micro strategy 9 white paper

MicroStrategy 9: Breakthrough Technology that Supports the Full Range of Business Intelligence Applications from a Single, Integrated Platform

MicroStrategy 9

I. Overview of MicroStrategy 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

II. The Need for Enterprise BI and Departmental BI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

III. MicroStrategy 9 Extends the Boundaries of Enterprise BI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

IV. MicroStrategy 9 Enables Departmental BI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

V. MicroStrategy 9 Supports the Seamless Migration from Departmental to Enterprise BI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

VI. Detailed List of Enhancements in MicroStrategy 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3

““

I. Overview of MicroStrategy 9

Enterprises of all types are experiencing a groundswell of excitement and activity around the availability of actionable

information to support their business processes. With the meteoric increase in data that organizations routinely capture,

enterprises can now make that data accessible and useful by tapping into the power of business intelligence (BI) technologies.

Today, business intelligence systems are emerging in every corner of the enterprise, ranging from large scale enterprise BI

environments that are deployed to thousands of people, to smaller departmental BI systems.

MicroStrategy 9 is breakthrough technology that, for the first time, allows companies to support all levels of BI with one

technology. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategy’s unique strength at the high-end of BI to extend the boundaries of

performance, scalability, and efficiency of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings that same enterprise-caliber

BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives. Just as importantly, MicroStrategy 9 provides a uniquely

smooth migration path for islands of departmental BI to merge into a cohesive and consistent enterprise-wide framework. With

MicroStrategy 9, even as departmental BI applications are consolidated into the enterprise-wide framework, the departments

can continue to retain significant autonomy and nimbleness that they enjoyed previously as an island of BI.

Extends the Performance, Scalability, and Efficiency of Enterprise BI

Enables Rapid Deployment of Departmental BI Applications

Provides a Smooth Migration from Islands of Departmental BI into a Cohesive Enterprise Framework

MicroStrategy 9 is breakthrough technology that allows companies to support all levels of BI initiatives, and helps companies to consolidate islands of BI gradually into a cohesive enterprise BI framework.

Organizations have a mix of enterprise-grade and departmental BI applications. Enterprise BI applications

continue to advance in data scale, user scale, and analytical requirements. MicroStrategy 9 includes new,

advanced features to improve the performance, scale, and efficiency of these enterprise BI applications.

In addition, MicroStrategy 9 includes innovative features to enable the rapid development of departmental

BI applications by business users rather than IT professionals. To support consolidation and standardization,

MicroStrategy 9 eases the migration of departmental BI application data and metadata into a unified,

enterprise BI environment.

– Sanju Bansal, COO, MicroStrategy

4

II. The Need for Enterprise BI and Departmental BI

The Ideal BI archITecTure Is an enTerprIse BI archITecTure

Enterprise BI Provides a Single Version of the Truth

The ideal architecture for business intelligence is an enterprise BI architecture in which a single and cohesive model of the

business is represented in the BI metadata. The BI metadata provides a business-oriented view of all of the data available to

the enterprise, and gives every business user the building blocks to assemble reports and dashboards or to conduct investigative

analyses using a business viewpoint.

Because the BI metadata presents a single cohesive model of the business, the enterprise can be assured that a single version

of the truth will exist throughout all reports, dashboards, and analyses, regardless of who creates them. A universally-applied BI

security system can uniformly protect the privacy of the data, automatically filtering out data from any report based on the security

profile of each business user.

Operational Database

Finance Marketing Operations Sales HR

Ente

rpri

se B

ISy

stem

Single Information Interface

Common Model of Business (building blocks)

Data Marts Data Warehouse

Financial Analysis

Customer Reporting

HR Analysis

Inventory Reporting

Sales Reporting

Financial Reporting

Revenue Forecasts

Product Sales

Fraud & Risk Analysis

Supplier Report Card

Serves All Departments

Serves 10,000s of Business People

Single Information Portal

Single Version of the Truth

Single Set of Building Blocks

Performance-optimized Databases

Consistent Interpretation of the Data

enterprise Business Intelligence can serve the Whole enterprise cohesively

Figure 1: Enterprise BI architectures

are the only approach to BI that can

provide a single version of the truth

across the enterprise and which are

also the most efficient to own

and operate.

Enterprise BI is the Most Efficient Mode of Operation

The other primary benefit of an enterprise BI architecture is that it is highly efficient in the use of corporate resources and

administrative effort. Compared to models of many disparate islands of BI, the enterprise BI model minimizes the number of

IT personnel needed to manage and maintain the technology, minimizes the number of computer servers needed to run the

system, and minimizes the amount of training for business users and IT. Even among enterprise-caliber BI technologies, such as

those from IBM/Cognos or SAP/Business Objects, MicroStrategy is recognized as requiring the least amount of IT personnel and

hardware to deliver a given amount of BI.

5

MicroStrategy BI Technology is Designed for Enterprise BI

Enterprise BI is technically possible today and many organizations are pursuing this model. Enterprise BI is based on the well-

understood engineering concepts of data warehousing which continue to be propelled forward by database technology

advances that can support faster queries and greater capacity every year. Enterprise BI is also reliant on enterprise-caliber BI

technology, like MicroStrategy 9, that has been refined over many years to support the most demanding requirements of BI.

MicroStrategy’s underlying Relational OLAP (ROLAP) architecture gives it the combination of high scalability and high interactivity

that reporting architectures and MOLAP architectures alone cannot deliver.

Relational OLAP(ROLAP)

Enterprise-caliber Qualities

Highest Data Scalability

Highest User Scalability

Highest Performance at Scale

Sophisticated Analytics

Lowest Cost to Operate and

Maintain (lowest TCO)

Very Rapid Report Creation

Superior End User Self-service

Ideal for Data Warehousing

MOLAPProducts

Relational Reporting Products

High User and Data Scale

Low User and Data Scale

Low

An

alyt

ics

and

Inte

ract

ivit

yH

igh

An

alyt

ics

and

Inte

ract

ivit

y

9™

Microstrategy Technology is Based on a rOlap architecture that uniquely provides Both high scalability and high Interactivity

Figure 2: MicroStrategy’s ROLAP architecture provides both high scalability as well as high interactivity. Other BI architectures can provide one or the other,

but not both. Building on the ROLAP architecture for the past 15 years, MicroStrategy technology is now well recognized for other enterprise-caliber

characteristics, including high performance, sophisticated analytics, low cost of ownership, rapid report creation, and superior end user self-service.

ROLAP is the Core of MicroStrategy Technology

ROLAP is unique among BI architectures in that it can model the entire relational database as if it were a single multi-dimensional

cube. In this case, the cube is virtual since relational databases often contain terabytes of data that could not fit within any real

cube technology. MicroStrategy’s virtual cube provides MicroStrategy users with the ability to perform OLAP interactions with the

data, including pivoting, page-by, filtering, and most-importantly the ability to drill freely throughout the cube as with MOLAP

technologies, but without the severe size limitations of MOLAP architectures.

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R O L A P S Q L E n g i n e

Terabyte Database

Virtual Terabyte Cube

9™

ROLAP

All popular relational schema are supported: Star, Snowflake, Sparse Aggregation, Partitioned

All reports and dashboards are created using the single logical model of business

RELATIONAL OLAP (ROLAP)

ROLAP metadata models the entire relational database as a single logical multi-dimensional model of the business (virtual terabyte cube)

rOlap is the core of Microstrategy Technology

Figure 3: ROLAP is based on a

virtual cube that represents the

entire relational database. The

ROLAP virtual cubes provide

dynamic investigative drilling that

is typical of cube models, but

because the ROLAP cube is virtual,

it does not suffer from the severe

size limitations and administrative

burdens of physical multi-

dimensional MOLAP cubes.

deparTMenTal BI Is necessary, TOO

Despite the overwhelming benefits of enterprise BI, it cannot be achieved all at once. Enterprise BI takes many years to achieve

and it must be built incrementally, one application at a time. As each new enterprise-wide BI application project is undertaken, it

consumes inter-departmental political capital and IT attention. Organizations can accommodate only a limited number of these

types of projects at one time. Meanwhile, there are BI needs at the departmental level to be addressed. For every large-scale,

enterprise-significant BI application, there are likely to be 10 departmentally-significant BI applications that the business needs.

Because of the limited organizational scope of departmental BI applications, they can often be implemented much more quickly

than enterprise-wide BI initiatives. What is even more important is that departmental BI applications can be modified and adapted

more rapidly than enterprise BI applications because of their smaller size and their limited need for inter-organizational coordination.

deparTMenTal BI applIcaTIOns haVe specIalIzed requIreMenTs

Departmental BI applications typically support 50-200 business users within a single business function like Finance, Marketing,

Sales, or Operations. Departmental BI implementations, which can be thought of as scaled-down versions of enterprise BI

implementations, are typically supported by dedicated decision support databases (data marts) that are populated by some

form of formal ETL technology and are supported by a few dedicated technically-trained personnel. Users of departmental BI

applications need all 5 Styles of BI, ranging from dashboards and reports to investigative analysis and predictions to proactive

alerting and report distribution.

7

BI Technology for Departments Must Deliver Speed and Simplicity

BI technology for departments needs to be easy to implement, containing all of the necessary components for a BI system out-

of-the-box. Specifically, the BI technology should contain an integrated set of functionality, including a database to store the

data; an ETL technology (extract, transform, and load) to move the data into the database; and a BI platform to create reports,

dashboards, and analyses that people can share. Technology for departmental BI must be fast and easy to install on common

desktop-caliber computers by a (technically-literate) business person; easy to use for collecting and storing data from Excel or

databases; and easy to use for designing reports and conducting analyses against the data.

Successful Departmental BI Technology Provides Powerful Self-service Capabilities

Departments have access to only a few IT personnel, usually just enough to manage and maintain the technology, but not

enough to create the reports, dashboards, and analyses that provide business value. With limited IT personnel, business users

need to fill the gap through two modes: (1) with power users acting on behalf of IT personnel and who create reports and

dashboards for others to use, and (2) with average business users serving themselves dynamically with new views of data.

