Building Business Intelligence Applications with .NET

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BuildingBusiness Intelligence Applications with .NET

Today sbusiness users demand and expect data integrity and sophisticated analyticsfrom their invested computing platforms. With .NET establishing itselfthroughout large enterprises, the need to wire up .NET programming withbusiness intelligence applications is rapidly rising. In response to thisgrowing market demand, Charles River Media, a book publisher specializing inhighly targeted computing topics, has released author Robert Ericsson s firstbook, Building Business Intelligence Applications with .NET. However,although the title capitalizes on the .NET brand recognition wave, the book isreally a primer to the number-crunching world of data warehousing and appliedanalytics. In fact, a majority of the book is devoted to the discussion ofconstructing and using BI apps using Microsoft s BI technologies such asMicrosoft Analysis Services, SQL Server 2000 BI-related utilities, andADOMD.NET, which is still in beta form at the time of this review.

Thefirst three chapters of the book serve as a crash course for readers unfamiliarwith the five major business intelligence technologies: Data Warehousing, DataMining, OLAP, Reporting, and Analytical Applications. Although the content isadequate, readers unfamiliar with this world will need to read the first threechapters carefully because of the number of BI acronyms and terms new to theuninitiated. These chapters also prepare the reader s development system withthe necessary prerequisites to execute the 10+ projects available on theaccompanying CD-ROM. These Visual Studio.NET solutions are all written in C#;some require signed Runtime Callable Wrappers (RCWs) to be created for some ofthe COM-based technologies, such as SQL Server s Data Transformation Services(DTS). Orientation with Excel Pivot Tables and Multi-Dimensional Expressions(MDX) is also provided for those who are aware of their existence but havenever experimented with them.

Once thedata warehouse has been populated via the OLAP cube wizards from the sales.mdbAccess database supplied on the book s CD-ROM, Microsoft s Analysis Servicesclients are explored in Chapters 4 through 6. The examples provided use severalclient technologies, including OLEDB, ActiveX Data Objects Multi-dimensional(ADOMD), and XML for Analysis (XMLA). Reporting is covered in Chapter 7,leveraging Crystal Reports for VS.NET and ASP.NET to deliver datarepresentations via Windows Forms and Web services-based access. Chapter 8 onData Mining requires Microsoft s OLEDB for Data Mining extension to create adata-mining model for the book s examples to function. Once configured, themodel is trained and prediction queries can be executed. Additionally, theMicrosoft Analysis Manager Mining Model wizard and editor are used to build aclustering model and schema along with Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML)and XMLA to access the OLAP cubes.

The bookconcludes with a chapter on analytic applications with the construction of aMicrosoft SharePoint server Web part. Appendixes for MDX Functions, Properties,Operators, XMLA Rowsets, OLEDB for OLAP Schemas, and a compact StatisticsPrimer, as well as a Glossary and Index, nicely round out the book.Unfortunately, the publisher missed a great opportunity to shuttle trialeditions of Microsoft s tools onto the CD-ROM, effectively limiting thelearning audience to MSDN Universal subscribers and wealthy Fortune 1500corporations that have already purchased licenses to these tools.

The bookis really about Microsoft s Business Intelligence suite of tools, with .NETplaying a supporting role. Portions of this book may be overwhelming at timesfor developers being exposed to BI technologies for the first time, and itmight be beneficial to read an introductory book on the topic before tacklingthe exercises presented in this book. For those who are already comfortablewith BI applications and are acclimating to Microsoft s toolsets and the .NETFramework, this book is the only choice currently available.

Mike Riley

Rating:

Title: Building Business IntelligenceApplications with .NET

Author: Robert Ericsson

Publisher: Charles River Media

ISBN: 1-58450-271-1

BookWeb Site: http://www.charlesriver.com/titles/busintellapps.html

Price: US$49.95

PageCount: 404 pages