Practically every customer over my 20+ years working with SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) has told me "MDX is hard to learn". As cliche as this is to say, I think the source of difficulty is mostly that the MDX language is misunderstood. I believe that in large part, it's because SQL and MDX are … Continue reading The Ghost of MDX
Data Vault Methodology paired with Domain Driven Design
The Data Vault Methodology is a natural analytics counterpart to Domain Driven Design.
OLAP is Back as Kyvos Insights
In 2013 I wrote a blog titled, Is OLAP Terminally Ill? I used the term "Terminally Ill" because I didn't believe that the strategy of managing pre-aggregations was dead. Temporarily unnecessary, maybe, but not dead. To be clear, by "OLAP" (Online Analytical Processing), I meant in both contexts of the software named SQL Server Analysis … Continue reading OLAP is Back as Kyvos Insights
Protected: Planning a 1-Day Symposium in Boise on the Utilization of Graph-Centric Data Technologies in Business Intelligence
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Levels of Pain – Refining the “Bad” side of the KPI Status
Everything we do towards achieving goals involves costs - sacrifice, investment (a positive way to look at it). We purposefully put things we already have (time, money, our career) to be consumed or at risk in the hope of achieving a goal. For the sake of this short blog, I'll call that investment "pain". I present this blog … Continue reading Levels of Pain – Refining the “Bad” side of the KPI Status
The Magic of the Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts
Prelude If businesses were people, they would lumber about in a vaguely purposeful manner like zombies. That's due to the top-down, military-style hierarchies of modern corporations that result in integration of information only at the top and only to a limited extent below. Imagine Gepetto the CEO (external puppet master) of Pinocchio. Pinocchio is managed through strings from … Continue reading The Magic of the Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts
Micron’s Automata – A Rare Big Thing Out of Boise
Not many huge things come out of Boise and that is the very reason I live here. But something that should disrupt the semiconductor industry (the world in fact) is Micron's Automata. It's been occupying much of my thoughts since it was announced a few weeks ago. The Idaho Statesman's front-page headline today is Big Data, … Continue reading Micron’s Automata – A Rare Big Thing Out of Boise
The Effect Correlation Score for KPIs
This content discusses the importance of aligning enterprise efforts with goals through proper performance management and strategies. It introduces the concept of an "Effect Correlation Score" (ECS) to validate the validity of efforts and KPI statuses in a constantly changing, competitive world. The ECS measures the correlation between a cause and its intended effect and is a crucial aspect of Performance Management planning. It warns against blindly pursuing good KPI statuses without considering ongoing changes and correlations, and highlights the complex nature of cause-and-effect relationships within strategies. The post proposes the implementation of ECS in Performance Management to validate relationships and ensure their continued relevance.
Cluster Drift
A deficiency I notice in practically every implementation of clustering (segmentation) is the snapshot mentality. For example, a vendor of a product would segment their customers in an attempt to isolate the ones who would be most likely to buy their product. This captures a snapshot of the groups of similar customers right now, but it doesn't … Continue reading Cluster Drift
Is OLAP Terminally Ill?
Someone told me yesterday that "OLAP is dead". "Everyone is choosing tabular/in-memory." I know it's not dead, maybe at least sick. But did I underestimate the time of the tipping point, the curve in the hockey stick, where the vast majority of users will "sensibly choose" the tabular/in-memory option over OLAP? I realize some, including me, think this … Continue reading Is OLAP Terminally Ill?
Soft Coded Logic 