MicroStrategy 9 supports both of these self-service modes through a powerful, yet simple Web interface that lets power users

create any report or dashboard using drag-and-drop functionality. Even more powerful is MicroStrategy’s ability to allow business

people to drill anywhere throughout the database freely, using point-and-click OLAP commands. As business people drill

throughout the database, they can also add subtotals, calculations, and filters, and rotate the data for the exact perspective they

want to see. After performing these many self-service manipulations, business users can then save the resulting report designs

for later use themselves or share those new report designs with other users in their department.

Departmental BI Technology Needs Access to Many Databases

Another dominant requirement for successful departmental BI is the ability to flexibly access many databases at once. It is

rare that a single department has the technical resources to aggregate all the data it might need from a myriad of operational

databases into its decision support data mart. Moreover, departmental BI requirements change rapidly, evolving as quickly as

business priorities change and as rapidly as managers conceive of new reports they need for greater business insight. If each new

informational need required the laborious task of moving the data from a source operational system into a carefully engineered

departmental data mart, many business users would be too frustrated with the delay to find value in the BI system.

MicroStrategy 9 addresses this problem directly with a new multi-source capability that allows departments to quickly incorporate

new databases into the BI model without going through the effort of moving the data into the data mart or data warehouse.

Once the new databases are identified in the BI metadata model, their physical storage location becomes completely transparent

to both BI users and report developers.

The aBIlITy TO cOnsOlIdaTe Islands OF deparTMenTal BI InTO enTerprIse BI Is crITIcally IMpOrTanT

FOr The lOng TerM

MicroStrategy 9 Makes it Easy to Consolidate Islands of BI into a Cohesive Enterprise-wide Model

MicroStrategy 9 is designed to help organizations gracefully consolidate disparate islands of BI into a cohesive enterprise-

wide BI model. When all of the BI islands are comprised of MicroStrategy 9 technology, the new MicroStrategy 9 multi-source

capability provides a first easy step in merging the island by allowing the enterprise BI installation to quickly incorporate

the island’s database. All of the reports and metadata originally created in the departmental island can be consolidated to

the larger enterprise model. Over time, the IT organization will want to move selected data items incrementally from their

existing multiple database sources into the more cohesive and high-performing data warehouse. MicroStrategy 9 supports

this evolution in an elegant way by simply “re-pointing” the metadata from the former data source (island database) to the

new data source (data warehouse), thereby preserving all of the business definitions and reports that had been built using the

former database.

8

MicroStrategy 9 Allows Departments to Enjoy Autonomous Operation, Even within an Enterprise-wide Framework

MicroStrategy 9 has a sophisticated metadata architecture and security architecture that allows departments to continue to

have independent control over their piece of the enterprise BI environment. With MicroStrategy 9, departments can create

reports and metadata that only affect their group and thus avoid or postpone inter-departmental coordination typically

required in an enterprise-wide BI utility. Departments can incorporate new data sources solely for their own use, without

affecting any other group using the enterprise BI resource. Over time, as the departments create new business definitions,

calculations, or reports that would be useful to the entire enterprise, these items can be moved from the departmental-only

area into an enterprise-wide accessible area. Once combined for enterprise use, MicroStrategy’s universal data privacy system

continues to enforce departmental security configurations.

III. MicroStrategy 9 Extends the Boundaries of Enterprise Business Intelligence

Since its early beginnings, MicroStrategy technology has been associated with the high-end of business intelligence, supporting

the most demanding BI applications across all industries. Companies select MicroStrategy technology when they need the

highest performance at high scale and when they want to standardize on a single BI infrastructure capable of supporting all of

the BI needs of the enterprise.

MicroStrategy 9 is extending the boundaries of enterprise BI by:

1. Delivering Dramatically Faster Performance at the Highest Data Scale

2. Supporting Thousands of Users

3. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort

4. Supporting Global Applications and Distributed Operations

1. delIVerIng draMaTIcally FasTer perFOrMance aT The hIghesT daTa scale

As BI systems grow to thousands of users and hundreds of terabytes of data, maintaining fast query performance becomes

the dominant technical hurdle. MicroStrategy technology has long been the performance leader at high scale. MicroStrategy 9

continues and extends that leadership with new adaptive caching technology called In-memory ROLAP and new SQL generation

optimizations that can deliver the highest query performance even when accessing hundreds of terabytes of data.

In-memory BI Offers a Powerful New Way to Increase BI Performance

The query performance of a BI system is fundamentally governed and limited by the query performance of the underlying

databases. Over the years, MicroStrategy has developed more sophisticated SQL optimizations to improve query performance

for all major database technologies. Additionally, MicroStrategy has developed a sophisticated system of multi-level caching that

can avoid many database interactions. Cache reuse between users depends heavily on users running the exact same report and

having the same security privileges. When these two conditions are not met, the BI systems direct their queries to the database.

In-memory BI offers a new architectural approach for increasing query performance on a very broad basis. In-memory BI operates

like a database, but has the performance characteristics of a memory-based caching system.

9

BEFORE IN-MEMORY BI AFTER IN-MEMORY BI

Output Caching

In-memory On-Disk

Caching Query

Database Query Slower

Response Time

Data SetCachingReport

CachingOutput Caching

Database Query

Data SetCaching

In-memoryQuery

Report Caching

In-memory On-Disk

Caching Query

FasterResponse Time

In-memory BI Fills a Void in the performance curve of a BI system

Figure 4: In-memory BI technology provides another performance stage in a BI system. In-memory BI operates like a database that is queried and hence can

be applied to many reports, but it has the performance characteristics of a memory-based caching system.

MicroStrategy 9 Introduces In-memory ROLAP to Improve the Performance of Enterprise BI Systems

In-memory ROLAP takes advantage of the huge addressable memory space now available on 64-bit computers to provide high

performance middle-tier databases that can respond directly to data requests from reports, dashboards, and OLAP analyses.

Since the new middle-tier databases are stored in computer memory, they avoid disk access delays of traditional databases.

Typical ROLAP systems exhibit a performance profile in which query time ranges from very fast, sub-second response times to minutes

or even hours. MicroStrategy ROLAP is supplemented with dynamic caching technology that saves report instances in memory so

that the next user of the same report can be served the result directly from memory, avoiding database delays. This creates a

performance profile with two response-time distributions – one for the database queries and one for the cache-based responses.

When in-memory ROLAP is introduced, the performance profile changes dramatically. It acquires a third response-time distribution

for in-memory queries that resides between the very fast caching distribution and the slower database distribution. In fact, the

addition of in-memory ROLAP technology redirects many database queries to be served directly from in-memory ROLAP databases.

Performance ProfileTypical ROLAP Operation

Performance ProfileIn-memory ROLAP Operation

Nu

mb

er o

f R

epo

rts

Nu

mb

er o

f R

epo

rts

User Response TimeUser Response Time

ROLAP ROLAPCache DB Queries

ROLAP DB Queries

In-memory ROLAP QueriesROLAPCache

BEFORE AFTER

adding In-memory rOlap Improves user response Time

Figure 5: The performance profile for a typical ROLAP system shown on the left presents two clusters of performance: one for the queries that are directed

to the database and one for the queries directed to cache. The performance profile for In-memory ROLAP operation on the right shows the addition of a

performance cluster for queries that are directed to the in-memory database from queries that were previously directed to the disk-based database.

10

In-memory ROLAP is a Seamless Extension of the MicroStrategy ROLAP Architecture

In-memory ROLAP extends MicroStrategy’s ROLAP architecture by creating mid-tier databases called ROLAP Cubes that contain

selected portions of the data warehouse. These ROLAP Cubes are seamlessly interwoven in the ROLAP architecture as they

populate portions of the global multi-dimensional metadata model with actual data.


Terabyte Database

Terabyte Database

GlobalVirtual Cube


Terabyte Database

Physical In-memoryROLAP Cubes

9™

ROLAPArchitecture

CubeArchitecture In-memory ROLAP

In-memory rOlap is an architectural extension of rOlap in which physical rOlap cubes reside In-memory within

the global Virtual cube

Figure 6: In-memory ROLAP creates

ROLAP Cubes that reside in the

memory of the Intelligence Server.

The ROLAP Cubes contain selected

components of warehouse data and fit

seamlessly into the global virtual cube.

In-memory ROLAP Can Improve the Performance of the Most Time-consuming Queries

BI designers must choose which data to populate in memory to gain the maximum performance improvements. In a properly-

designed system, the In-memory ROLAP Cubes contain the data needed to avoid the most database processing time and hence

the most user waiting time. This means that BI designers need to identify which data is involved in the most time-consuming

queries or frequently-used queries. Using MicroStrategy’s new Cube Advisor tool and Enterprise Manager, MicroStrategy system

administrators can analyze the query workload over an extended time period to determine which database areas consume the

most database processing time. The Cube Advisor tool can then recommend combinations of attributes, metrics, and filters that

should be consolidated into ROLAP Cubes and placed into memory that will reduce database processing the most.

Same ReportRun many times by many people

Many Similar ReportsOverlapping content in different reports

Complex QueriesSpan many attributes and metrics

Complex QueriesSpan multiple databases

BEFORE AFTER

In-memory rOlap can smooth database usage

Figure 7: In-memory ROLAP Cubes can offload the most time-consuming and processor-consuming queries from the database and serve them to the users

much more quickly, directly from memory. The result is a faster average query time and much more evenly utilized database system.

11

In-memory ROLAP Can Free Up Capacity on Database Servers

The MicroStrategy 9 In-memory ROLAP feature allows companies to shift database processing from interactive daylight hours to

the batch processing window overnight. This shifting improves user response time since the most time-consuming or repetitive

queries are ready to be served directly from in-memory databases when the users want them. In-memory ROLAP also frees up

database capacity during interactive hours, providing better response time for database-directed queries. This additional database

capacity has the added benefit of potentially allowing enterprises to delay purchasing additional database capacity to meet peak

demand volumes.

0:00a 3:00a 3:00p 6:00p6:00a 9:00a 9:00p 12:00a

0% 0

5

10

20

40

80

160

100%

ETLWindow

DatabaseWorkload

Wait Time

Average UserWait Time (sec)

Noon

ETLWindow

0:00a 3:00a 3:00p 6:00p6:00a 9:00a 9:00p 12:00a

0% 0

5

10

20

40

80

160

100%

DatabaseWorkload

Wait Time

Average UserWait Time (sec)

Noon

BEFORE AFTER

In-memory rOlap Improves user Wait Time and Frees up database capacity

Figure 8: MicroStrategy 9 In-memory ROLAP can shift database processing to off-hours, freeing up database capacity during peak interactive hours and

improving user response time.

