News & Views

November 2009 from Newcomp Solutions – “Business intelligence (BI) is a tech-based tool that allows decision makers process information to gain insights that drive enterprise performance. However, the path from information to knowledge is not always linear. Typically, a series of steps, including collection, organization, evaluation, and transformation precede the data analysis and reporting that provide insight.

Issues relating to data access – the so-called ETL components – have significant implications for practically every phase of a BI project. ETL stands for extraction, transformation, and loading of data. The implementation of ETL depends on factors such the type of data, number of data sources, data volume, and the preferred mode of data transportation. This article highlights ETL in the context of a BI project…”

180 View – Newcomp makes good points about BI that are often overlooked when considering a BI solution. For example, “The data extraction method may be full or incremental. The full extraction method means that all currently available data are pulled completely from the source systems… The incremental method involves the extraction of only the portion of data that has changed since a marked historical period of event.” We have seen users avoid using BI when they only have the full method as it takes too long to process.