How do you build a BI system?

...in the same way you build most other proper IT systems - study the business, understand the requirements, prototype, design and build the system, support and evolve with the business. Be very sceptical of any products that claim to build a BI system by simply pointing a query tool at the live systems.

A BI system usually consists of most of the following:

• some form of data warehouse
• refresh software which pulls data from multiple operational systems
• data cleansing and consolidation
• data aggregation and restructuring to suit business queries
• data exploration tools

In many respects, populating a data warehouse is the same as effecting a data migration from the operational systems on a regular (e.g. nightly) basis.

BI Pulls together a wide range of skills:

• Requirements Analysis
• System Specification
• Data Analysis
• Prototyping & Early demonstrations
• Design, Impementation & Testing
• Project Management

Veriton has expertise in implementing Business Intelligence systems based on warehouses of hundreds of millions of records. As you would expect from an Oracle Partner we have solid skills in the Oracle database and supporting tools. In addition we have a strong BusinessObjects track record and can also advise on Oracle Discoverer and Cognos Powerplay/Impromtu toolsets.

We also have core infrastructure products which facilitate data conversion, transformation, cleansing, consolidation and final table loading in an Oracle environment. These kernels are used on our warehouse projects to get a head start on development and allow more attention to be given to client-specific problems, such as data mapping or cleansing rules.