Bridging the Chasm:  BI Theory vs. Practice

A Dynamic Dialog session: According to research compiled by Gartner from discussions with many BI clients, a substantial disparity exists, in the implementation of BI, between theory (standard approaches, promises, claims and expectations) and practice (shortfalls, compromises and other realities). In this session, Business Intelligence Architect and Microsoft MVP Bill Pearson leads a dialog within which we gain an understanding of the general types of discrepancies between the “ideal” approach to BI and the compromised reality that a large number of organizations experience. We’ll then share and class experiences as a group, and discuss ways to avoid these discrepancies in future projects.

Presenter: William E. Pearson III

Bill created Island Technologies^® Inc. in 1997, and has developed a large and diverse customer base since. Bill’s background as a CPA, Internal Auditor, Management Accountant and SQL Server MVP (BI) enable him to provide value to clients as a liaison between Accounting / Finance and Information Services. Bill has implemented enterprise business intelligence systems over the years for many Fortune 500 companies, and focuses his practice upon the integrated Microsoft business intelligence solution.  Bill is a member of the Boulder BI Brain Trust.

Date/Time:

6-10-2013 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.

Location:  

Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104

Scalable Analytics Without Intermediation (Can it exist? When?)

The cost of an insight is a function of the data volume, schema complexity and development cycles. The promise of the NoSQL movement was to reduce the barriers to the end users so that the analysis could occur in their hands across all the data. We will ask can a fast, robust and iterative analysis of Big Data exist? Can we generate and test insights? How much of BigData data discovery has been solved and how much more remains?

Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2013: Empowering users to change their world

Starting in May 2010, with SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft began talking more and more about “Personal BI”.  The focus of this discussion was a paradigm shift moving business intelligence from being something a few BI professionals do with a data warehouse to a practice done by Information Workers every day in familiar tools like Microsoft Excel and SharePoint.   Over the course of this session we will show you the improvements that Microsoft has made in the 2013 stack to take this new focus from being a “nice idea” to a truly powerful reality.  We will explore the improvements made to Excel, PowerPivot & Power View, & Reporting Services.  We will explain the underlying technology that makes the new features possible and walk through demos of some of the shinier toys.  At the end of the session you will walk away with a better understanding of what is new in 2013 for business intelligence and an extreme desire to build reusable data model that will undoubtedly bring real value to your business.

Presenter: Jason Himmelstein

Jason Himmelstein, MCTS, MCITP, is the SharePoint Practice Director for Sentri, Inc. and has been working with Microsoft Server technologies since 1998 when he was supporting Motorola in Austin, TX.​ He went to work for the University of Texas for 5 years where he developed expertise in Active Directory and Exchange. He left UT to go on the road doing work for Dell in a partnership with Microsoft doing architecture, design and implementation of Active Directory and Exchange. He started working with SharePoint in 2007 as an Enterprise Architect for Raytheon Company. Today he leads a team of dynamic SharePoint Consultants for Sentri, a four-time Microsoft Partner of the Year.

Jason is the co-author of the upcoming O’Reilly book “Developing Business Intelligence Apps for SharePoint“.

Outside of this crazy working world he is a happily married father of 2 boys and a die-hard Texas Longhorns and San Antonio Spurs fan.

Date/Time:

4-8-2013 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.

Location:  

Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104

Differences between the SSAS Multidimensional (OLAP) model and the SSAS 2012 Tabular Model:

In SQL Server 2012, Microsoft introduced a new Tabular Model in SSAS for creating analytic databases. The question is – how does this model differ from the traditional MOLAP model, and is it better than MOLAP?

In this presentation, I’ll cover the new tabular model with some examples, where the model differs from traditional MOLAP, and I’ll also show instances where one model might be preferable over the other for specific applications.

Presenter: Kevin S. Goff

Kevin S. Goff (http://www.kevinsgoff.net) is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, SQL Server/Business Intelligence Practice Manager for SetFocus LLC, author of 2 books, regular columnist for CoDe Magazine on .NET, SQL Server, and Business Intelligence topics, and a frequent speaker at community events in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Contact URL: http://www.KevinSGoff.net

NoSQL: concepts, demos and market analysis

There’s a lot of brouhaha around NoSQL these days, and the subject of Big Data usually comes along for the ride. But to mainstream relational database administrators and developers, the NoSQL world is a bit of an enigma.  What does NoSQL really mean, and where is it actually useful?  Are people using it because they should, or because they want to?  And how does all this tie into the Big Data world anyway?

In this presentation, MSBIgDataNYC moderator and ZDNet Big Data blogger Andrew Brust will attempt to bring clarity to this whole subject.  Andrew will explain what NoSQL really means, describe the four major NoSQL database categories, demo various NoSQL databases including CouchDB and HBase, and will explain where NoSQL and Big Data intersect.  Andrew will also bring you up to date on who the major vendors are in the NoSQL space and which ones have emerged as leaders.