MicroStrategy’s new In-memory ROLAP option is game changing. Unlike other in-memory approaches on

the market today, it is fully integrated with an enterprise BI environment and provides high performance

transparently to business users. The way in which large amounts of data are stored and accessed in-memory

is so seamless that I was skeptical until I saw the actual SQL generated and witnessed the performance.

– Cindi Howson, Founder, BIScorecard

We look forward to using MicroStrategy 9 In-memory ROLAP technology to help us improve our user

experience with faster response times and to take unnecessary pressure off our Teradata system.

– Mark Govostes, Manager of BI Architecture, eBay “““

“

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MicroStrategy’s SQL Generation Engine is the Most Sophisticated in the Industry

MicroStrategy’s SQL Generation Engine is the core of the MicroStrategy ROLAP architecture and can translate complex queries

into the most sophisticated multi-pass SQL statements. Over the years, MicroStrategy has refined and enhanced the SQL

Generation Engine, and today it is comprised of three distinct layers of optimization.

MicroStrategy 9 introduces a new global optimization algorithm that optimizes queries involving complex conditional metrics

and can reduce the number of SQL passes by 66% and reduce database query time by as much as 75%. This new capability

works transparently with reports, dashboards, and analyses, providing an immediate performance improvement to many existing

MicroStrategy applications.

MicroStrategy 9 SQL Generation Engine

GLO

BA

L SQ

L O

PTIM

IZA

TIO

N

LAY

ER

Multi-pass SQL Optimizations

General Metrics Optimizations

Conditional Metrics Optimizations

VLDB Optimizations

Multi-pass SQL Engine

DB

MS-

SP

ECIF

IC

SQL

LAY

ER

Optimum Source Selection

Logical Query Generator

LOG

ICA

LQ

UER

YLA

YER

Logical Report

Definition

Optimized Multi-pass

SQL

Microstrategy’s Multi-layered sql generation engine creates the Most sophisticated and Optimized sql in the Industry

Figure 9: MicroStrategy 9

introduces a new layer of Global

SQL Optimization designed to

reduce query response time for

complicated reports involving

conditional metrics by as much

as 75%.

2. suppOrTIng ThOusands OF users

Successful BI systems often experience dramatic growth in user populations. It is increasingly common for a single MicroStrategy

BI installation to support thousands and even tens of thousands of business users. The technical challenge here is to efficiently

accommodate thousands of concurrent Web user sessions, while providing high performance and easy administration.

64-bit Web Servers Can Support More Users per Server

MicroStrategy now supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. Each

user session consumes memory on the Web servers. The dramatically expanded memory that is available in 64-bit JVMs supports

many more concurrent user sessions than does the limited memory space available in 32-bit JVMs. The added memory also

provides each user with greater working space to display and interact with larger reports and dashboards.

13

BEFORE AFTER

Web Browsers Web Browsers

Web Server

32-bit JVM 64-bit JVM

Web Server

64-bit Memory SpaceSupports More Concurrent Users

with Larger Reports

32-bit JVM Operation 64-bit JVM Operation

The expanded Memory available in 64-bit JVMs allows Microstrategy 9 to support More concurrent users with larger reports


supports 64-bit JVMs, which offer

much greater memory space.

Vastly increased memory space

allows each Web server to support

many more concurrent user

sessions and larger reports.

Extreme AJAX Code Structure for MicroStrategy Web

In MicroStrategy 9, MicroStrategy re-engineered its Web server code set to adhere to the “Extreme AJAX” coding model. In

Extreme AJAX, processing is shifted from the shared Web server to the Web browsers using JavaScript and other techniques that

minimize the frequency and volume of data transfer between server and browser. These enhancements deliver a much faster and

more responsive experience for business users. Extreme AJAX has the added benefit of offloading processing workload from the

shared Web servers, freeing up capacity on Web servers so that each server can support more concurrent user sessions.

Web Browsers Web Browsers

Processing Workload

Shifts from Shared

Web Server to

Workstation Browsers

Web Server

32-bit JVM 64-bit JVM

Web Server

Pro

cess

ing

Wo

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ad

Pro

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ing

Wo

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ad

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AJAX Operation Extreme AJAX Operation

extreme aJaX coding delivers greater responsiveness

Figure 11: MicroStrategy 9 employs

new Extreme AJAX coding disciplines

within its Web architecture. Extreme

AJAX shifts processing from the

shared Web servers to the individual

Web browsers, thus spreading the

processing workload and providing

the most responsive user experience

while still preserving a true zero-

footprint Web interface.

14

3. delIVerIng MOre BI WITh less IT eFFOrT

The total cost of ownership of a BI system is dominated by the costs for IT personnel to develop and maintain the system.

Minimizing the work done by IT personnel minimizes the total cost of ownership of a BI system. In fact, requiring only half as

many IT personnel reduces the three-year cost of ownership by 35%.

Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership Breakdown

Staffing (60%)

Downtime – UserProductivity

(15%)

IT Staff Training(8%)

Server Hardware(7%)

Software (7%)

Outsourced Costs(3%)

Source: IDC 2007.

Three-year Total cost of Ownership is dominated by IT personnel costs

Figure 12: Three-year total cost

of ownership for BI systems is

dominated by costs related to

IT personnel: IT personnel costs

account for 71% of total costs =

Staffing (60%) + Outsourcing Costs

(3%) + Staff Training (8%).

MicroStrategy BI Requires the Least Amount of IT Effort to Support a Given User Population

Compared to competing BI technologies, MicroStrategy can deliver more BI to more users with the least number of IT personnel.

MicroStrategy’s metadata architecture is inherently maintainable since, unlike other BI technologies, each metadata object exists only

once and is re-used dynamically throughout the system. When a metadata object changes, BI administrators need to change that

object in only one place and that change will be immediately represented each time the object is used by any report or dashboard.

Number of BI Users for Each IT Administrator

536

349 336323

255222 218

120

Micr

oStr

ateg

y IBI

Ora

cle

Bus.

Obj

.

SAS

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Micr

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t

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Tech

Source: Gartner Group survey of customers in support of the 2009 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms Report, January 2009.

Microstrategy Technology is recognized for its ability to support Many More users for each IT administrator

Figure 13: MicroStrategy

technology requires far fewer IT

personnel for a given amount of

BI users because its metadata is

inherently easier to maintain and

because end users have more

self-service capabilities that

offload work from the IT staff.

15

MicroStrategy 9 Introduces Major New Features for Business User Self-service

Even more important than BI change management and object reuse is the fact that MicroStrategy puts more control in the hands

of business users than any BI technology. With MicroStrategy 9, MicroStrategy introduces several new and enhanced features that

further empower business users, thereby minimizing the need for IT personnel to perform the same functions.

Manipulate Reports

Other BITechnologies

Manage the System

Develop Database Metadata

Develop Business Metadata

Administer Applications

Administer Users

Create Report Distributions

Design New Reports

Design New Dashboards

Create New Reports via Drill Anywhere

IT P

erso

nn

elU

ser

IT

Bu

sin

ess

Use

r

Microstrategy 9 supports a greater range of Business user self-service than any BI Technology

Figure 14: MicroStrategy 9 puts

even more control in the hands of

business users, thereby minimizing

the need for IT personnel to

perform the same functions.

Business Users Can Rapidly Design Reports Themselves

MicroStrategy 9 introduces major new capabilities for business personnel to create their own ad hoc report designs easily from their

Web browser. Using drag-and-drop actions through the new MicroStrategy 9 Web interface, any business person can assemble

virtually any report by adding attributes and metrics to a simple report template. The newest design features include a simplified

mechanism for browsing the attributes and metric building blocks; drop zones that provide visual cues to users as to where to

drag-and-drop these building blocks; and formatting controls that are familiar to all users’ common office productivity products.

Business people do not need to know any technical details about the data or the underlying databases because MicroStrategy’s

metadata masks the complexities of the data definitions, and the SQL generation engine can resolve even the most technically

complex queries that result from the users’ report designs. With MicroStrategy 9, business users also have the ability to

interactively build graph-style reports with dozens of visualization options. To enhance usability, MicroStrategy 9 includes a

redesigned Web user interface that adopts many familiar Microsoft paradigms, including ribbon toolbars, accordion controls,

control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions.

16

COLUMNS

Drag-and-Drop Run

Format

ROWS

Attribute

Attribute

Attribute

Attribute

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Attribute

Category: Books

Subcategory Metrics

Art & Architecture

PAGE-BY:

$859,358 $201,412

$132,117

$59,491

$87,148

$310,489

$120,039

$589,246

$295,385

$366,250

$1,375,727

$538,269

$4,024,235

$857,945

$457,129

$235,894

$299,102

$1,065,238

$418,230

$3,133,539$890,696

Business

Literature

Books - Miscellaneous

Science & Technology

Sports & Health

Total

Profit CostRevenue

1

2

3

9™ Web

Business people can easily assemble reports from Metadata Building Blocks

Figure 15: The MicroStrategy 9 Web interface lets business users easily create any report by dragging and dropping metadata building blocks (attributes and

metrics) onto a template. Formatting is easy using the intuitive Office-like formatting controls. MicroStrategy’s powerful SQL engine can generate whatever SQL

is necessary to get the data for the users’ new report designs.

Extensive Report Interactivity Lets Business Users See New Combinations of Data and Create New Reports, without

Having to Design Reports

Empowering business people to create their own reports reduces reliance on IT personnel and increases the speed of information

creation. ROLAP enables users to freely investigate the data without ever having to design a report. One of the unique features

of the ROLAP architecture is that it is based on a logical multi-dimensional model of the entire data warehouse (or an entire

collection of databases using the MicroStrategy 9 new Multi-source ROLAP capability). Having a logical multi-dimensional model

lets business people surf throughout the entire data warehouse using the ROLAP “drill anywhere” feature. In fact, by combining

drill anywhere with the other ROLAP features of prompting, pivoting, page-by, filtering, sorting, subtotaling, calculated metrics,

and transformations, business users can completely transform their reports to entirely new report designs, without ever actually

designing a report. These new report designs can be saved and shared with others for future use. MicroStrategy’s security system

ensures that all users only see the data that they are allowed to see, regardless of who saves and shares a new report design.

