What a year 2006 it has been. I have to say Business Intelligence on SQL server has definitely seen some big changes this year. After the release of SQL Server 2005, big things had to happen to top the release and what a year it has been.
Service Pack 1 Was not long in coming after the November release of SQL, helped a lot of companies to get of over the ‘not until SP1’ issue. The release was not without controversy. The removal of the ‘Select All Parameter’ caused some developers concern. Microsoft removed it due to performance issues. At the same time MS released the feature pack with a series of great free add-ons. Such as a SAP .Net OLE DB driver and data mining viewer controls. Check out:
Rather Ripped (Select All in Service Pack 1)
Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005
The acquisition of Proclarity has shown Microsoft continued commitment to build its BI platform. Seeing the direction and integration of Proclarity, Balance Scorecard Manager, etc into Performance Point is very exciting and will start to give some of the Analytical BI vendors a run for their money. Check Out:
Performance-Point-Screenshots
Performance Point Home
Office 2007 was shown off at TechEd and is very exciting from a BI point of view. The new excel features are going to continue Excels front-end dominance. Although the new Excel front-end may take some getting use to for some users the new BI features are well worth the upgrade. Check out:
Business Intelligence in Excel 2007
Service pack 2 CTP is going to continue to enhance the BI features of SQL 2005. Report builder will now support Oracle as a data source. The ‘Select All’ parameter is now back in en-vogue. Of course there will be the standard bug fixes. So best get to testing and seeing the new fixes/enhancements. Check out:
A list of the bugs that are fixed in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 Community Technology Preview (CTP)
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