MSBI - Bang for the Buck
April 26, 2021
MSBI - Bang for the Buck
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft BI (MSBI)
The Microsoft BI stack is being used as the enterprise BI software by our organization. The full stack of BI tools (SSAS, SSRS, and SSIS) are being leveraged to provide reporting and analytics to the business. It allows us to provide standard reporting, delivered ad-hoc or via e-mail, exception based notifications, and analytics. Additionally we leverage SSIS for data warehouse ETL as well as EDI.
- Single vendor provides a true end-to-end solution from data storage to end-user consumables.
- Visual Studio provides a single IDE for database, ETL, reporting, and analytics development.
- Rich feature set across the tools with 15-20 years of maturity.
- Reunification of installers to simplify the process for both server installs and developer (SSRS now split out, BI tools not all within one package).
- Ongoing Visual Studio instability.
- Better server to server deployment options for SSRS.
- As it came "in the box" with necessary SQL Server RDBMS purchases, the ROI for the BI components are high as there was no incremental cost.
- Has provided standard reporting for most of the organization available via highly formatted PDF or Excel versions.
- Has provided ad-hoc analytics using SSAS in conjunction with Excel.
Each of the solutions has their pros and cons, but Microsoft's BI offerings provide the best "bang for the buck." Few solutions available offer the breadth of feature functionality in a single package, with BI and database generally being sold as separate offerings. However, even if using only the BI tools (say as an existing Oracle customer), the value proposition still holds up. As subscription licensing has evolved, Microsoft has remained at least competitive, and generally a far better cost option than competitors. Ignoring price, the overall feature set is on par with virtually any other BI suite on the market. Of course, there are some aspects of other tools that I with MS would incorporate (such as a true semantic layer such as Cognos Framework Manager), but when taken as a whole across feature set, price, support, community, etc. it is the best overall value.
Do you think Microsoft BI (MSBI) delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Microsoft BI (MSBI)'s feature set?
Yes
Did Microsoft BI (MSBI) live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Microsoft BI (MSBI) go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Microsoft BI (MSBI) again?
Yes