Database

Self-Service Business Intelligence

IT departments and users have traditionally been at odds with each other over self-service analytics. IT departments seek to maintain IT governance and control; end-users want to generate and manage their own content and reporting. With managed self-service business intelligence in SQL Server 2008 R2, these two worlds meet, providing significant business advantage. SQL Server 2008 R2 provides both end-users and IT with cutting edge tools to create, analyze and model, share and manage business intelligence data in a secure and streamlined way.

Self-service analysis tools allow end-users to quickly create solutions from disparate data sources within a familiar Microsoft Office Excel user interface. By publishing these solutions in SharePoint Server, users can easily share them with others. IT gains management and oversight so they can help ensure the reliability, performance, and security of data-driven assets across the enterprise while also gaining better visibility into how people are using their data.

Improve Data Quality & Efficiency

Ensure reporting consistency across data and systems so you can deliver faster, more accurate results throughout the enterprise with tools that enable you to take a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data. The master data hub in SQL Server 2008 R2 gives organizations a consistent way to track versions of master data and answer questions about master data at specific points in time. Consistent master data improves the quality of data systems for the entire enterprise and helps maintain operational and business intelligence requirements.

Create, edit, and update master data efficiently through a central portal. The master data Stewardship Portal gives centralized control over master data, including members and hierarchies and enables data model administrators to ensure data quality by developing, reviewing, and managing data models and enforcing them consistently across domains.

Deliver BI Data Securely & Reliably

Extend effective IT governance to use-created analytical solutions through a centralized management console using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and the PowerPivot add-in for SharePoint Server 2010. In SQL Server 2008 R2, end-users can publish their data-driven solutions through SharePoint, enabling the IT department to effectively manage versioning, user access, and resource utilization. This enables the IT department to control who has access to sensitive data and to help ensure the consistent availability of corporate data. It also gives them better insight into what data and solutions people are using while helping to prevent the proliferation of unmanaged “shadow” applications.

Enable Self-Service Analysis and Easier Collaboration

Broaden the reach of business intelligence tools to a larger audience and foster ad-hoc analysis by empowering users to create their own analytic applications through the PowerPivot add in to Excel (formerly known as “Gemini”) and SQL Server 2008 R2. With PowerPivot, users are empowered to create solutions using data from both IT-managed and external sources, carry out rich ad-hoc analysis and modeling, extract value from data more easily, and publish and share reports for their colleagues to view.

Reduce the time and cost of reporting with intuitive end-user tools that make it easier for people to find, use, and share information. Report Builder 3.0 in SQL Server 2008 R2 makes it even easier for end-users to create reports faster, and fosters collaboration and consistency by making them easier to share.

Enable self-service analysis while maintaining IT guidelines and control by providing IT-supported platforms like SharePoint to publish their solutions while ensuring accessibility and IT governance.

Build Rich Applications with all Data

Produce new insights and richer experiences by integrating geospatial data alongside other corporate data sources and types. SQL Server 2008 R2 supports mapping, routing, custom shapes, and other spatial data and makes it easy to combine it with other data and Bing Maps for Enterprise, creating a new class of rich, data-driven solutions.

Simplify time-consuming data gathering and consolidation tasks with tools that make it easier to create “data mash ups” that combine data from different sources. Data mash ups provide new ways to combine existing data, whether from corporate databases or external sources, and analyze it using familiar tools in Office Excel.