The Microsoft® Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL Server™ 2005 and the Microsoft® Business Intelligence Toolset

8.3. Delivery Platform Options

There are plenty of options for creating BI applications, but every viable option has to support a basic set of functions. At a minimum, the tool must provide the ability to:

• Define the contents, layout, and formatting of a report

• Provide user interaction controls for navigation, parameter setting, and drill down

• Define the execution options for a report—scheduled, interactive

• Define the distribution options for a report—web, email, file directory, and so on

• Participate in existing security systems, and potentially augment them at the user/report level

• Keep extensive metadata about each report

• Keep logs of report access and execution

There are several delivery platform options available from Microsoft, including Microsoft Excel and Access. In particular, SQL Server Reporting Services has been designed specifically to address the BI applications area. Most of our discussions here focus on Reporting Services. A typical DW/BI system chooses a platform to create the officially sanctioned standard reports, and that same platform often supports a range of other options for creating and accessing the BI applications set. Tools for organizing and navigating the report set, like Windows SharePoint Services, or at least a basic web design tool like FrontPage, are a critical piece of the puzzle. Other add-ins or components like PivotTables in Excel or the .NET grid control might also play a significant role in the application environment. As we discuss in Chapter ...