17

ROLAP Prompting Allows Users to “Land” Somewhere

in the Database

ROLAP Drill Anywhere Allows Users to “Surf” to Entirely New Combinations of Data

Saving New Report Designs Lets All Users Share

New Information

Shared Reports

My ReportsSaving NewReport Designs

SINGLEREPORT

DEFINITION

SINGLEREPORT

DEFINITION

Microstrategy 9 rOlap capability allows users to “surf” Interactively Throughout the entire data Warehouse

Figure 16: Using ROLAP core features

of prompting and drill anywhere,

users can start from a single report

design and create innumerable new

combinations of data simply by

clicking on the report. These new

combinations of data can be saved

as new report designs and shared

with others to be run in the future.

The MicroStrategy 9 security system

ensures that all users only see the

data that they are allowed to see

regardless of who created the report.

MicroStrategy Dynamic Dashboards Let Users Consolidate the Information from Dozens of Individual Reports

MicroStrategy’s Dynamic Dashboards allow business users to consolidate dozens of reports into a single dashboard. Dynamic

Dashboard users can flip through many different views of the information using “selector controls” like drop-down boxes and radio

buttons that are placed directly on the dashboards themselves, so users do not need to learn any commands or menus. By placing

many individual reports on a single dashboard, business people can see much more data than ever before. Instead of opening and

closing dozens of reports sequentially, now business people can see all of the primary and related data in a single view.

Revenue Contribution by Subcategory Detailed Table

$0

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

$700

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Revenue Profit

2006 Monthly Revenue and Profit Trends Detailed Table

Supplier Analysis Graph Summary

Supplier Revenue ProfitProfitMargin

SupplierShare

McGraw HillBantam BooksJohn Wiley & SonsWarner BooksSimon & SchusterScribnerPerigeePrentice HallVintage Books

$1,253 $338 26.98% 19.2%$1,011 $284 28.09% 15.5%

$892 $252 28.25% 13.7%$810 $210 25.93% 12.4%$744 $195 26.21% 11.4%$644 $150 23.29% 9.9%$438 $118 26.94% 6.7%$376 $101 26.86% 5.8%$358 $94 26.26% 5.5%

Subcategory Performance Graph Summary

Subcategory Revenue ProfitProfitMargin

End onhand

Art & ArchitectureBusinessLiteratureBooks -MiscellaneousScience &TechnologySports & Health

Total

$918 $261 28.43% 1,980$1,024 $275 26.86% 2,558

$826 $201 24.33% 3,328

$28 $7 25.00% 284

$439 $120 27.33% 857

$371 $97 26.15% 1,341

$3,606 $961 26.65% 10,348

25.0%

25.1%

20.3%

3.3%

17.2%

9.1%

Art &Architecture

Business

Literature

Books -Miscellaneous

Science &Technology

Sports &

Health

KPIs - 2006 AlertsThis report shows revenue and profit data for a particular product category. It includes subcategory-leveldata as well as supplier data.

Revenue

Profit MarginSell-through

Revenue LY$4,078$5,01526.7%24.3% Alert: Forecasted revenue is $ 4,363 vs. revenue of $4,078 -- 6.5% under forecast.

CATEGORY PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD

Books in Northeast

Select Region NortheastSelect Category Books

Click on any revenue bar to view the Monthly Revenue and Profit Trends for that Subcategory.

A Dozen or More ReportsExecuted Sequentially and Repeatedly by the User

Single Dynamic DashboardSynchronized Views of Data with On-dashboard

Selector Controls

consolidate Information from dozens of Individual reports

Figure 17: MicroStrategy 9 Dynamic Dashboards employ on-screen user controls called selector controls that allow users to interactively flip through many

different views of data all on a single dashboard page. This allows dashboard designers to embed the equivalent of dozens of individual reports within the

screen real estate of a single dashboard.

18

MicroStrategy 9 Multi-layout Dashboards Let Users Combine Multiple Dashboards into a Single Dashboard Book

With MicroStrategy 9, the information density of Dynamic Dashboards has become even greater through a new feature called

“Multi-layout Dashboards.” Multi-layout dashboards allow business users to consolidate multiple dashboards into a single

tabbed dashboard design so that their most-used dashboards can be conveniently assembled into a single dashboard book.

Business people can run their consolidated dashboard books overnight so that all of the data they need for the day is on their

screens waiting for them when they arrive in the morning, or can be e-mailed to them for consumption while they are away

from the office.


$0

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

$700


Revenue Profit




SupplierShare

McGraw Hill

Bantam Books

John Wiley & Sons

Warner Books

Simon & Schuster

Scribner

Perigee

Prentice Hall

Vintage Books

$1,253 $338 26.98% 19.2%

$1,011 $284 28.09% 15.5%

$892 $252 28.25% 13.7%

$810 $210 25.93% 12.4%

$744 $195 26.21% 11.4%

$644 $150 23.29% 9.9%

$438 $118 26.94% 6.7%

$376 $101 26.86% 5.8%

$358 $94 26.26% 5.5%



End onhand

Art & Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports & Health

Total

$918 $261 28.43% 1,980

$1,024 $275 26.86% 2,558

$826 $201 24.33% 3,328

$28 $7 25.00% 284

$439 $120 27.33% 857

$371 $97 26.15% 1,341

$3,606 $961 26.65% 10,348

25.0%

25.1%

20.3%

3.3%

17.2%

9.1%

Art &Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports &

Health


Revenue




Books in Northeast




$0

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

$700


Revenue Profit




SupplierShare

McGraw Hill

Bantam Books

John Wiley & Sons

Warner Books

Simon & Schuster

Scribner

Perigee

Prentice Hall

Vintage Books

$1,253 $338 26.98% 19.2%

$1,011 $284 28.09% 15.5%

$892 $252 28.25% 13.7%

$810 $210 25.93% 12.4%

$744 $195 26.21% 11.4%

$644 $150 23.29% 9.9%

$438 $118 26.94% 6.7%

$376 $101 26.86% 5.8%

$358 $94 26.26% 5.5%



End onhand

Art & Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports & Health

Total

$918 $261 28.43% 1,980

$1,024 $275 26.86% 2,558

$826 $201 24.33% 3,328

$28 $7 25.00% 284

$439 $120 27.33% 857

$371 $97 26.15% 1,341

$3,606 $961 26.65% 10,348

25.0%

25.1%

20.3%

3.3%

17.2%

9.1%

Art &Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports &

Health


Revenue




Books in Northeast



Customer Analysis Customer Segmentation and Profitability Cross-sell Analysis

Quarterly Customer Analysis for Q4 2006Acquisition, Attrition, and Retention

Performance Summary: 3.01% Acquisition Rate, 0.62% Attrition Rate, and 96.99% Retention Rate

Customer Analysis by Age Range and Income Range

Age Range Income Range Revenue $Avg Transaction

Size $Revenue perCustomer $ Profit $

< 21

21-40

41-60

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

$41,183.10 $298.43 $686.39 $2,428.18

$54,498.44 $465.80 $1,028.27 $3,538.64

$23,178.17 $246.58 $551.86 $1,406.37

$51,844.68 $518.45 $1,205.69 $3,091.98

$23,783.53 $247.75 $540.53 $1,479.12

$46,635.75 $376.09 $790.44 $2,960.92

$33,312.13 $350.65 $812.49 $1,717.86

$49,186.10 $341.57 $768.53 $2,762.07

$37,477.31 $312.31 $749.55 $2,324.83

$23,826.98 $187.61 $458.21 $1,375.57

$44,158.71 $304.54 $679.36 $3,219.34

$55,093.39 $326.00 $734.58 $3,345.29

$43,422.04 $269.70 $578.96 $2,455.90

$43,336.86 $390.42 $866.74 $2,736.80

$33,851.87 $266.55 $573.76 $2,136.33

20.6%

22.1%

16.0%

18.4%

23.0%

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

Customer Distribution by Income Range

Document Execution Time: 12/29/2006 9:48:25 AM Document Author: John Smith

NewCustomers

ActiveCustomers

AcquisitionRate

% New toAll New

Oct 2006

Nov 2006

Dec 2006

39 1,299 3.00% 32.23%

42 1,333 3.15% 34.71%

40 1,363 2.93% 33.06%

Lost ActiveCustomers

AttritionRate

% Lost toAll Lost

7 1,299 0.54% 28.00%

8 1,333 0.60% 32.00%

10 1,363 0.73% 40.00%

AttritionAcquisitionRetained

CustomersActive

Customers Retention Rate

1,260 1,299 97.00%

1,291 1,333 96.85%

1,323 1,363 97.07%

Retention

Quarterly Acquisition Trend Quarterly Attrition Trend Quarterly Retention Plan

Customers

Q4 2006Select a Quarter

Quarterly Analysis Year-to-date Analysis

Quarterly Customer Analysis for Q4 2006

Dashboard 1

Dozens of ReportsFrequently Used Together

Dynamic DashboardsConsolidates Dozens of Reports

Multi-layout Dashboard BookConsolidates Multiple Independent Dashboard Designs

Dashboard 2 Dashboard 3

1 2 3

Microstrategy 9 dynamic dashboards can consolidate Many Independent reports and Many dashboards into a single dashboard Book

Figure 18: MicroStrategy’s Dynamic Dashboards can consolidate a dozen or more individual grid and graph reports into a single dashboard where the

various views of data across graphs and grids are synchronized using selector controls placed directly on the dashboards. With MicroStrategy 9, multiple

independent dashboards can be further consolidated into a single dashboard book using the new Multi-layout feature that places each dashboard design on

a single tab of the dashboard book.

19

New Dynamic Dashboard Interactivity Delivers Even More User Self-service

MicroStrategy Dynamic Dashboards already have an immense range of user interactivity provided through the on-dashboard

selector controls. These selector controls are uniquely able to make all of the tables and graphs within the dashboard present

different views of the same data with just a click of the mouse. What is even more noteworthy is that the selector controls do

not require any programming. They are set up with drag-and-drop actions by an end user.

