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IGG-05282003-04 B. Hostmann, K. Strange
Article 28 May 2003
CIO Update: Microsoft's Business Intelligence Strategy Is a Work in Progress
Microsoft’s SQL Server and related business intelligence (BI) products are rated “promising” by Gartner because they provide a cost-effective, integrated set of BI tools and technology on Windows. However, enterprises must recognize their limitations.
Microsoft’s SQL Server and related business intelligence (BI) products are rated “promising” by Gartner because they provide a cost-effective, integrated set of BI tools and technology on Windows. However, enterprises must recognize their limitations.
Microsoft’s BI Investments and Products
Microsoft has made significant investments in several BI products and technologies. The company has begun to present these products within a “solutions” marketing program. However, unlike its overall strategy for .NET, Microsoft has not articulated a single integrated BI strategy. BI products and technologies are offered by several of Microsoft’s product groups, primarily:
• Server Platforms, which includes SQL Server • Information Worker, which includes Office products
• Business Solutions, which includes bCentral and the acquired products from Great Plains and Navision
Product Strategy
The only apparent BI strategy within Microsoft seems to be that led by the SQL Server product team, which includes:
• Change the economics of BI to be more cost-effective
• Deliver an integrated and mission-critical-capable stack of Windows, SQL Server, BI tools and technology to drive SQL Server sales
• Make SQL Server and associated BI tools and technologies the platform of choice for partners
• Use Analysis Services to penetrate accounts with competitive relational database management system (RDBMS) products (for example, Oracle and DB2)
• Extend BI products and tools to support .NET initiatives
• Provide integration with Microsoft Office (to leverage its functionality, primarily Excel and market share) and SharePoint Portal Server
BI Products Bundled in SQL Server
• Data Transformation Services (DTS) — Extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) of data marts and data warehouses
• Analysis Services — Online analytical processing (OLAP) and data-mining functionality (acquired technology from Panorama Software Systems in 1996)
• Accelerator for BI — Automates some of the work of development for BI applications • Reporting Services — This is only an announcement so far
SQL Server’s RDBMS functionality and scalability is a practical fit for most average data marts. However, to date, SQL Server has not been able to successfully prove its capabilities in the medium to higher end of data warehouse implementations (see “Data Warehouse DBMS Magic Quadrant: Battle Intensifies,” M-19-2009). Investments to improve high-end scalability and the enterprise readiness of SQL Server in support of BI applications are ongoing and include the recent 64-bit release and the long-awaited “Yukon” release.
Microsoft Analysis Services has proven to be a capable, multidimensional modeling and analysis tool. It demonstrates its versatility by being used in conjunction with non-Microsoft databases such as Oracle and IBM’s DB2. The functionality, versatility and free bundling with SQL Server have led to the wide-scale adoption of Analysis Services in SQL Server, as well as non-SQL-Server-based implementations. A raft of third-party BI tools, including Cognos and Business Objects, also supports Analysis Services. Other BI vendors, such as ProClarity, only support Analysis Services.
DTS has not been a strong competitor in the overall ETL market, but many enterprises have found it to be a cost-effective utility for batch data movement/conversion and building a data mart or data warehouse based on SQL Server.
Additional BI Products From Microsoft Business Units
• Excel — Data query, analysis (including multidimensional PivotTables) and charting (including multidimensional PivotCharts)
• Access — Low-cost, single-user database
• Data Analyzer — Visualization/analysis capabilities with predefined queries and guided analysis; acquired from Maximal Innovative Technology in July 2001
• Business Solutions — Includes financial reporting from wholly owned subsidiary, FRx Software, as well as reporting tools it offers on an original equipment manufacturer basis from Crystal Decisions
The integration with Excel and Access makes it easy to extract data from SQL Server. However, this often creates “islands of analysis” throughout an organization, which often causes version skew and analytic consistency errors when used in collaborative decision making. It is important to note that this is not unique to Microsoft products. Many other BI tools can export to Excel and create these same sorts of disconnected islands of analysis.
