Is SQL Server Ready for Prime Time?

Is SQL Server Ready for Prime Time?

On September 17, 1996, at the DCI Data Warehousing Conference inPhoenix, Arizona, Microsoft announced an alliance with eight other softwarecompanies to provide a strong, scaleable, interoperable, data-warehousingsolution for SQL Server and Windows NT. The alliance aims to provide users withthe ability to create a multivendor, modular, data-warehousing system thatconnects from one vendor's product to the next easily and uses the best of theNT products in each area.

I met with Jim Ewel, product manager of SQL Server for Microsoft; GarethTaube, vice president of marketing for Praxis; and Paul Albright, vice presidentof marketing for Informatica. They explained the blueprint for Microsoft'sActive Data Warehousing Framework and the building blocks that will provide itsstrength and stability.

Infinite Variety
Data warehousing can be difficult to implement. No one product provides allthe functionality a company needs in these days of heterogeneous networks,mainframe systems, and legacy databases. Although the process of datawarehousing isn't difficult to understand, no two implementations will beexactly alike. You must perform a myriad of functions based on your particularsetup. You need a metadata model and the ability to acquire, transform, cleanse,distribute, and replicate data. Additionally, you need the ability to use datain applications and to administer, query, analyze, and report it.

To implement a typical data warehouse, you have to choose various packagesthat perform the functions you need for the particular configuration of yoursystems. Then you must find ways for the packages to communicate. In addition,your systems administrator will have to manage multiple databases, datawarehouses, data marts, desktop analysis tools, and metadata repositories. Theprocess only sounds confusing because it is.

Microsoft seeks to simplify this process by providing a modulardata-warehousing solution with the Active Data Warehousing Framework and SQLServer. The framework will feature a component object model (COM)-basedarchitecture that lets you plug in modules from other vendors to perform thefunctions you need. The solution will include one metadata repository and oneset of administration tasks. The framework will enable alliance-compliantthird-party vendor packages to link and work together in a simple and efficientmanner.

For example, if your enterprise has DB2, Oracle, and SQL Server databasesand you don't want to eliminate any of them, you can keep them all in synch,enable individual data marts to subscribe only to the data they need, and makeimplementing and administering your data warehouse easier and faster at the sametime. Using the Active Data Warehousing Framework, products from PraxisInternational (heterogeneous data replication to keep your various databases insynch), Platinum Technology (individual data marts by subscription), Informatica(data transformation), and other alliance-compliant vendors will be able tointerface with each other and with SQL Server to provide these functions. Table1 lists the basic capabilities and expertise that the alliance members bring tothe framework.

Quiet, Please!
This limited and incomplete example doesn't begin to show the breadth anddepth of solutions this framework supports. You'll be able to implement yourdata warehousing solution in a heterogeneous environment with different legacydatabases without the expensive and complex programming effort currentlyrequired--and in a fraction of the time. If the Microsoft Alliance for DataWarehousing and its Active Data Warehousing Framework live up to theirpotential, the results should once and for all quiet those pundits who claimthat SQL Server isn't ready for enterprise prime time.

--Jane Morrill