Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (PRO-Developer) [Paperback]

Lynn Langit (Author), Kevin S. Goff (Author), Davide Mauri (Author), Sahil Malik (Author), John Welch (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Get the end-to-end instruction you need to design, develop, and deploy more effective data integration, reporting, and analysis solutions using SQL Server 2008—whether you’re new to business intelligence (BI) programming or a seasoned pro. With real-world examples and insights from an expert team, you’ll master the concepts, tools, and techniques for building solutions that deliver intelligence—and business value—exactly where users want it.

Discover how to:

• Manage the development life cycle and build a BI team
• Dig into SQL Server Analysis Services, Integration Services, and Reporting Services
• Navigate the Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS)
• Write queries that rank, sort, and drill down on sales data
• Develop extract, transform, and load (ETL) solutions
• Add a source code control system
• Help secure packages for deployment via encryption and credentials
• Use MDX and DMX Query Designers to build reports based on OLAP cubes and data mining models
• Create and implement custom objects using .NET code
• View reports in Microsoft Office Excel® and Office SharePoint® Serverook

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press; 1 edition (February 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735625808
• ISBN-13: 978-0735625808
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #208,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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  Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Development > SQL Server

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical Guidance for Developing A Successful, Real-World Business Intellegence Solution, October 21, 2009

By	Cal Zant - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (PRO-Developer) (Paperback)

I recently completed a business intelligence project at my company that included things like aggregating data from various sources into a centralized data warehouse, and then processing that so it could be accessed through both an OLAP cube and a relatively simple relationship database. I believe the project was a complete success, and am very happy with the both the functionality we provide to our end-users (who are regular business people, and not just analysts) as well as how easy to maintain and robust the end-solution is. I think that last part is what probably gets most companies. They develop some type of data warehouse for business intelligence, but it is a house of cards that just continually sucks their time because it is so fragile or always needs to be updated to allow a business analyst to slice or view the data in a new way. I can definitely see how you could end up there, and I believe this book was the primary contributor to the success of our project.

I work for a small business (currently ~65 employees), and right now our IT Team has three members: 1 system admin, 1 full-time developer, and me (my time is split half and half between software and business management). None of us had any experience with OLAP, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), or SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) ... although I had sat through a few sessions/workshops over these topics at conferences. Although it is counter-intuitive (especially to someone who is a developer at heart), I have come to believe in the notion that the sooner you start coding the longer it will take. So, I knew I needed to get some more in-depth expertise in these areas before we started the project, which is why I ordered this book.

Before I even created the first prototype, I forced myself to sit down away from the computer and read the first two parts of the book (~400 pages). It it was eerie how much the content seemed custom-tailored to my current situation. It was targeted at a more technical audience, so the detail and depth used was spot on, and it assumed you had some working knowledge of OLTP relational databases so it didn't have to go over all the basics.

The book covers a ton of best practices that the authors have learned "the hard way" while implementing a ton of business intelligence solutions on the SQL Server framework, and most of them were not entirely obvious. The whole business intelligence area is still in its early phases, and there are a lot of gotchas. SQL Server 2008 has made some significant improvements over past implementations to help guide you to best practices, but there are still a lot of gotchas. The authors also demostrate an in-depth knowlegde on the new features SQL Server 2008 offers, plus then explain when/how you might use them.

At 624 pages, this book may seem a little overwhelming ... but I think it is worth its weight in gold. It is almost like you have an experienced consultant sitting beside you. If you are considering implementing a business intelligence solution, there are tips in this book will save you time, effort, and you will end up with a better solution for your business in the end.

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview of the technologies, March 22, 2009

By	Aussie "Ben" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (PRO-Developer) (Paperback)

I think it is a decent book to get a start on SSAS, SSIS, and SSRS. Maybe not for the most experienced MS BI developers, but certainly for those with less experience.
In some areas it goes into a fair bit of detail, in others it doesn't. The authors push quite heavily on the Data Mining bits.
Overall I felt it is a bit too much 'marketing talk' in favour of Microsoft - could probably have shortened the book by 50 pages if they had left that out.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Explanations could be more lucid, March 22, 2010

By	Jaewoo Kim "OB-Wan" (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (PRO-Developer) (Paperback)

First, explaining many of the concepts related to Data Warehousing, data mining, and business intelligence would be one of the most difficult challenges to any technical writer. That's why many SQL BI books (dating back to SQL 2000) are so poorly written and lacks crystal clarity of many of the key concepts. Once I was done reading this book, I asked myself one question, "Am I a better BI architect because I have read this book?". From a technical knowledge perspective, yes. From a BI process (plan, design, implement, debug, verify, performance tune) perspective, I felt I did not gain much from this book.

This book would be a good manual if you do not understand some of the key concepts (Dimension vs Measure, Star schema vs Snowflake etc). If you want to actually implement a Snowflake schema, SSIS, and customize the results, the book was lacking. In other words, the book does not focus on the nuts and bolts of SQL 2008 BI. It gives you more of a 5000 ft overview.

It doesn't help that the book has a writing style similar to a college math textbook. You may need to read many paragraphs more than once to obtain the golden nuggets of information. In books such as this, you want writers to be blunt and forthright and not meander using sophisticated prose. The book certainly could be shorter than the 700+ pages.

The writers seem to possess strong technical knowledge of SQL 2008 BI. They have much to offer in terms of key knowledge and concepts. To put it into an analogy, this is like a book that describes how a car battery works but lacks information on how to properly change the car battery.