Chapter 3: The Toolset

When you have a hammer , everything looks like a nail.

Overview

In this chapter, we describe the architecture and product selection for the Microsoft data warehouse/business intelligence (DW/BI) system. It may seem pointless to talk about architecture alternatives and product selection for a Microsoft system, but Microsoft offers enough software components that there actually is an element of product selection.

Figure 3.1 repeats the familiar Business Dimensional Lifecycle diagram, highlighting the Architecture and Product Selection boxes that are the focus of this chapter. In this version of the diagram, weve included a mapping between the Lifecycle boxes and the Microsoft products and components you may use during your development and management processes.

Figure 3.1: Business Dimensional Lifecycle and Microsoft technologies

This chapter continues with a description of the two main tools that youll use to develop and operate your DW/BI system. Youll use a single integrated environment called the Business Intelligence Development Studio to develop most of your DW/BI system, and a second environment called the SQL Server Management Studio to manage it. We introduce the two tools here and provide an overview of the elements that are the same no matter what part of the DW/BI project youre working on.