Revenue Profit Profit Margin # Customers Transactions Per Customer

Monthly

$800K

$700K

$600K

$500K

$400K

$300K

$200K

$100K

$0K

$70K

$60K

$50K

$40K

$30K

$20K

$10K

$0K

Audio Equipment

Cameras

Video Equipment

TV’s

Computers

Electronics -MiscellaneousJa

n 07

Feb 07

Mar 07

Apr 07

May 07

Jun 07

Jul 0

7

Aug 07

Sep 07

Oct 07

Nov 07

Dec 07

Quarterly Monthly

Northwest

Northeast

West

Central

Southeast

Mid-Atlantic

South

Southwest

Quarterly

CategoryCountry

Revenue Performance

Monthly Quarterly

Audio EquipmentRevenue

CamerasRevenue

TV’sRevenue

Regional Revenue Performance

PRODUCT PERFORMANCE

Product Revenue

Jan 07

Feb 07

Mar 07

Apr 07

May 07

Jun 07

Jul 0

7

Aug 07

Sep 07

Oct 07

Nov 07

Dec 07

$200K

$160K

$120K

$80K

$40K

$0K

Jan 07

Feb 07

Mar 07

Apr 07

May 07

Jun 07

Jul 0

7

Aug 07

Sep 07

Oct 07

Nov 07

Dec 07

Mid-Atlantic Revenue

USA Electronics

Intuitive selector controls

placed directly on the

dashboard let users flip

through many different

views of the data.

dynamic dashboards contain selector controls that allow users to Flip Through Many different Views of the data

Figure 19: MicroStrategy Dynamic Dashboards support a wide range of selector controls from radio buttons, to check boxes, drop-down boxes, time sliders,

and buttons. All of these selector controls are exposed directly on the dashboards for easy access by users and selector controls are added to dashboards

using just drag-and-drop actions – no programming required.

MicroStrategy 9 Dynamic Dashboards Inherit OLAP Drilling Capability

With MicroStrategy 9, dashboard interactivity becomes even richer. The tables and graphs within Dynamic Dashboards

become immediately and automatically enabled with full OLAP drilling. The OLAP capability means that dashboard users are

no longer constrained to view just the data that has been designed into a dashboard. Instead, they can use OLAP drilling

commands to drill throughout the full depth and breadth of the data warehouse to obtain more detailed information or view

related information. With MicroStrategy dashboards, users have the drilling capability without requiring any extra effort by

dashboard designers.

20


$0

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

$700


Revenue Profit




SupplierShare

McGraw Hill

Bantam Books

John Wiley & Sons

Warner Books

Simon & Schuster

Scribner

Perigee

Prentice Hall

Vintage Books

$1,253 $338 26.98% 19.2%

$1,011 $284 28.09% 15.5%

$892 $252 28.25% 13.7%

$810 $210 25.93% 12.4%

$744 $195 26.21% 11.4%

$644 $150 23.29% 9.9%

$438 $118 26.94% 6.7%

$376 $101 26.86% 5.8%

$358 $94 26.26% 5.5%



End onhand

Art & Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports & Health

Total

$918 $261 28.43% 1,980

$1,024 $275 26.86% 2,558

$826 $201 24.33% 3,328

$28 $7 25.00% 284

$439 $120 27.33% 857

$371 $97 26.15% 1,341

$3,606 $961 26.65% 10,348

25.0%

25.1%

20.3%

3.3%

17.2%

9.1%

Art &Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports &

Health


Revenue




Books in Northeast



Dynamic Dashboards Have Drilling Capability

Microstrategy 9 dynamic dashboards are Fully Interactive Out-of-the-Box, Because They Inherit

rOlap drilling capability

Figure 20: With MicroStrategy 9, all grids and graphs on Dynamic

Dashboards will automatically inherit ROLAP drilling capability that allows

users to interactively investigate data throughout the data warehouse.

MicroStrategy 9 Dynamic Dashboards Can Display Real-time Information Directly from the Internet

With MicroStrategy 9, Dynamic Dashboards have the ability to access and display live content from the Internet. Any Internet

content that is HTTP-accessible can now be displayed and interacted with directly from within a Dynamic Dashboard. This means

that users can see real-time data from the Internet streaming across their dashboards alongside corporate information, thus

providing a one-stop-shop for information.

Internet

Microstrategy 9 dynamic dashboards can access real-time Information Feeds directly from the Internet

Figure 21: With MicroStrategy 9

Dynamic Dashboards, users can

paste any HTTP-accessible Web

content directly into a Dynamic

Dashboard, thus providing real-time

access to Internet-based information

and Internet functionality.

21

““

Business Users Can Create Great-looking Dynamic Dashboards

MicroStrategy Dynamic Dashboards currently boast Pixel Perfect™ design capabilities with desktop publishing quality for perfect

on-screen appearance and perfect printing. With MicroStrategy 9, this powerful design capability has been harnessed and made

accessible to average business users with little or no dashboard layout expertise. MicroStrategy 9 introduces new dashboard

template technology that provides starting points with sophisticated formatting that can make any business user a dashboard

designer. Additionally, MicroStrategy 9 offers a set of on-screen design assistants that help guide user design, including a smart-

placement assistant that automatically sizes and aligns dashboard elements, new visual cues that help users add new analytics,

new data sets, new tabs without going to menus, and a new dashboard map that helps users see all of the items on a dashboard

and switch between them quickly during design.

We were amazed at how much information we could consolidate into one of MicroStrategy’s new dashboards.

Every day, our executives rely on our information dashboards for a snapshot of our business performance.

– Prashanth Narella, Engineering Manager, Data Services, Yahoo! Inc.

Powered by

Year to Date Sales Review

YEAR TO DATE SALES SUMMARY 2007

Revenue by SupplierMonthly Revenue

Revenue by Region

December 31, 2007

Folio BOOKSTORES

McGraw Hill

Bantam Books Simon & Schuster

16.9%$523,765

26.2%$811,991

26.8%$830,585

30.1%$932,859

Prentice Hall

Month

JANFEBMARAPRMAYJUNJULAUGSEPOCTNOVDEC

Revenue

$149,500 $137,200$210,400$244,800$353,500$387,500$125,800$218,700$225,600$256,000$300,100$490,100

Region

Mid-AtlanticSouthwestNortheastSoutheastCentralWestNorthwestSouth

Revenue

$680,700 $545,600$407,800$381,200$301,600$291,300$247,100$243,900

$3,099,200

$3,099,200

TOP SELLING PRODUCTS (ITEM) UNITS SOLD UNIT PRICE REVENUE

100 Places to Go While Still Young at Heart 3,200 $552 $147,200Foundation Analysis and Design 1,400 $810 $113,400Working with Emotional Intelligence 5,600 $228 $106,400

TOTAL 10,200 $1,590 $367,000

JAN

FE

B

MA

R

AP

R

MA

Y

JUN

JUL

AU

G

SE

P

OC

T

NO

V

DE

C

$500,000

$400,000

$300,000

$200,000

$100,000

$0

Mid-Atlantic

Southwest

Northeast

Southeast

Central

West

Northwest

South

$0 $200,000 $400,000 $600,000 $800,000

Supplier Detail Sales Representative Analysis

Dashboard Templates

Blank Dashboard

Four Contents Four Titles and Four Contents

One Content Left Two Contents Right

One Content Top Two Contents Bottom

Three Contents Title and Content

Two Contents Left One Content Right

Two Contents Top One Content Bottom

Two Titles and Two Contents

Title and Four Contents

Title and Two Contents Two Contents

. . . Are Now Easy to Achieve by Business Users Using New Dashboard Templates

Pixel Perfect Desktop PublishingQuality Dashboards . . .

Customer Analysis Customer Segmentation and Profitability Cross-sell Analysis

Quarterly Customer Analysis for Q4 2006Acquisition, Attrition, and Retention

Performance Summary: 3.01% Acquisition Rate, 0.62% Attrition Rate, and 96.99% Retention Rate

