Data Mining. Microsoft is turning heads with its scalable server-based Data Mining toolset. In addition to the Decision Trees and Clustering algorithms that SQL Server 2000 includes, many new algorithms in SQL Server 2005—Naïve Bayes, Neural Networks, Sequence Clustering, Time Series, Association Rules, and Linear & Logistic Regression—make for a complete toolset for most data-mining tasks. Microsoft has added Text Mining tasks (Term Extraction and Term Lookup) to Integration Services for inclusion in data integration or dedicated packages. Data Mining is strongly integrated—with the ability to use relational or UDM data sources—and data-mining results can be used in cubes and reports. Also, aside from Text Mining, Data Mining is quite integrated with Integration Services, letting you add Data Mining to your solutions without a single line of code. All this server-side functionality is terrific but can be difficult to access and comprehend without good client tools, so Microsoft has developed a cadre of stellar Data Mining viewers that can be redistributed in applications that need them.
Operations. Microsoft transcends several pain points that once characterized enterprise deployments. High availability is provided with failover clustering support for Analysis Services, and new Server-Sync functionality lets a server push its current database to one or more other servers for availability and scale-out performance. Also, Microsoft provides new support for multiple Analysis Services instances on one physical computer. In Analysis Services, administrators now have functionality that's more commonplace in relational engine products: backup support for large databases, fine-grained administrative security, and a new scripting language with an XML-based syntax for administering and scripting instances of Analysis Services.
Reporting Services
In SQL Server 2005, Reporting Services has gone into its second version release. Based on developer and user feedback about Reporting Services 2000, the new version has many improvements—some of them not overly apparent but nevertheless making the product more scalable and extensible. A few seemingly minor (but real stand-out) items that Microsoft added are the date-picker, multi-value support for parameter selections, floating headers (similar to Excel's Freeze Panes functionality), and interactive sorting of rows or columns. Of course, report development got richer because the Visual Studio Report Designer is hosted in Visual Studio 2005 IDE, so things such as debugging and the expression editor are far more mature. The whole OLAP reporting story is so much more exciting with the introduction of the Analysis Services UDM and an added MDX query editor in Report Designer—you can add report parameters by simply selecting a check box.
However, stealing the thunder from these improvements are three items that really change the landscape: Report Builder, Report Controls, and modifications to SQL Server editions.
Report Builder. Report Builder is an exciting development in Reporting Services, especially if you've been using Reporting Services and wonder how you can permit certain users a little independence in report authoring—without needing the Visual Studio-hosted Report Designer. Report Builder is an ad-hoc reporting tool that lets a business user create a report from a table, matrix, or chart template that's built on a business model of the underlying database. So, a user authors reports by dragging and dropping attributes and measures, with intelligent support for formatting, aggregates, and the "big money" feature of Infinite Drill-through, which lets the user dig into underlying information from any report—on the fly. Detail reports are generated upon request, tracking filters and drill-path for accuracy. Users can then save Report Builder reports to ReportServer for other users to use and perform their own Infinite Drill-through on.
Report Controls. Actually, Report Controls aren't part of SQL Server at all but rather Visual Studio. Report Controls let you easily embed Reporting Services reporting functionality into your ASP.NET or .NET applications. These embedded Report Controls can process and render reports without ReportServer (or ReportServer licensing); alternatively, they can interact with ReportServer (to get report definitions, security information, and so on) but let you offer richer reporting functionality in your applications without a lot of hand-coding.
SQL Server editions. The final item isn't a feature, but it's big news nonetheless: Reporting Services will be included in all editions of SQL Server 2005, including the free Express version! Report Builder will be in all versions except Express. Originally, Microsoft intended to make Report Builder an Enterprise Edition–only feature, but due to overwhelming feedback, the company decided to also include Report Builder in the Standard and Workgroup editions—good news for anyone looking to add ad-hoc reporting at minimal cost.
Notification Services
I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge Notification Services as a new BI feature in SQL Server 2005. The product didn't receive an overhaul, but Microsoft has added some nice enhancements that make the framework easier to develop alerting applications—applications that are scalable, embeddable, and easier to deploy and monitor. Even more exciting, the Notification Services development team was moved under the BI umbrella in February. Of course, there are many, many needs for alerting applications that aren't part of the BI platform, but alerting is a crucial component of gaining visibility into your business and enabling your decision-makers—even if those decision-makers are simply your online buyers who need to know that a certain item is back in stock. So, now that Notification Services is part of the Microsoft BI platform, we'll see its increasing presence in solution blueprints, suggested designs, and end-to-end demonstrations.
Dive In!
I've merely scratched the surface of SQL Server 2005 BI, but there's much more that's worth checking out. Start off by getting familiar with the new SQL Server Books Online, as well as the Tutorials and Samples included with SQL Server 2005 (be sure to select them as part of your "Advanced" installation). Then, to get deeper on specific areas of interest, circle back to SQL Server Magazine and investigate all the SQL Server Yukon and SQL Server 2005 articles that we've published in the past 2 years.
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