Business Intelligence on the Microsoft Platform

Lecture Supplements and Supporting Materials

Business Intelligence is an area of great interest to students and faculty in light of the huge job growth in the data/business analysis industry and its wide applicability to a myriad of fields. IT/IS/CIS students and business school students are keenly interested in learning about the key concepts of Business Intelligence through real-world technologies so that they can enter the job market with a skill set that is pertinent and in demand. Many faculty members are eager to provide this education to their students in order to set their students apart and make them more competitive in the job market arena.

Microsoft has created Business Intelligence lecture supplements to help fill this need. These curriculum enhancements are enablers for faculty and students. They provide an overview of the basic concepts of Business Intelligence (Modules 1 & 2) and then dive a little deeper into the business and technical sides of Business Intelligence (Modules 3 & 4). Along with these are lab exercises leveraging SQL Server 2005 technology in a preconfigured lab environment. These materials are intended as introductory content on the topic.

This DVD contains all of the files needed to utilize this module set. For best performance, these files should be coppied to the user's machine.

This module set provides you with a variety of components that can be interchangeably used and customized to meet your needs. All of this material was built to be flexible, to serve as resource to you.

This module set consists of the following components:

PowerPoint presentations
Demonstration videos
Instructor training videos
Demonstration scripts
Student lab files

All of the files needed for each of the four modules are contained in the Modules Folder.

Details of the Business Intelligence on the Microsoft Platform module set are available in this ReadMe.

In addition, there is a Virtual PC Image for use in live demonstrations and student labs. The End User License Agreement (EULA) for the Virtual PC Image is available here. Access to the Virtual PC image files is available after accepting the EULA.

An overview presentation of the Business Intelligence on the Microsoft Platform content is available.

In addition to these teaching modules, we have included some supplemental materials:

Datasheets and More - product guides and datasheets
Business Intelligence Videos - A series of videos on BI using SQL Server 2005
Product Videos - Marketing videos on SQL Server 2005
Case Studies and White Papers - client case studies and technical papers on SQL Server 2005
Building a BI Demo Server - guidelines for building your own server for student labs and demos

Online Resources

SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence Web site - This site provides detailed information on Microsoft's Business Intelligence solution using SQL Server 2005.
SQL Server 2005 Virtual Labs - In these hands-on Virtual Labs, you will get to experience many of the new features in SQL Server 2005 including CLR integration, XML support and deep business intelligence integration.

Additional Resources

SQL Learning Suite - provides a platform for those who don't have basic knowledge of SQL. It is intended for two types of users, those with no knowledge of SQL and those that need a quick refresher. The SQL Learning Suite application introduces users to the basic keywords and query syntax of SQL using the interactive GUI features. The SQL Learning Suite 2.1 project was funded by Microsoft®, and developed at CDE, IIIT, Hyderabad by Nikita Pandey, Ranbeer Makin, Satya, Karteek, Shadab and Jhansi, under the guidance of Dr. Kamal Karlapalem.

If you have questions, comments or need mor information, please contact: bimodule@microsoft.com