Foreword

Dear Architect,

In this, the 22nd issue of The Architecture Journal, you’ll get our coverage on business-intelligence (BI) aspects of which architects like you and me need to be aware today.

As we did in previous issues, so as to guarantee accuracy, relevance, and quality, we set up a board of subject-matter experts to analyze the problem space— harvesting today’s main topic concerns.

The articles that you are about to read were chosen based on those concerns. Let’s take a look at them:

• Enterprise BI strategy—Dinesh Kumar (Microsoft) introduces the notion of business infrastructure, which—together with capability models that are described in previous issues of The Architecture Journal—help organizations not only gain business insight, but act upon it, too.
• Also, Sundararajan PA et al. (Infosys) propose a semantic enterprise data model for interoperability—adaptable for evolution through its life cycle.
• Embedding business insights into our applications—Traditionally, the final output of BI is considered to be scorecards and reports that are used as strategic decision support. Using implementation examples, Razvan Grigoroiu (Epicor) tells us how to put these outcomes within the reach of line-of-business (LOB) applications.
• Infrastructure and performance—Charles Fichter (Microsoft) explains the design principles for supporting a global data-warehouse architecture, with effectiveness and performance in mind.
• End-user and self-service BI—BI projects typically fall short in allowing users who have basic experience to handle how results are exposed, without any dependence on IT specialists. Ken Withee (Hitachi Consulting) shows multiple ways to tackle this issue by using facilities that are already available throughout the Microsoft platform.

As a side topic, outside the cover theme, this issue features an article by MVP Jesus Rodriguez (Tellago) on lightweight SOA implementations, and their patterns and principles.

The reader will also find more valuable BI input in side columns, as well as our second companion series of short videos, which are available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb380180.aspx.

I’d like to finish by thanking the team of subject matter experts who helped me complete this challenge. First, I want to thank guest editor Matt Valentine for giving me direction in the makeup of this issue. Also, for its guidance and suggestions to give final shape to Matt’s ideas, I’d like to thank the editorial board that we put together this time.

Enjoy the issue! Remember that you may send any feedback to archjrnl@microsoft.com.

Diego Dagum
Editor-in-Chief

Contents

• Thinking Global BI: Data-Warehouse Principles for Supporting Enterprise-Enabled Business-Intelligence Applications, by Charles Fichter
  Design principles to support a global data-warehouse (DW) architecture.
• BI-to-LOB Integration: Closing the Cycle, by Razvan Grigoroiu
  A discussion of the necessity of architecting BI solutions that focus on actionable data and information flow back to LOB applications.
• Increasing Productivity by Empowering Business Users with Self-Serve BI, by Ken Withee
  A look at the latest wave of Microsoft tools and technologies that enable end-user self-serve BI.
• Business Insight = Business Infrastructure = Business-Intelligence Platform, by Dinesh Kumar
  A prescriptive approach to planning and delivering BI services through the business-infrastructure and business-capability models.
• Semantic Enterprise Optimizer and Coexistence of Data Models, by P.A. Sundararajan, Anupama Nithyanand, and S.V. Subrahmanya
  Proposal of a semantic ontology–driven enterprise data–model architecture for interoperability, integration, and adaptability for evolution.
• Lightweight SOAs: Exploring Patterns and Principles of a New Generation of SOA Solutions, by Jesus Rodriguez and Don Demsak
  An exploration of how to address common challenges of traditional SOAs by using more scalable, interoperable, and agile alternatives.

This issue is also available as a PDF. Download it here.