Fast Track Data Warehouse ADR

The Fast Track Data Warehouse Architecture Design Review (ADR) by Scalability Experts (SE) will identify an appropriate Fast Track data warehouse architecture for your environment in order to provide the foundation for predictable performance, scalability, and availability. As part of the ADR we will provide you with a high-level strategy to re-architect the data warehouse infrastructure and provide you with a list of SQL Server Fast Track data warehouse recommendations in order to meet your future growth requirements.  The focus will be on benchmarking:

• Maximum CPU Core Consumption Rate (MCR)
• Benchmark Consumption Rate (BCR)
• Required User Data Capacity (UDC)

Additionally, Scalability Experts will deliver a current DW/BI capabilities design review. The design review will be executed primarily in a white-board environment.  The goal of this effort will include knowledge transfer and the design an initial vision for best practices and methodologies for supporting an enterprise business intelligence solution.

Assessment and Deliverables

The following list outlines the process and deliverables for workload evaluation:

• Work with your IT team to define the targeted workload requirements. Compare and contrast to Fast Track data warehouse workload attributes.
• Evaluate Fast Track workload attributes against target usage scenario.
• Identify server and/or bandwidth requirements for the customer use case. A published FTDW reference configuration will be chosen to use as a close proximity to defined customer workload.
• Identify a query that is representative of customer workload requirement.
• Calculate the Benchmark Consumption Rate (BCR) of SQL Server for the query.
• Calculate the Required User Data Capacity (UDC).
• Compare BCR and UDC ratings against published Maximum CPU Consumption Rate (MCR) and Capacity ratings for conforming Fast Track reference architectures.

As time allows the following Database Management functions are assessed:

• Database administration, data architecture (data model and table structure) and data integration practices
• Index-light, partitioned data architecture.
• Management of database fragmentation, through suitable loading and ETL strategies and periodic maintenance.
• Storage expansion requires data migration.

The ADR will focus on knowledge transfer, a BI Roadmap, and solution design covering the following key areas:

Business Process Requirements

Determine reporting specifics for departmental and business needs. Key stake holders are consulted on the required elements to support their business directives, to include data mining, forecasting, reporting, dash-boarding, and KPIs.

CUBE, Dimensional and Fact Table Design

As part of the reporting and analysis of data stored in the data warehouse the fact and dimensional tables are designed to store the lowest level of grain (detail) required for current and future business needs, with supporting attributes designated in the dimensions.

ETL

Data loads and schedules from desperate systems, databases, and information stores are scoped and reviewed for best practices in data extraction, consistency, transformation, and loading. This is a critical part of the BI infrastructure as the data is cleansed for storage in the data warehouse and/or data mart. The data warehouse and/or data mart generally are designed to represent the ‘one’ truth across all departments within an organization and require detailed design and analysis.

Reporting Requirements

Reporting is the presentation layer of the stored elements within the data warehouse. If the data currently being imported is not representative of the business requirements, it will have a short lived success as employees seek information elsewhere. Analysis of the reporting structure and delivery process is critical to the successful implementation of a BI infrastructure.

Concurrency

To include number of users, caching, and ad-hoc reporting capabilities are being met by the current environment

Availability, Scalability, Reliability, and Manageability

The BI infrastructure will be designed to ensure the current/future environment can support the SLA needs of the business. As deficiencies are discovered, recommendations/adjustments will be made to enhance existing systems to support current and future growth.

Best practices may also be defined and documented in order to provide the foundation for predictable performance, scalability, and availability. For this particular engagement, the focus will be on providing a high-level strategy and architectural guidance for the NBK enterprise DW/BI solution.

Allowing our team of specialists to provide you with a SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse ADR will provide you the needed insight to make the correct choices in designing and setting up your infrastructure. Contact our specialists today for more information on our Fast Track Data Warehouse ADR.