Customer Analysis by Age Range and Income Range

Age Range Income Range Revenue $Avg Transaction

Size $Revenue perCustomer $ Profit $

< 21

21-40

41-60

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

$41,183.10 $298.43 $686.39 $2,428.18

$54,498.44 $465.80 $1,028.27 $3,538.64

$23,178.17 $246.58 $551.86 $1,406.37

$51,844.68 $518.45 $1,205.69 $3,091.98

$23,783.53 $247.75 $540.53 $1,479.12

$46,635.75 $376.09 $790.44 $2,960.92

$33,312.13 $350.65 $812.49 $1,717.86

$49,186.10 $341.57 $768.53 $2,762.07

$37,477.31 $312.31 $749.55 $2,324.83

$23,826.98 $187.61 $458.21 $1,375.57

$44,158.71 $304.54 $679.36 $3,219.34

$55,093.39 $326.00 $734.58 $3,345.29

$43,422.04 $269.70 $578.96 $2,455.90

$43,336.86 $390.42 $866.74 $2,736.80

$33,851.87 $266.55 $573.76 $2,136.33

20.6%

22.1%

16.0%

18.4%

23.0%

0 - 20K

20K - 40K

40K - 60K

60K - 80K

> 80K

Customer Distribution by Income Range

Document Execution Time: 12/29/2006 9:48:25 AM Document Author: John Smith

NewCustomers

ActiveCustomers

AcquisitionRate

% New toAll New

Oct 2006

Nov 2006

Dec 2006

39 1,299 3.00% 32.23%

42 1,333 3.15% 34.71%

40 1,363 2.93% 33.06%

Lost ActiveCustomers

AttritionRate

% Lost toAll Lost

7 1,299 0.54% 28.00%

8 1,333 0.60% 32.00%

10 1,363 0.73% 40.00%

AttritionAcquisitionRetained

CustomersActive

Customers Retention Rate

1,260 1,299 97.00%

1,291 1,333 96.85%

1,323 1,363 97.07%

Retention

Quarterly Acquisition Trend Quarterly Attrition Trend Quarterly Retention Plan

Customers

Q4 2006Select a Quarter

Quarterly Analysis Year-to-date Analysis

Human Resources Dashboard - BenefitsLast Updated on 12/31/07

Powered by

Benefit Costs

1/1/2007 $1,600 Vison

1/7/2007 $3,450 401k

1/20/2007 $18,250 Medical

1/31/2007 $7,875 Dental

1/31/2007 $3,000 Dental

2/5/2007 $15,625 Medical

2/1/2007 $1,315 Vision

2/12/2007 $6,010 401k

2/15/2007 $3,550 401k

2/27/2007 $2,370 Vision

2/28/2007 $12,568 Medical

3/1/2007 $5,800 Vision

3/15/2007 $23,000 Medical

3/31/2007 $4,800 401k

3/31/2007 $2,750 Vision

4/5/2007 $1,100 Vision

4/15/2007 $800 Vision

4/19/2007 $6,000 Dental

4/28/2007 $15,230 Medical

4/28/2007 $6,550 Dental

5/1/2007 $3,850 Dental

5/1/2007 $17,275 Medical

5/10/2007 $6,400 401k

5/15/2007 $3,515 401k

5/15/2007 $11,235 Medical

5/15/2007 $2,200 Dental

5/20/2007 $6,500 401k

5/31/2007 $5,300 Medical

6/5/2007 $560 Dental

6/5/2007 $1,420 Vision

6/10/2007 $2,500 Vision

EMPLOYEE CLAIMS Medical Dental Vision Total

Thomas Jones

Dave Moran

Hugo Martinez

Gordan Leigh

Shannon Bryant

Carrie Porter

Mike Douglas

Finance

IT

Marketing

HR

Field Sales

Field Sales

Development

IT

Field Sales

Field Sales

Human Resources

IT

Central Region

Central Region

Central Region

Central Region

Central Region

Central Region

Central Region

10/6/2007

7/14/2007

5/12/2007

7/5/2007

8/24/2007

5/28/2007

6/22/2007

10/23/2007

7/16/2007

5/19/2007

7/14/2007

8/31/2007

6/5/2007

6/28/2007

LEAVE OF ABSENCE

EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION CLAIMS

Personal - Vacation

Personal - Vacation

Personal - Vacation

Personal - Vacation

Personal - Vacation

Personal - Vacation

Personal - Vacation

0 2 4 6 8 10

West

Corporate

Central

East

4 6 8 10

Jan Feb Mar Apr

2006 Actual 2007 Actual 2007 Budget

May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

12

$0M

$5M

$1M

$1.5M

$2M

Departmental Regional

pixel perfect dashboards can Be created by Business users using the new dashboard Templates

Figure 22: MicroStrategy 9 enables business users to create sophisticated dashboard designs easily using the new dashboard template feature and a range of

design assistants that accelerate and simplify the dashboard design process.

MicroStrategy 9 Business Users Can Control Report Distribution and Information Flow

MicroStrategy 9 introduces a new capability called “Distribution Services” that puts control of report distribution directly into

the hands of business users. Users can set up report distributions for themselves or for other users, sending reports via e-mail,

networked printers, or directly to recipients’ computers or servers. Business users are empowered to create and manage their

own information subscriptions, without the intervention of a centralized IT administrator.

22

Send Now On Event

On Schedule On Alert

Sub

scri

be

Self

Sub

scri

be

Oth

ers

E-mail | Printers | Folders

Reports | Dashboards

Enterprise

Department

Workgroup

Microstrategy distribution services enables Business users to set up automated

Information distributions for Themselves and for co-workers

Figure 23: MicroStrategy 9 Distribution Services is a high-volume automated

distribution system for reports and dashboards. It is designed to provide

business users with the ability to subscribe themselves and subscribe others

to receive distributions. Business users can set up their own “personal

alert” conditions that, when met, will trigger distributions to occur.

MicroStrategy 9 Business Users Can Set Up Personal Alert Thresholds to Trigger Report Distributions

The newest report distribution feature in the MicroStrategy 9 platform is the ability of users to set up their own personal

alert triggers. With this feature, business users can establish personal thresholds on metrics on any report or dashboard.

MicroStrategy 9 periodically scans all of its databases checking all personal alert thresholds, and when it detects a personal

threshold has been exceeded, it automatically distributes reports and dashboards according to the user’s desires.

Today, organizations need a business intelligence solution that can support user self-sufficiency and can

respond more quickly and effectively to local business needs. MicroStrategy 9 provides end users with

more control over the analysis and reports they create and helps them to be more self-sufficient, require

far less IT support, and quickly adapt to changing business requirements.

– Wayne Eckerson, Director of TDWI Research, The Data Warehousing Institute

4. suppOrTIng glOBal applIcaTIOns and dIsTrIBuTed OperaTIOns

With large enterprises, it is common to have development teams from North America, Europe, and India working on the same

BI applications. The challenge is supporting this distributed development so that the effort of coordination does not exceed the

benefit of having multiple development teams.

““

23

As companies merge and expand, there is an increased urgency for business intelligence to span all operations, across business

units, across departments, and across the globe. This expansion introduces new requirements on the BI systems to support

global deployments.

MicroStrategy 9 Supports Internationalized Reporting and Dashboards

MicroStrategy 9 offers the ability to present every report, dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business

user viewing the information. This new internationalization capability can support an unlimited number of languages in both

single-byte and double-byte (Asian) alphabets. When a user logs on to MicroStrategy 9, the BI system reads the user’s language

preference from their browser and dynamically renders reports and dashboards in the preferred language. In MicroStrategy 9,

each report and dashboard design is automatically enabled for internationalization without requiring any additional design work

by report authors.

SINGLE

REPORT

DESIGN

Microstrategy 9 supports global BI applications with Full Internationalization

Figure 24: MicroStrategy 9 allows

every report and dashboard to be

rendered in the local language

of each user according to their

preference.

Change Journaling Maintains Consistency When Many Developers Contribute Updates to BI Applications

MicroStrategy 9 offers a range of features to support distributed development teams, including a new Change Journaling

feature. This feature captures all changes to metadata objects and automatically logs those changes into a centralized system

allowing enterprises to monitor the activities of the disparate development teams. The change journaling system allows

developers and teams to communicate with one another about their changes through a persistent commenting capability.

This level of change tracking is also crucially important for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

24

NAMEUSERNAME

TIMESTAMP

OBJECTID

COMMENTSTRANSACTION

TYPETYPE

BI Applications Are Defined in Metadata

The Change Journal Records Every Modification

Change Journal

Multiple Developers Make Application Modifications

Microstrategy 9 change Journaling Feature captures all changes and coordinates Multiple development Teams

Figure 25: The Change Journaling

capability captures all changes

made to the metadata and

is particularly valuable when

there are multiple independent

development teams contributing

to a single common metadata or

BI application.

Metadata Update Packages Support Distributed Development with Multiple Development Environments

MicroStrategy 9 allows multiple and independent development teams to coordinate the inclusion of their new developments

into the global operational BI system. A new feature called “Update Packages” allows each development team to independently

submit updates, additions, and changes to an existing operational system. MicroStrategy’s Object Manager system uses the new

update packages to incrementally install each team’s updates into the test environment while reconciling all overlaps or conflicts

that might arise.

Dev 1US

Dev 2India

TestEnvironment

Synchronize Development Environments

Dev 3China

DataWarehouse

ProductionEnvironment

DistributedDevelopmentEnvironments

Create UpdatePackages

Apply UpdatePackages

Migrate toProduction

Microstrategy 9 update packages enable development across Multiple distributed development environments

Figure 26: The MicroStrategy 9 Update Package feature allows multiple development teams in different locations to each work on a local copy of the

metadata. Periodically they submit their updates to a centralized Test Environment where overlaps are reconciled. A final update package is then sent to the

Production Environment and is also sent back to the development environments to keep them in sync.

25

Complex Statement-type Reports Can Be Maintained by Multiple Development Teams

MicroStrategy 9 offers a major structural enhancement to its Report Services offering that allows enterprises to design and

maintain extremely complex enterprise reports and statements by multiple developers. The primary enhancement is the support

for multi-part document reports, where each part can be independently designed and maintained by different developers

and then seamlessly assembled into a report book or statement document. When exported to PDF for printing or publishing,

MicroStrategy 9 automatically applies consistent pagination across all report parts and automatically creates a table of contents

for the aggregate assembly. Additionally, the formatting of these complex documents has been enhanced through the inclusion

of watermarks, horizontal repeating sections, dynamic images, and conditional formatting.

KPIs - 2006 Alerts


Books in Northeast

KPIs - 2006 Alerts


Books in Northeast

Quarterly Customer Analysis for Q4 2006

Multi-layoutAssembly

Perfect Online

IndependentDashboard Design

Multi-layoutAssembly

Page PerfectOutput

Perfect PDF Print

Watermarks

Monthly Statement

complex Multi-part statement applications can Be Built using new Microstrategy 9 reporting Features

Figure 27: MicroStrategy 9 provides new features designed specifically to meet the needs of complex reporting applications typified by customer

statements. These types of BI applications require multiple developers to design and maintain the reports, and they need Pixel Perfect behavior both

on-screen and in print.

MicroStrategy 9 Supports Distributed Administration

A new administrative capability in MicroStrategy 9 allows the subsetting of administrative duties and the distribution of

administrative responsibilities to business units and departments. This capability will allow central IT groups to relinquish routine

administrative duties, such as user administration, project administration, and user security administration, to individuals within

the departments or business units who can be more responsive to their business user constituencies.

26

Marketing Finance Sales HR

BI Applications


BI Applications

Centralized IT Admin Distributed Departmental Admin

administrative responsibility can Be distributed to departmental Business people

Figure 28: MicroStrategy 9 allows

user and application administration

responsibilities to be distributed to

business people within individual

departments using a Web interface.

This offloads that task from

centralized IT personnel and is

generally more responsive to local

departmental business requests.

MicroStrategy 9 Supports Distributed Governance of Shared Services BI

Increasingly, departments want their own islands of departmental BI because they need the flexibility and speed offered by

smaller systems that are unencumbered by inter-departmental coordination, budgeting allocations, and project prioritization. On

the other hand, CFOs and CIOs want enterprise BI systems because they offer a single version of the truth and the lowest cost of

ownership. With MicroStrategy 9, companies can now have both. MicroStrategy’s security architecture, metadata architecture,

and administrative system support the simultaneous environment of centralized / common metadata foundations on which each

department can autonomously create their own metadata extensions and BI applications.

Enterprise DataWarehouse


EnterpriseBI Applications

Centralized Governance Committee


Departmental Governance

Enterprise DataWarehouse Departmental

Databases

EnterpriseBI Applications

Dept BI Apps

Dept BI Apps

Dept BI Apps

Dept BI Apps

Microstrategy 9 supports distributed governance Operational Models

Figure 29: MicroStrategy 9 is

designed to support distributed

governance models of operation

where departments retain

autonomous control over their

piece of the overall BI system. This

gives departments the ability to

have their own databases, their

own BI applications, and their

own metadata within the same

infrastructure as the enterprise

BI applications and metadata.

