Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing in SQL Server 2005

Microsoft^® SQL Server™ 2005 is a complete business intelligence (BI) platform that provides the features, tools, and functionality to build both classic and innovative kinds of analytical applications. This paper provides an introduction to the tools that you will use to build an analytical application, and highlights new functionality that makes it easier than ever to build and manage complex BI systems.

The following table presents an overview of the components of a business intelligence system, and the corresponding Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 components.

Component	SQL Server 2000	SQL Server 2005
Extract, transformation, and load	Data Transformation Services (DTS)	SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
Relational data warehouse	SQL Server 2000 relational database	SQL Server 2005 relational database
Multidimensional database	SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services	SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
Data mining	SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services	SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
Managed reporting	SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services	SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
Ad hoc reporting		SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
Ad hoc query and analysis	Microsoft Office products (Excel, Office Web Components, Data Analyzer, SharePoint Portal)	Microsoft Office products (Excel, Office Web Components, Data Analyzer, SharePoint Portal)
Database development tools	SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager, Analysis Manager, Query Analyzer, various other	SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence Development Studio (New!)
Database management tools	Enterprise Manager, Analysis Manager	SQL Server 2005 SQL Server Management Studio (New!)

Two components are new for SQL Server 2005: SQL Server Management Studio and SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio. The other primary BI components – Integration Services, Analysis Services OLAP, Analysis Services Data Mining, and Reporting Services – are substantially different and improved in SQL Server 2005. The SQL Server 2005 relational database contains several significant new features. Although the Microsoft Office query and portal tools are not part of SQL Server, the current releases will continue to work with SQL Server 2005. The BI functionality in Microsoft Office will evolve with the Office product release cycle.