Which Analysis and Reporting Tools Do You Need?

This chapter discusses the different Microsoft business intelligence tools that one can use to author, deploy, and maintain a business intelligence solution. It first focuses on those Microsoft tools that host data and provide end‐user consumption. These include SQL Server Database Engine, SQL Server Analysis Services, and SQL Server Reporting Services. The first step in a business intelligence solution is identifying the data sources. After that, one must build an Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL) system, which centralizes that data into a data warehouse. The data warehouse is typically housed on an RDBMS. The focus of the chapter then shifts to the tools one actually needs to develop the solution. Primarily four tools are used in the development process: SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), Performance Point Dashboard Designer, and Report Builder.