This provides departments with

enterprise-caliber BI technology,

but also the nimbleness that comes

from autonomous control.

27

The improved administrative features in MicroStrategy 9 should allow us to reduce significantly the time it

takes to move deliverables from one environment into another. This will help us to improve even further

our total cost of ownership and speed our delivery efforts.

– David Egan, Senior Group Manager, Idearc Media

IV. MicroStrategy 9 Enables Departmental BI

MicroStrategy 9 is designed specifically to bring MicroStrategy’s enterprise-caliber technology to within easy reach of smaller

departmental BI applications.

MicroStrategy 9 enables departmental BI by:

1. Providing easy access to multiple data sources without requiring a data warehouse

2. Delivering departmental BI quickly, with little or no support

3. Providing all of the technology needed for departmental BI out-of-the-box

1. MIcrOsTraTegy prOVIdes easy access TO MulTIple daTa sOurces WIThOuT requIrIng a daTa WarehOuse

The biggest difference between a departmental BI system and an enterprise BI system is the lack of IT resources. Departments

generally do not have the IT personnel or the IT infrastructure of servers and databases to implement a fully configured BI system.

Fortunately, most departmental BI applications do not need the full power of a properly engineered enterprise system. They do

not need full ETL control, nor do they need a high-performance, high-capacity database system. What they really need is a BI

technology that lets them access all of the data and get their BI system running quickly without significant technical expertise or

infrastructure. MicroStrategy 9 now brings enterprise-caliber BI capabilities within easy reach of departmental BI application needs.

Enterprise BI Configuration Departmental BI Configuration

Operational Databases Operational Databases

BI Architects

Report Designer

DBAs

ETL Engineers

BI Platform

Reporting Database

ETL

BI Architect

Report Designer

Departmental

BI Solution includes:

departmental BI systems require less data engineering than enterprise BI systems

Figure 30: Departmental BI systems

lack the breadth of IT resources

that enterprise BI systems enjoy,

so departmental BI technology

must be able to access operational

databases directly and provide all of

the necessary technical components

out-of-the-box.

““

28

MicroStrategy 9 Introduces New Multi-source ROLAP Capability

As part of the MicroStrategy 9 release, MicroStrategy has added a new “multi-source engine” into its ROLAP architecture

that extends MicroStrategy’s metadata model to be able to span multiple database sources, including data warehouses, data

marts, operational databases, and departmental databases. Previously, MicroStrategy’s ROLAP engine provided a unified multi-

dimensional model for just a single relational database.

Within MicroStrategy’s metadata model, each instance of data is modeled only once, regardless of whether it exists in one

or many separate databases. When that data item is required for a report, MicroStrategy’s new Multi-source ROLAP engine

automatically chooses which data source can best deliver the data for each and every pass of SQL.


9™

Multi-source ROLAP

M u l t i - s o u r c e E n g i n eR O L A P S Q L E n g i n e

Multi-dimensionalBusiness Model

Multi-dimensionalBusiness Model

Using the Multi-source Engine,

Multiple Databases are

Modeled as a Unified

Multi-dimensional Source

9™

ROLAP

Microstrategy 9 Multi-source rOlap Models Multiple databases as if They were a single database

Figure 31: MicroStrategy’s new Multi-source ROLAP capability allows the MicroStrategy metadata to span many databases and treat that collection of

databases as if it were one large logical database. The MicroStrategy multi-source engine examines every data request and determines the optimum

database from which to retrieve the data for every pass of SQL.

Multi-source ROLAP is a Seamless Extension of the ROLAP Architecture

The new multi-source capability is a seamless extension to MicroStrategy’s ROLAP architecture and its use is completely

transparent to both end users and to report designers. Multi-source ROLAP can support the same user interaction with reports,

dashboards, and OLAP grids that single-source ROLAP provides, and it does so without a user being aware that data is coming

from multiple sources. Designers can create reports and dashboards without any knowledge of where the data might come

from. In fact, one query might create individual passes of SQL that source data from multiple different database technologies.

Multi-source ROLAP allows companies to easily incorporate data from multiple databases into a single report, increasing the

richness and relevance of any report or dashboard. Even more striking is the fact that the multi-dimensional nature of multi-

source ROLAP allows users to seamlessly drill across and throughout multiple databases, allowing them to easily investigate any

information they need, regardless of where it is housed. Unlike other BI technologies, MicroStrategy architecture uses a single

unified metadata model for all styles of BI which ensures that all reports, dashboards, and OLAP sessions are entirely consistent

with one another, promoting a single version of the truth across the enterprise.

29



Drilling Anywhere Across the Data Warehouse

Drilling Anywhere Across Multiple Databases

9™9™

ROLAP Multi-source ROLAP

M u l t i - s o u r c e E n g i n e

Multi-source rOlap allows users to seamlessly Traverse Multiple databases


Multi-source ROLAP is completely

transparent to users and developers.

Users have the same interactive

access to data and drilling across

multiples sources as they do when

accessing and drilling within a single

database. Moreover, Multi-source

ROLAP is completely transparent

to report designers. When users

drag attributes and metrics onto a

report, they cannot tell from which

database those attributes and

metrics will be sourced.

MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP is Engineered for High Performance

MicroStrategy’s new multi-source capability is engineered with a unique and powerful characteristic that sets it apart from other

technologies and allows it to operate at the highest possible performance levels. MicroStrategy 9 Multi-source ROLAP employs a

“push-down architecture” for joining data across multiple database servers. Unlike other BI technologies, which join data from

multiple databases by first moving large data sets into the middle-tier BI server and conducting the joining and filtering there,

MicroStrategy 9 uses the database engines themselves to execute joins and filtering. This push-down architecture moves the least

amount of data, conducts the most data-intensive tasks (joining and filtering) close to the data source, and takes advantage of

decades of research by the database vendors to optimize these tasks.

With MicroStrategy’s sophisticated multi-source multi-pass SQL, data is accessed and filtered in each pass of SQL and then moves

only the result sets from one database to another database and instructs the target database to execute the join. The target

database is automatically chosen by the Multi-source ROLAP engine based on which location will deliver the best performance.

MicroStrategyBI Server

Multi-passSQL

Multi-source ROLAPPush-down Joining Uses the DBMS Engine

Other BI Technologies(Business Objects, Cognos, Oracle)

SQL SQL

BasicBI Server

Microstrategy Multi-source rOlap uses a unique high performance push-down architecture to Join data using the database engines

Figure 33: MicroStrategy’s Multi-

source ROLAP joins data using

the database engines, rather than

transferring all of the data into the

middle-tier BI server as with other

BI technologies. This is called push-

down joining and it requires very

sophisticated SQL generation that

is only possible with true ROLAP

engines. Push-down joining delivers

high performance because it moves

the least amount of data and

utilizes the tremendous power of

the modern database engines.

30

MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP Can Improve Operation of Enterprise BI Environments

While Multi-source ROLAP has special relevance to departmental BI needs, it is also highly valuable for enterprise BI environments,

too. Multi-source ROLAP can be used to implement a hub and spoke database architecture. In this scenario, the multi-source

engine models the hub (data warehouse) and spokes (subject area data marts) as one large logical database, but intelligently directs

queries to the lower cost and high performing data marts whenever it can. It only directs queries to the data warehouse when they

cannot be satisfied by the data marts. Similarly, Multi-source ROLAP can be used to balance the workload between a high capacity /

high cost database appliance and lower cost general purpose databases. In this scenario, data engineers can spread simpler queries

like lookups and aggregations to lower cost database engines, preserving the larger database engines for more complex queries

that need its power.

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

MarketingData Mart

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

MfgData Mart

EnterpriseData Whse

SalesData Mart

FinancialData Mart

Lookups, Aggregates,Summary Data

Enterprise Data Warehouse

Supporting Hub and Spoke Data Architectures Balance the Workload Across Databases

SQLServer

Teradata

MySQL

DB2SQL

Server

Netezza

SybaseIQ

Microstrategy 9 Multi-source rOlap allows data environments to be Optimized for performance and cost

Figure 34: Multi-source ROLAP is useful even for enterprise BI implementations where data engineers want to distribute data across a range of database

servers to optimally match database power with data workload. MicroStrategy’s Multi-source ROLAP engine automatically selects the best database for each

query when the data is accessible from more than one source. This helps free up capacity on expensive, high capacity database servers.

2. MIcrOsTraTegy can delIVer deparTMenTal BI sOluTIOns quIckly, WITh lITTle Or nO IT suppOrT

The biggest hurdle in any BI system is setting up the data warehouse or data mart. It is widely understood that this difficult step

is necessary for enterprise-scale BI systems. However, departmental BI needs are smaller and often do not require such extensive

data engineering to satisfy requirements. For these departmental BI systems, MicroStrategy 9 offers two solutions based on the

new Multi-source ROLAP and In-memory ROLAP extensions to the MicroStrategy architecture.

Multi-source ROLAP Offers a Powerful and Simple Solution for Departmental BI

With MicroStrategy 9, organizations can access and combine data from databases and Excel spreadsheets using Multi-source

ROLAP. Multi-source ROLAP eliminates the requirement to move data from multiple source databases into a purpose-built data

warehouse or data mart. Instead, Multi-source ROLAP allows companies to access the data directly from where it resides, with

no special data engineering or data movement, which radically reduces the time to set up the BI environment and lowers the

technical expertise required.

31

In-memory ROLAP Cubes Can Serve as Decision Support Databases for Departmental BI

In-memory ROLAP offers an additional solution for departmental BI when the BI system is not permitted to interactively access

the source databases or when the data source is Excel. In these cases, In-memory ROLAP Cubes can serve as the interactive

database for reporting, dashboards, and OLAP analyses. Building In-memory databases does not require special set up or data

modeling. MicroStrategy 9 automatically designs and configures the in-memory database based on the relationships between

the attributes and metrics specified by the business user. The in-memory database technology operates in the computer

server’s main memory for high-speed performance, but is also stored on disk for greater permanence and offers the ability to

swap in and out of memory based on usage.

