COURSEBIBOOTCAMP

Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence Bootcamp

5-Day (COURSE-BI-BOOTCAMP)

Description

Written and presented by industry experts from Solid Quality, this intensive five-day workshop gives professional developers the information and hands-on experience they need to deliver state-of-the-art, integrated reporting and reporting solutions using Microsoft Business Intelligence.

Delivering the right information in the right format at the right time to all users in the organization—that is Microsoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) strategy and vision for enterprise information management. Microsoft’s integrated BI tools enable developers to create effective solutions that information workers use every day to find meaningful patterns in the vast sea of data they collect and to use that insight to quickly respond to changing business conditions.

On completion of this workshop attendees will be able to position different types of Business Intelligence solutions, from enterprise data warehousing to data marts to real-time operational reporting and analytics. Attendees will learn how to design and build powerful integrated solutions that provide users with rich reporting, analysis and visualization capabilities by targeting operational data from an existing line-of-business application using the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform.

Attendees will work through an extensive set of detailed and practical hands-on labs that reinforce the material presented.

For details on booking courses or seminars, please visit our booking page.

Audience

The presentations and labs have been designed specifically to give professional developers—those who work for an ISV, SI, or enterprise customer—the information they need to deliver integrated solutions on the Microsoft BI platform.

This course is also relevant and useful for those interested to understand and evaluate Microsoft’s Business Intelligence offerings.

NOTE: This course is also very useful for those currently working with the SQL Server 2005 series of technologies. Differences between the releases are identified.

Prerequisites

Attendees should have a basic understanding of SQL Server and relational database technology. Some development experience with a .NET language is useful but not essential.

Course Objectives

Through interactive presentations and concrete hands-on labs, attendees will learn:

How to use Microsoft SQL Server 2008 to build and manage data marts which provide a consolidated view of organizational data.
How to use dimensional modeling techniques and Visio 2007 database modeling tools to create data models in SQL Server 2008 for hosting consolidated BI information.
How to build consolidated data marts using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services to extract, transform, and load business-critical information into SQL Server 2008 databases from disparate sources such as business applications and corporate databases.
How to use SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services to develop predefined and ad hoc relational reports that simplify access to business-critical information.
How to use SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services to create a Unified Dimensional Model that simplifies analytical access to business-critical information stored in SQL Server 2008, and how to publish and collaborate on findings using SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.
How to use SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services to create data mining models that explore, uncover and predict patterns in a BI solution

Technologies

The workshop will empower developers to exploit the BI functionality in the following technologies:

SQL Server 2008 Database Services
SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services (OLAP and Data Mining)
Office Visio 2007 Office Excel 2007

While based on SQL Server 2008 versions of SQL Server, this course is highly relevant for those working on SQL Server 2005 versions as well.

Course Outline

Day 1

Course Introduction

Module IS201 Overview of SQL Server Integration Services

Introduction to BI and dimensional modelling
Integration Services features overview
SQL Server 2008 BI tools
LAB: Creating SSIS Projects and Packages

Module IS202 - Working with SSIS Control Flow

Introducing and designing Control Flow
Control flow features and concepts
Containers
Tasks and precedence constraints
LAB: Working with SSIS Control Flow

Module IS203 - Working with SSIS Data Flow

Introducing and designing Data Flow
Working with data sources and destinations
Transforming data
Data viewers
Data paths
LAB: Working with SSIS Data Flow

Module IS301 - Optimizing the Data Flow

Source adapter properties and best practices
Optimizing data loads
Handling errors
LAB: Optimizing the Data Flow

Day 2

Module IS302 - Advanced Data Transformations

Profiling Data
Derived columns
Lookup transformations
Fuzzy transformations
Script Components
LAB: Advanced Data Flow Transformations

Module IS303 - Loading Dimension Tables

Introduction to Dimensional Modelling
Implementing slowly changing dimenions
SCD Wizard
Alternate SCD processing strategies
LAB: Loading Dimension Tables

Module IS304 - Loading Fact Tables

Fact table concepts
Measures
Fact table grain
Dimension key lookups
Implementing inferred members
LAB: Loading Fact Tables

Module IS305 - SSIS Configuration, Logging, Deployment and Execution

Package configurations
Logging options
Deployment manifests
Deployment utility
Scheduling SSIS package execution
LAB: SSIS Configuration, Logging Deployment and Execution

Day 3

Module AS201: Introduction to SQL Server Analysis Services

Introduction to OLAP
Building Analysis Services cubes
LAB: Creating a cube

Module AS202: Designing Dimensions

Enhancing cube dimensions
Implementing dimension hierarchies
LAB: Enhancing cube dimensions

Module AS203: Calculations, KPIs, Actions and Processing

Basic MDX Concepts
Calculations
Key Performance Indicators
Actions
LAB: Calculations, KPIs and Actions
Cube processing concepts
Incremental fact and dimension processing
LAB: Cube processing
Deploying Cubes
LAB: Cube deployment

Module DM201: Introduction to Analysis Services Data Mining

Introduction to Data Mining
Business applications of data mining
Data mining algorithm comparison
LAB: Implementing Data Mining

Day 4

Module RS201: Introducing Reporting Services

Introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services
Designing reports
LAB: Designing Reports

Module RS202: Implementing Interactivity in Reports

Interactivity concepts
Available interactivity options for rendering targets
URLs
Linking to reports
Bookmarks
LAB: Adding Interactivity to Reports

Module RS301: Enhancing Reports Through .NET Code

Report code blocks
Referencing .NET assemblies
LAB: Enhancing Reports Through .NET Code

Module RS302: Managing Reporting Services

Subscribing to reports
Data-driven subscriptions
Caching reports
Report snapshots
Report security
Linked reports
LAB: Managing Reporting Services

Day 5

Module RS303: Implementing Report Builder

Introduction to Report Builder
Creating report models
Authoring reports with Report Builder
LAB: Implementing Report Builder

Module RS304: Deploying and Linking to Reports

Deploying reports
Accessing reports via URLs
Using reportviewer in .NET applications
LAB: Deploying and Linking to Reports

Module RS203: Reporting from Analysis Services Cubes

Analysis Services query designer
LAB: Reporting from Analysis Services Cubes

Module RS204: Using Excel for Reporting

Office Data Connections
Connecting to Analysis Services
Pivot Tables
Pivot Charts
Accessing Cube members
LAB: Using Excel for Reporting

Module RS205: SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Enhancements

General Reporting Enhancements
Report Builder and Shared Components
Using Reports as Data Sources
Using Map Data in Reports