (using SQL Agent)
• Based on value ranges or presence of data
– Report is run and rendered as OData, then parsed and
rules are evaluated. Email alert sent if rule conditions
are met.
• Administer via Alert Manager

42. Alerting Permissions
• Information Worker
– Create Alert (Design, Contribute)
– View Items (Read, View)
• Administrator
– Manage Alert (Full Control)
• Use the SharePoint groups named above (in
parentheses) for sites based on Team Site site
template.
– Groups for other templates vary
– Can create custom groups that include above
permissions

43. Data Alerts

44. OVERVIEW:
MASTER DATA SERVICES
AND DATA QUALITY SERVICES

45. Microsoft’s Master Data
Management (MDM) tool
• Examples:
– Sales states, countries, currencies, customer types
– Customers, products
– Think of “lookup tables” or just think of dimensions!
– Slowly changing non-transactional entities in your data
• What gets stored:
– Schemas
– Any hierarchies
– The data!
• Other features:
– Collections, business rules, security, workflows
– Versioning

46. Other Facts
• Result of acquisition of Stratature
• v1 was an ASP.NET application; UI is “different”
• New in v2:
• Now Silverlight-based; UI is still “different”
• Excel add-in for data entry; creation of entities and attributes
• Perform matching with DQS before loading
• Includes .NET and Web Services APIs for reading/writing data
and creating/editing models
• Does not integrate with Analysis Services tools even though
many of its features and concepts mirror those of dimension
designer
• Catalog kept in SQL Server database
• Deployment packages can be created, shared and deployed

47. Objects in MDS
• Models
– Entities (like tables or SSAS dimensions)
•Attributes (like columns/fields or SSAS attributes)
–Common attributes are Name and Code
•Attribute Groups
–Used to taxonomize attributes within tabs in UI
•Members (like rows/records or SSAS members)
•Hierarchies (like SSAS hierarchies)
–Derived or Explicit
•Collections (like SSAS named sets)
– Versions
– Business rules
– Workflows

48. Data Quality Services
• Data Cleansing Tool
• New to 2012
• Result of Zoomix Acquisition
• Uses Artificial Intelligence algorithms detect
invalid data and perform matching (for de-
duplication)
• Allows manual intervention, too
• Can integrate with MDS and SSIS
• Cleaner data = better adoption of your BI project

49. DQS Concepts
• Knowledge Bases
– Domains
• “semantic representation[s] of a type of data in a data
field…[contain] a list of trusted values, invalid values, and
erroneous data.”
– Mapping
• Data Quality Projects
– Cleansing (i.e. correcting)
• Validate Using Reference Data Services and Use Azure DataMarket
(or 3rd party providers)
– Matching (i.e. de-duping)
– Confidence
– Profiling, Monitoring

50. Questions?
• Now?
• Later?
– Andrew.Brust@BlueBadgeInsights.com
– @andrewbrust on Twitter
– www.brustblog.com
• Want to get the weekly Redmond Roundup Plus
dispatch? Just text the word “bluebadge” to
22828