Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 3/E Author: Brian Larson | Language: English | ISBN:
0071759387 | Format: PDF
Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 3/E Description
Implement a Robust BI Solution with Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Equip your organization for informed, timely decision making using the expert tips and best practices in this practical guide. Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2012, Third Edition explains how to effectively develop, customize, and distribute meaningful information to users enterprise-wide. Learn how to build data marts and create BI Semantic Models, work with the MDX and DAX languages, and share insights using Microsoft client tools. Data mining and forecasting are also covered in this comprehensive resource.
- Understand the goals and components of successful BI
- Design, deploy, and manage data marts and OLAP cubes
- Load and cleanse data with SQL Server Integration Services
- Manipulate and analyze data using MDX and DAX scripts and queries
- Work with SQL Server Analysis Services and the BI Semantic Model
- Author interactive reports using SQL Server Data Tools
- Create KPIs and digital dashboards
- Use data mining to identify patterns, correlations, and clusters
- Implement time-based analytics
- Embed BI reports in custom applications using ADOMD.NET
- Paperback: 832 pages
- Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 3 edition (March 16, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0071759387
- ISBN-13: 978-0071759380
- Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Get ready to learn, but be ready to work for it. This book is packed full of hands on exercises the author calls "Learn by Doing". Every topic covered is accompanied by a "Learn by Doing" section. If you take the time to go through these while reading the book you will absorb triple the information. It takes a lot of time, but is definitely worth it.
The author does provide a download of all the databases and projects created throughout the book, so if you do not have time to manually type everything in, you can download and configure them. I did the exercises of the things I had not done before, but used the downloads to explore solutions of concepts I already had a pretty good understanding of.
Although this book is packed full of hands on exercises, it is also packed full of accompanying information. The first part of the book provides a great overview and foundation of Business Intelligence.
The second part of the book is where the hands on exercises begin. You dig deep into creating and populating Data Marts using SSIS. The third part of the book digs deep into creating Cubes and Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) scripting.
Part four covers the Tabular BI Semantic Model and the Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) Language. Part five first gives a really nice introduction to data mining, including covering some of the common algorithms used in data mining. It then covers the Microsoft tools available for mining.
The last part of the book covers the client tools available for delivering business intelligence including Reporting Services, Excel PivotTable and PowerPivot, SharePoint PerformancePoint, and Power View.
I have listed the six parts and their chapters below.
Part I: Business Intelligence
Chapter 1.
I have to say first off, that this book is extremely helpful in learning not only SQL Server 2012, but Business Intelligence practices as well. The writing is concise, and precise - meaning that it is easy to absorb the tremendous amount of information here quickly. Acronyms are spelled out frequently - usually at the beginning of each chapter, which while a little repetitive, really helps cement them in memory. The book is nicely divided into explanation, or lecture I'd call it, and guided exercises. The two combined really help to completely cover the topics, and it's separated and organized well so that if you're experienced with a certain topic or feature, you can either just read about it, or just do the exercise.
The book is fairly introductory, but moves to advanced topics quickly. You don't need extensive RDBMS experience to dive in, you don't need any programming experience, but if you don't know what a Primary Key and Foreign key are, you may struggle at times...
The only reason I didn't give this five stars is twofold. One is that I purchased the Kindle edition, and the screenshots and figures usually appear about a full page's text after they are referenced. In this time, the topic has usually shifted to something else, another operation, and what might have been a helpful graphic turns into an interruption. Additionally, the images are of such overly compressed and poor quality, you can actually notice the compression in standard view, and text is illegible when the image is enlarged.
The second reason for four stars, and something that may cause many others to also skip over large sections is the extensive coverage of individual windows.
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