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

Chapter 15. Operations and Maintenance

Trust but verify

We've seen too many DW/BI teams postpone thinking about how to operate their new system until it's nearly in production. When deadlines are looming and users are clamoring for data and reports, it's too late to start designing your operating procedures. You'll be making stuff up as you go along, and Mistakes Will Be Made.

There are two major sets of issues to think about with respect to the ongoing operations of your system. The first set of issues revolves around communicating with, training, and supporting the users. Of course you'll be publishing reports to them about the business, but you also need to communicate with them about the DW/BI system itself. What kind of information or metadata will you share? How will you publish it?

We've already talked about training the user community, but how do you keep that training fresh? What plans do you have for training new users? Will you need to extend the training? In terms of support, how will you answer user questions, both simple questions like how to connect, and very complex analytic questions like how to categorize customers.

The second set of issues focuses on technical systems management. You need to think, long before you go into production, about a host of issues. Your decisions about these operational issues will affect your system configuration and design. These issues include how you're going to monitor resource usage and business usage, and how you're going to ...