Business Intelligence 2.0

So you Inflatable Equaliser Game thought the begin and end of BI is the set up of a cut edg Data Warehouse? Well, think again. The BI landscap ha undergon a sea change. Try to articul it variou aspect and how it is evolv would fill sever books. In thi article, we will skim the surfac and talk about the variou wai in which BI is be perceiv and handl in the current IT landscape.

If Tradit BI = Data Warehous + Report Tools

Then

BI 2.0 = Past + Present Data/A nalyt + Futur Busi Analyt + Report Tools

I have us thi simpl equat by wai of demonstration: BI v2.0 is all about studi and analyz Past, Present and Futur trend us archiv and real-tim data feed and then turn thi data into knowledg for stronger decision-making.

It is real-tim or it is of no real use:

When it come to Tradit BI tools, the data retriev from them, in today' parlance, is consid outdated. Intellig is glean after the fact-aft signific time ha elaps between the actual activ and the time when it is analyz in either an individu or aggreg fashion. In thi Internet Age, even the laps of a dai could render that data obsolete.

BA M and CEP ar real-tim tools; data is analyz as the transact ar be executed. It is thi optim effect decision-mak in the moment that make BI 2.0 so attract to new ag businesses.

Us Case:

Let us now look at a common us case: the Shop Cart. Shop on the web is on of the most common onlin transact activ today, and it is increas year over year. For high traffic site like eBai and Amazon, busi cannot be made truli agil without the us of real-tim analytics. Tradit BI just will not suffice.

So let us consid the follow example:

Acme Mart is a medium-s discount store with brick and mortar store throughout the country.

It also sell merchandis through it high traffic websit acmediscountstore.com.

The transact volum both at the store and onlin is quit large-to the extent of sever million per day.

establish SOA infrastructur and it entir order manag process is service-enabled? It ha a mature..

A cm Mart also us BA M Busi Activiti Monitor to monitor services. Custom dashboard have been built to monitor sale of specif item categori and even item through sophist dashboards.

Contrast thi with a similar busi that us Tradit BI mechanisms. It is obviou that it will not be abl to match the level of agil of Acme Mart. By the time the sale data is analyzed, the opportun to respond proactiv ha passed. Acme Mart is clearli more capabl of reduc cost and increas revenu via it real-tim BA M-enabl BI solutions.

Whil CEP Complex Event Process is similar to BA M, it is more of a servic agnost technology. It is sort of a real-tim messag aggreg that can process messag from variou differ sourc includ web services. One exampl of thi can be appli to the current us case, along with order information, if relat stock price inform for the compani that produc those product ar also need in a separ dashboard then thi feed that would normal come from the like of a Bloomberg or Reuter can be combin with thi Order data and displayed.

BI Technolog Trends: The Past

W need not go into the detail of how BI function were be perform or ar still be approach us DW-driven technology. If Busi need insight into kei trend then thei would follow thi well beaten path:

- Setup a de-norm DW or Data Mart

- ETL inform from transact data store into DW

- Use report tool like Cogno to gener the requir MIS reports.

Therefore, thi wa the tri and trust method and wa consid busi as usual. Tradit BI is veri batch-ori in natur and not real-time. However, while real-tim mechan mai look veri compel in term of their valu proposit and ROI, it mai not be feasibl to implement these quickli as thei ar depend on a services-bas infrastructure.