By: Jeremy Kadlec | Comments (1) | Related: > Analysis Services Administration
Problem
One of the fastest growing segments in the SQL Server market is the Business Intelligence area. With vast amounts of data, managing the data and gaining insight has become more of a challenge. Luckily, many organizations are focusing on products to improve the insight into the data for IT professionals and users alike. This give us more time to focus on our needs and data, rather than having to build sophisticated custom products as a portion of the requirements. As such, in this tip we will outline the vendors providing Business Intelligence tools in the SQL Server market.
Solution
The vendors below offer BI tools to support SQL Server 2000 or 2005. The tools have been categorized based on the assistance for either data warehousing, reporting or extraction, transformation and loading. Then the tool has been further refined to indicate if the intended tool is for the user or IT community.
| ID | Offering | Data Warehousing | Reporting | Extract, Transform and Load |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 90 Degrees Software | IT Focus | ||
| 2 | Applix | User Focus | ||
| 3 | Bulk Copy (BCP) | IT Focus | ||
| 4 | Business Objects | User and IT Focus | IT Focus | |
| 5 | Cognos | User and IT Focus | User and IT Focus | IT Focus |
| 6 | Dundas | User and IT Focus | User and IT Focus | |
| 7 | Data Transformation Services (DTS) | IT Focus | ||
| 8 | Hyperion Performance Suite | User and IT Focus | ||
| 9 | Informatica | IT Focus | ||
| 10 | Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services | IT Focus | ||
| 11 | Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services | IT Focus | ||
| 12 | Microsoft Office | User Focus | User Focus | |
| 13 | Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services | User and IT Focus | ||
| 14 | Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server | User and IT Focus | ||
| 15 | Microstrategy | User and IT Focus | ||
| 16 | MISAG | User and IT Focus | User and IT Focus | |
| 17 | Panorama | User and IT Focus | User and IT Focus | |
| 18 | ProClarity | User and IT Focus | ||
| 19 | SoftArtisans | User Focus | ||
| 20 | WhereScape | IT Focus | ||
| 20 | SwiftKnowledge | IT Focus | User Focus | IT Focus |
| 21 | QlikView | User and IT Focus | ||
| 22 | Birst | User and IT Focus | ||
| 23 | Spotfire | User and IT Focus |
If you are aware of additional Business Intelligence products in the market, please send an email to [email protected] to include the product on this web page.
Next Steps
- As you begin to learn about Business Intelligence for SQL Server, consider the tools listed in this tip as options to address your needs.
- Most of these vendors have trial versions of their software that can be downloaded from their web site. So check them out to see if they meet your needs and offer you savings as you build your products.
- Be sure to have a firm understanding of the BI needs to ensure the tools/technologies/products will best meet the needs.
- Once you have a set of tools that you believe will meet the BI needs be sure to get the tool in the user's (IT or business) hands to receive validation from them that the tool will meet their needs from a people, process and technology perspective.
About the author
Jeremy Kadlec is a Co-Founder, Editor and Author at MSSQLTips.com with more than 300 contributions. He is also the CTO @ Edgewood Solutions and a six-time SQL Server MVP. Jeremy brings 20+ years of SQL Server DBA and Developer experience to the community after earning a bachelor's degree from SSU and master's from UMBC.This author pledges the content of this article is based on professional experience and not AI generated.
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