Item: Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Rating: 8
Author: Senthil Vallinayagam

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft BI is used intensely by Engineering department. The whole product is built around with Microsoft BI stack. The database is built using SQL Server 2008 R2 and cubes built using SSAS. Delivers the SaaS model of the company.

Pros and Cons

Some of the rolling metrics calculations are performed using SSAS cubes. Eg: YoY, YTD, etc
Slicing and Dicing of reports becomes increasingly simple with the SSAS cubes.
ETL operations are made nimble with SQL server 2008 R2

Some of the newer aggregation functions that are used in advanced analytics are missing. Eg: lastNonEmpty ()
SSAS (from the BI Stack) adapters to interact with MPP are not entirely nimble

Alternatives Considered

Not reviewed any other product yet.

Likelihood to Renew

Renewal is unlikely due to the rise in licensing premium.

Return on Investment

Overall business went up with the analytics offered by MS BI but the licensing costs are a substantial number.

Likelihood to Recommend

Small scale cubes (SSAS) where the size is in the order of few 100 Gigs are suitable for MS SSAS. For higher volume, the aggregation and processing is a lot longer.

"MS BI" = $$$

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft BI