There are many new business intelligence and data warehouse software products on the market -- as well as new trends and implementation approaches to consider. So, SearchDataManagement.com asked expert, author and instructor Dr. Mark Whitehorn to take a close look at the top trends in business intelligence and data warehousing in 2007. Here is what he found:
The business intelligence (BI) and data warehouse software world is a dazzling display of new products, paradigms and press releases. Some are old snake oil in new bottles. Others are genuinely new and, of those, some are even useful. The problem is, as always, stepping back far enough to see the meaningful patterns, to identify those new technologies that will actually make a difference to your work in BI. I zoomed out as far as possible to identify the technology trends that are truly shaping BI.
In Part 1 of this series, I talked to BI and data warehouse vendors about the changes occurring in the market and in their products. I also looked at a case study on the Hudson's Bay Company, which recently rolled out an updated BI system:
- Find out what "third generation" business intelligence means
- Learn more about data warehouse appliances
- See how third generation BI helped the Hudson's Bay Company
In Part 2 of this series, I examined the technical challenges of third-generation BI and data warehousing, discussing such issues as combining analytical and transactional queries:
- Learn how new technology handles analytical and transaction-like queries in the same system
- Find out more about how --and why-- the front end of BI is changing
- Read why data visualization is changing
About the author: Dr. Mark Whitehorn specializes in the areas of data analysis, data modeling, data warehousing and business intelligence (BI). Based in the U.K., he works as a consultant for a number of national and international companies, designing databases and BI systems. In addition to his consultancy practice, he is a well-recognized commentator on the computer world, publishing about 150,000 words a year, which appear in the form of articles, in publications such as PCW and Server Management Magazine, white papers and books.
He has written nine books on database and BI technology. The first one "Inside Relational Databases" (1997) is now in its third edition and has been translated into three other languages. The most recent is about MDX (a language for manipulating multi-dimensional data structures) and was co-written with the original architect of the language – Mosha Pasumansky. Mark has also worked as an associate with QA-IQ since 2000. He developed the company's database analysis and design course as well as its data warehousing course.