Although each of these products integrates BI functionality, the integration is mostly opportunistic. There is not an overall BI strategy or architecture to guide the product plans to an integrated BI solution set.
The Yukon Release
The next major release for SQL Server is code-named Yukon and is scheduled to be released in 2Q04. The functionality in Yukon will include improved data partitioning, online index operations, and improvements in insert and load functionality. It will also deliver the unified storage architecture foundation for future products in the Enterprise Server family.
Other significant BI-related enhancements concurrent with the Yukon release will include:
• Improvements in DTS functionality and performance (new pipelining, new designer tools and control flow engine)
• Improvements in Analysis Services (better unified relational and OLAP data/metadata models and improved caching and data mining functionality)
• Inclusion of the announced Reporting Services product for development, management and delivery of reports
Although the Yukon release will provide many BI-specific improvements, with the exception of Reporting Services, it will be only steady progress and an incremental improvement, rather than a major leap forward. Overall, the Yukon release is at risk of being pulled in multiple directions — one direction for enterprise applications, one for data warehouse support and another for making it the primary repository for .NET server applications such as Exchange. These multiple directions can mean a trade-off in functionality, a lack of focus on requirements and extended release dates.
Partners
Microsoft has been successful in building partner momentum by actively publishing and promoting application programming interfaces (APIs) and specifications to the BI partner community. These include APIs, such as those found in the Microsoft Data Access Components (for example, OLE DB and Open Database Connectivity), and some of the newer XML-based specifications, such as XML for Analysis, which is based on OLE DB for OLAP. A new Reporting Services specification will also be published and serve as a precursor to a full server-based reporting product that Microsoft will offer. This history of enabling and linking to developers and partners using open APIs and specifications has been successful.
Microsoft’s Strengths • Financial resources
• International presence and support
• Analysis Services market share and adoption
• Lower purchase price for SQL Server bundle of BI tools and relative ease of implementation • Large developer community and availability of SQL Server professionals
• Support from a large number of third-party BI tools Microsoft’s Challenges
• Integrate the BI product plans across its multiple product lines and business units into a cohesive corporate BI strategy
• Balance the competition with partners as it grows its market presence (for example, Crystal Decisions)
• Develop the competencies to sell and support more-complex BI products.
• Develop the support and functionality required for large-scale, mission-critical BI applications • Balance the internal push for delivering .NET requirements with the external pull of more-competitive, enterprise-scale BI functionality
• Continue to grow and defend its business in enterprises that have Unix/Linux as the operating system of choice
When to Consider This Product
• A single vendor BI solution is needed for price/performance and ease of administration reasons
• Scalability requirements are within comfortable range provide by Windows; this is typically the set of requirements for small and midsize businesses — often the “sweet spot” for Microsoft • New BI application development requires significant integration with the .NET platform • Integration with a wide range of third-party BI tools is required
When to Consider Alternatives
• Unix/Linux is the operating system of choice • SQL Server is not the database of choice
• New BI application development requires significant integration with the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition
• Applications are approaching the high end of performance for ETL, DBMS and analytical calculations
Bottom Line
• Overall, Gartner rates the SQL Server BI products as “promising.”
• The products should be included on the shortlists of enterprises seeking cost-effective, integrated Windows tools and technology for ETL, database management and business intelligence. • However, enterprises should recognize their limitations.
• Enterprises should ask for references of similar size and type implementations to ensure that scale and performance requirements will be met.
• Enterprises developing strategic BI initiatives that require multiple products from multiple Microsoft business units should recognize that no integrated product strategy exists.
• Enterprises should validate specific product integration architectures, technology and plans with Microsoft on a case-by-case basis.
Written by Edward Younker, Research Products
Analytical source: Bill Hostmann and Kevin Strange, Gartner Research For related Inside Gartner articles, see:
• “Management Update: Gartner’s Updated Business Intelligence Magic Quadrants,” (IGG-02122003-01)
• “Management Update: Microsoft’s BI Opportunity Is Clear, But Not Its Vision,” (IGG-11132002-01)