Data Management: Infrastructure & BI Tools

Having the right infrastructure is vital to a good data solution. But boy does that come with a lot of decisions. Let’s look at a few options you will run across and provide you with the pros and cons for each. Before you start making this decision you will need to nail down some key information:

• Can the infrastructure handle the data load?
• What number and size of reports being run?
• Number of users accessing the system?

If you can’t access the data, well then you just have a lot of data with zero useful output. One of the first decisions to make, when thinking of setting up your data warehouse, which has a high impact on accessibility, is if the data warehouse is hosted on-premise or in the cloud. Both have their benefits and negatives so it’s important to find what works best for your company.

On-Premises Data Warehouses

Cloud Data Warehouses

Software – Analytics

There are a number of Business Insight (BI) tools available to help in analyzing data. The features of your BI solution will depend on the type of information you want to display. The features to consider are:

Dashboards/Visualizations/Reporting

• Available visualizations
• Ability to drill-down
• Ability to export dashboards/reports

OLAP tools and Predictive Analytics

Features like Data Mining and Predictive Analytics could be valuable to a company. If the data will be used to help predict future outcomes, then predictive analytics should be considered. Data mining also allows a company to predict the future but also helps to find anomalies and patterns in large data sets.

Ad Hoc Reporting

Ability to create robust reports in house quickly and easily

BI Tool Cost and licensing

Beyond the cost of the hardware and actually building the dashboard, it’s important to consider the licensing costs as well. It is a good idea to first determine your BI needs. Licensing costs are different for authoring and viewing dashboards. Some BI platforms charge more for Read-Only Dashboard and Reports. Others charge more for Developer and Ad hoc access. Enhanced features like predictive analytics and embedded report authoring tools will have additional costs.

The advantages of having a data warehouse are many, however, it can seem like a daunting task to set it up and maintain on an ongoing basis. Making sure you have the right staff, infrastructure, training, and reports, there is certainly a lot to unpack there. Working with a team that has experience in the data analytics field can help to ease some of that pain and get you on your feet.

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