A lesson in traditional data history… Once upon a time, we ran our businesses via mainframe computers. Essentially, these machines were a sort of massive server. Back then, traditional data meant files, lots and lots of files, because the databases we take for granted today, did not exist. These files, often referred to as data…
In my 38 years of working with companies I have often heard this complaint: “Our planning process is a complete waste of time.” In fact, this opinion is so common I can only conclude that for many companies planning value has somehow gone off the rails and lost its whole purpose. So how do you…
By François Ross Business intelligence (or whatever we call it now) is a critical component in consuming information for decision-making. There is no doubt that the technology landscape, deployment strategy, and tool selection have become far more complicated in the last couple of years. The "one size fits all" and platform normalization have become challenging…
Introduction An effective OLAP solution solves problems for both business users and IT departments. For business users, it enables fast and intuitive access to centralized data and related calculations for the purposes of analysis and reporting. For IT, an OLAP solution enhances a data warehouse or other relational database with aggregate data and business calculations. In addition, by enabling…
Introduction On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) uses a multidimensional approach to organize and analyze business data. By storing data in highly optimized structures, businesses can very quickly explore the data and uncover important insights that would otherwise remain hidden. As a result, OLAP enables companies to achieve key organizational goals, including wide-ranging business intelligence and analytics. OLAP & Business Intelligence To explain…