Data visualisation has been defined as: The set of techniques used to turn a set of data into visual insight. It aims to give the data a meaningful representation by exploiting the powerful discerning capabilities of the human eye. Part 1 of this briefing paper will highlight some examples of new collaborative web services using Web 2.0 technologies which venture into the numeric data visualisation arena. These mashups allow researchers to upload and analyse their own data in ‘open’ and dynamic environments. Broadly speaking the numeric data being referred to could be micro-data (data about the individual), macro-data or country-level data, derived or summary data.
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Unisys and Microsoft have dispelled the perception that for high performance ETL, the only alternative is a UNIX-based solution. With SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, Microsoft and Unisys deliver an optimized ETL solution that will support even the most demanding enterprise Business Intelligence (BI) initiatives. They conducted a series of real ETL (Extraction, Transformation and Load) tests with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS, formerly known as DTS). Performance tests compared throughput, scalability and performance on both 32- and 64-bit processor configurations on a Unisys ES7000. SSIS demonstrated parallelism and the ability to utilize all available CPUs in multiple aggregation, parallel lookup and transformation testing.
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Unisys and Microsoft collaborated on a proof of concept to demonstrate that the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 product suite will support even the most demanding enterprise business intelligence initiatives. The proof of concept shows that SQL Server 2005 can deliver the same or better results for a high-performance enterprise-class data warehouse than the more-costly alternatives.
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