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MS BI Suite Review
October 24, 2013

MS BI Suite Review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

2008-2012

Modules Used

  • SSIS
  • SSRS
  • SSAS
  • SharePoint

Overall Satisfaction

  • SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) is by far the best OLAP tool on the market today. It helps businesses to aggregate data and analyze historical trends.
  • SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) has a relatively difficult deployment mechanism. More mature ETL systems like Informatica have a right-click and deploy packages feature. SSIS does not have that out-of-the-box unless you install some 3rd party tools. Also the whole Deployment Manifest thing is a real pain…
  • Microsoft BI tools come free with SQL Server license. If you have SQL Server license you get the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) tools for free.
It's very intuitive to use. SQL Server Reporting Services is very easy to learn even If you have never developed reports before. In my opinion it’s much simpler to use than, for example, Business Objects.
Microsoft made huge strides to help user community to adopt its BI Suite. Seven or so years ago, most people used SQL server only. With SQL 2005 release, the community adopted the whole BI suite. In my opinion licensing model, intuitiveness and ease of use, and integration with Visual Studio encouraged adoption of the BI tools.