Overview

We have articulated the value of managing our information as an asset, we have explored the added value that can be derived through instituting business analytics in the organizations, and we have lined up the right senior-level sponsors for our business intelligence (BI) program. Now what? The time has come to discuss a high-level architecture required for implementing the BI program.

Realize that the BI process essentially revolves around the ability to flow large amounts of disparate data into a single repository and then in turn to flow restructured data for decision-support purposes out to data marts and related analytic process, as is seen in Figure 4.1. Designing the program is the process of:

Figure 4.1: A high-level view of the information flow.

• Understanding the business requirements

• Determining what kinds of analytical applications are needed to support those requirements

• Determining the subject areas around which those analytical areas revolve

• Determining what kind of subject-oriented information framework will support those applications

• Determining what information is needed to feed the information framework

• Providing the means for integrating that data into the information framework

• Mapping those requirements onto a general BI architecture

The focus of this chapter is to provide the manager with a working vocabulary based on a high-level view of the BI environment. Although my goal is to provide a 50,000-foot view of the entire process, there are clearly some concepts that beg for deeper discussion, and those topics are covered in later chapters. Because I do not want to...