Andrew won’t try to convert you to the NoSQL camp.  Instead, he’ll explain what NoSQL’s about and help you decide if the technology has merit and utility in your own organization.

Presenter: Andrew Brust

Couchbase: a NoSQL database for Big Data

Hadoop is great for processing large quantities of data and resolving that information down into a smaller set of information that you can query. However, the processing time for that process can be huge. By integrating with Couchbase Server you can do live querying and reporting on information, while continuing to work with Hadoop for the large data set and heavy processing of the data set. Couchbase Server also uses a MapReduce querying system, which makes it easy for you to migrate and integrate your indexing and querying system to extract and manipulate the information effectively.

Presenter: John Zablocki

SQL Server 2012 Columnstore index – What it means for Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Applications

It might seem far-fetched that a company would upgrade to SQL Server 2012 “just” for a database index. But after you see the performance enhancements gained from the new columnstore index in SQL Server 2012, you’ll see why many are calling this one of the most important features in the history of SQL Server. In this presentation, I’ll talk about the physical aspects of columnstore index in SQL Server 2012, how to create it, and what environments (mainly data warehousing environments) and queries can make use of it. I’ll show performance benchmarks between columnstore indexes in SQL Server 2012, and compare them to index strategies prior to SQL Server 2012. I’ll also show how the new Batch execution mode can improve performance as well.  Finally, I’ll talk about the new xVelocity (formerly “Vertipaq”) engine in Analysis Services 2012, its relationship to the Columnstore index,  and the benefits.

Presenter: Kevin S. Goff

Kevin S. Goff (http://www.kevinsgoff.net) is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, SQL Server/Business Intelligence Practice Manager for SetFocus LLC, author of 2 books, regular columnist for CoDe Magazine on .NET, SQL Server, and Business Intelligence topics, and a frequent speaker at community events in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Contact URL: http://www.KevinSGoff.net

Date/Time:

11-12-2012 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.

Location:  

Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104

Same Problems, More Zeroes:  Why the Spreadsheet (and PowerPivot) Will Dominate Big Data Usage

The early hype and messaging usually portray Big Data as a Big Project:  the next frontier for elite Business Intelligence professionals, or perhaps the domain of software engineering teams.  But what if Big Data’s future is actually much more…  mundane?  Minus the capital letters, data has always been “big” – even 100 rows of data usually exceeds the human capacity for digesting into insight; we have always employed tools to turn “big” into something concise.  For the past several decades, spreadsheets have been the overwhelmingly dominant tool of choice.  Today, the power of even modest desktop hardware paired with dramatic developments in the Excel engine have spreadsheets poised to extend their ubiquity into the Big Data era.

This session will cover the forces behind these developments – both technical and social – and will include demos and best practices.

Presenter: Rob Collie

Rob spent 13 years at Microsoft in Redmond WA before moving back east in 2010.  Over those 13 years, he worked primarily on Excel, leading the design and implementation of many features in Excel 2003 and 2007.  In his final role at MS, Rob joined the PowerPivot team and led development on much of the PowerPivot v1 platform, particularly aspects aimed at the Excel audience. Today, Rob is CTO at Pivotstream, the world’s leading adopter of PowerPivot. He also runs two websites (PowerPivotPro.com & PowerPivotFAQ.com), consults/trains others on PowerPivot adoption, and is the author of a new book:  “DAX Formulas for PowerPivot: The Excel Pro’s Guide to Mastering DAX.”

Date/Time:

10-8-2012 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.

Location:  

Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104

SharePoint 2013 Business Intelligence: An Overview of What’s New

This session will give you an overview of the current slate of tools and offer a glimpse into the upcoming release’s new features that will be available in SharePoint 2013.  We’ll look at what’s new in Excel Services, PowerPivot, Power View, Performance Point, Visio Services, and compare these components to their SharePoint 2010 counterparts.  Come see how the upcoming versions of SharePoint and Office together enable end users to create their own BI, and to share their expertise with the rest of the enterprise.

Presenters: Paul Galvin and Dave Drinkwine

Paul Galvin has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a number of roles including software development, consulting and most recently SharePoint solutions design. Paul works with clients to create top-notch business solutions using the SharePoint platform. He contributes to the SharePoint community through MSDN forums, blogging and online newsletters and magazines. Microsoft first awarded Paul with MVP for SharePoint in 2008.  Paul works at Slalom Consulting in New York leading the SharePoint practice.

David Drinkwine (MCTS) is solutions architect for Slalom, LLC. based in the New York City area. He has more than 18 years of development, design, and analysis experience. He has extensive experience with the design and implementation of SharePoint solutions, particularly those providing business intelligence and ECM functionality. His solutions are currently in use at more than twenty national and global enterprises spanning a variety of verticals.  David is a frequent speaker and has published several works, including co-authoring Professional SharePoint 2007 Design (WROX, 2007).

Date/Time:

9-10-2012 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.

Location:  

Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104

Register Here

The presentation from August’s meeting can be viewed at the above link!