Enterprise BIFully Engineered Configuration

Requires: BI ExpertiseDatabase ExpertiseETL Expertise

Requires: BI Expertise

Departmental BIRapid Deployment Configurations

Operational Databases

BI Platform

ETL

ReportingDatabase

M u l t i - s o u r c e

Interactive Accessto Databases


Using Multi-source ROLAP Using In-memory ROLAP



In-memoryROLAP CubeDatabases

Load Data

BI Platform

Microstrategy 9 can provide departmental BI quickly and Without the need for separate eTl and database Technology

Figure 35: MicroStrategy’s Multi-source ROLAP and In-memory ROLAP provide critical components to support the need for fast and simple departmental BI

solutions that require little or no IT support. Using just Multi-source ROLAP, businesses can set up the simplest BI environment where the BI system directly

accesses the operational databases. Adding In-memory ROLAP lets businesses create simple in-memory databases to be used for decision support queries.

Basic scheduled queries can be used to periodically load the cube databases with the latest operational data.

MicroStrategy 9 Supports the Rapid Creation of Departmental BI Systems

There are five steps for rapidly creating a departmental BI system with MicroStrategy 9, starting with software installation and

finishing with report and dashboard design.

32

M u l t i - s o u r c e M u l t i - s o u r c e M u l t i - s o u r c e

Connect to DBs (Multi-source ROLAP)

Create Metadata (Graphical Architect)

Create Databases(In-memory ROLAP)

Schedule ETL (Query Scheduler)

1 2 3 4


Query Scheduler

Create Reports &Dashboards

(Web Professional)

5


Query Scheduler

using Microstrategy 9, the Five steps to Implement a departmental BI system can Be accomplished within a day

Figure 36: With MicroStrategy 9, companies can quickly create a departmental BI system. The first step is to install the software and connect to the source

databases. MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP can integrate the data from multiple sources, including Excel. The second step is to create the metadata abstraction

of the databases using MicroStrategy’s Graphical Architect. The third step is to create the decision support databases using MicroStrategy’s In-memory ROLAP

feature. The fourth step is to populate the in-memory databases and to schedule future updates using MicroStrategy’s Query Scheduler. The fifth and final step

is to begin creating the reports and dashboards. Business users can create their own reports and dashboards using MicroStrategy’s Web Professional product.

1. Install Software and Connect to Databases The first step is to install the MicroStrategy software on a laptop or desktop computer. MicroStrategy can run on a wide range

of computers, including Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux, Suse Linux, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, and HP-UX. The MicroStrategy 9

installation wizard makes installation easy. Once installed, standard MicroStrategy software can connect to a single database, or

Multi-source ROLAP can be used to connect to multiple databases.


9™

Installation9™

Installation Wizard

Software&

Hardware

MicroStrategy 9Software

WindowsLINUX

AIXHP-UX

SOLARIS

1 2 3 4

step 1: Install Microstrategy 9 and connect to the databases using Microstrategy Multi-source

rOlap capability

Figure 37: MicroStrategy’s installation wizard takes the user through

a guided process to install all of the necessary MicroStrategy software

components. MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP allows the user to

connect to multiple databases, including Excel.

33

M u l t i - s o u r c e M u l t i - s o u r c e M u l t i - s o u r c e

Connect to DBs (Multi-source ROLAP)

Create Metadata (Graphical Architect)

Create Databases(In-memory ROLAP)

Schedule ETL (Query Scheduler)

1 2 3 4


Query Scheduler

Create Reports &Dashboards

(Web Professional)

5


Query Scheduler

using Microstrategy 9, the Five steps to Implement a departmental BI system can Be accomplished within a day

Figure 36: With MicroStrategy 9, companies can quickly create a departmental BI system. The first step is to install the software and connect to the source

databases. MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP can integrate the data from multiple sources, including Excel. The second step is to create the metadata abstraction

of the databases using MicroStrategy’s Graphical Architect. The third step is to create the decision support databases using MicroStrategy’s In-memory ROLAP

feature. The fourth step is to populate the in-memory databases and to schedule future updates using MicroStrategy’s Query Scheduler. The fifth and final step

is to begin creating the reports and dashboards. Business users can create their own reports and dashboards using MicroStrategy’s Web Professional product.

1. Install Software and Connect to Databases The first step is to install the MicroStrategy software on a laptop or desktop computer. MicroStrategy can run on a wide range

of computers, including Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux, Suse Linux, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, and HP-UX. The MicroStrategy 9

installation wizard makes installation easy. Once installed, standard MicroStrategy software can connect to a single database, or

Multi-source ROLAP can be used to connect to multiple databases.


9™

Installation9™

Installation Wizard

Software&

Hardware

MicroStrategy 9Software

WindowsLINUX

AIXHP-UX

SOLARIS

1 2 3 4

step 1: Install Microstrategy 9 and connect to the databases using Microstrategy Multi-source

rOlap capability

Figure 37: MicroStrategy’s installation wizard takes the user through

a guided process to install all of the necessary MicroStrategy software

components. MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP allows the user to

connect to multiple databases, including Excel.

2. Rapidly Create the Metadata MicroStrategy 9 offers multiple features that enable the rapid creation of BI metadata. MicroStrategy’s new “Graphical Architect”

makes it possible for non-IT people to select one or more source databases, identify the tables and columns desired, load

them into the BI system, and transform them into business-oriented definitions that business people can understand and use

to assemble into reports and dashboards. Graphical Architect also includes a series of smart assistants to help streamline the

process, including auto-recognizing attributes and metrics and auto-recognizing the same data in multiple databases.

9™

Graphical Architect

Select Tables

DefineAttributes


M e t a d a t a


DefineHierarchies

DefineMetrics

step 2: create the Business Model (Metadata) using graphical architect

Figure 38: The next step is to create the multi-dimensional business model

(metadata) based on the rows and columns presented by the databases.

MicroStrategy’s Graphical Architect provides a simple palette for identifying

which tables and columns from the various databases are to be used and

describes the relationships between the columns. At the end of the

process, the user has a list of attributes and metrics objects that can be

dragged-and-dropped onto reports or dashboards.

3. Design the Databases Using In-memory ROLAP Cubes MicroStrategy’s new In-memory ROLAP Cubes can serve as databases to store the data that will be queried by reports and

dashboards. Designing In-memory ROLAP Cubes is simple. It follows the same familiar paradigm as creating reports. Users simply

drag combinations of attributes and metrics metadata objects onto a cube template, and the system will do the rest. Unlike

relational database design that requires many steps in table definitions, indices, keys, and data types, in-memory database design

is no more complicated than report design.

COLUMNS

DATAROWS

Attribute

Attribute

Attribute

Attribute

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Attribute

In-memory ROLAP

Report Design = Database Design

step 3: design the databases using In-memory rOlap cubes

Figure 39: Designing In-memory ROLAP Cubes is no more complicated than

designing reports. Users simply drag-and-drop whatever combinations of

attributes and metrics they want onto a cube design template and then

save the result. There are no tables to define, keys to specify, or data types

to define. The MicroStrategy software takes care of everything needed to

create the cube database, based only on the attributes and metrics that

users want to include in their reporting.

34

4. Schedule Simplified Extract and Load Capability MicroStrategy 9 supports a simplified extract and load capability to periodically repopulate the in-memory databases with the latest

information from the source databases. Using MicroStrategy’s out-of-the-box query engines and scheduling systems, departments

can schedule data extractions from relational databases, Excel workbooks, flat files, and multi-dimensional databases, including

Microsoft Analysis Services and Hyperion/Oracle Essbase. When combined with the MicroStrategy 9 Multi-source ROLAP capability,

the query system can even join data across multiple relational databases and Excel to populate the in-memory database.

9™

Intelligence Server Scheduler


Query Scheduler

Pick Schedule

Every Day at 2am

Every Saturday at 2am

Every Sunday at 2am

Every Monday at 2am

Every Tuesday at 2am

Every Wednesday at 2am

Every Thursday at 2am

Every Friday at 2am

step 4: schedule simplified extract and load capability using Microstrategy query scheduler

Figure 40: MicroStrategy’s native scheduling system is all that is needed

to periodically repopulate the ROLAP Cubes with fresh data from the

source databases.

5. Design Reports and Dashboards MicroStrategy’s Web Professional interface is all that is needed by business users to create grid and graph style reports. Users

simply drag attributes and metric objects onto a grid or graph template from the library of metadata objects previously modeled.

Users can add their own formatting to the report using Office-like formatting toolbars, or they can apply any one of a dozen

different autostyles to rapidly format a report. Once reports are created and saved, they can be run immediately by any user.

The reports are also automatically enabled with full OLAP interactivity capability, so users can pivot, sort, filter, and drill on every

report, and they require no extra work by the report creator.

COLUMNS

Drag-and-Drop Run

Format

ROWS

Attribute

Attribute

Attribute

Attribute

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Attribute Category: Books

Subcategory Metrics

Art & Architecture

PAGE-BY:

$859,358 $201,412

$132,117

$59,491

$87,148

$310,489

$120,039

$589,246

$295,385

$366,250

$1,375,727

$538,269

$4,024,235

$857,945

$457,129

$235,894

$299,102

$1,065,238

$418,230

$3,133,539$890,696

Business

Literature

Books - Miscellaneous

Science & Technology

Sports & Health

Total

Profit CostRevenue

1

2

3

9™ Web

step 5 – part 1: Build reports using Microstrategy Web professional

Figure 41: Users can design reports in MicroStrategy 9 using the simple Web Professional interface or the more feature-rich Desktop Designer interface.

In either interface, the act of creating a report is the same – simply drag-and-drop attributes and metrics onto a blank report template, then format the

template and run the report.

35

Once several grid or graph reports are created, users can use them as the building blocks for designing MicroStrategy Dynamic

Dashboards. Dashboard design has been dramatically simplified in MicroStrategy 9 with the addition of pre-packaged dashboard

templates and smart-design assistants that help automatically align and size dashboard components. As with grid reports, once

a dashboard is created and saved, it is immediately available for other people to run. Also, dashboards are automatically enabled

with full interactivity whenever they are run. This gives users the ability to perform OLAP operations on grids and graphs like

drilling for greater detail. All of this interactivity is automatic so no extra work is needed by dashboard designers to program it

into their dashboard designs.

Tab 1 Tab 2Attribute

Attribute

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Attribute


$0

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

$700


Revenue Profit




SupplierShare

McGraw Hill

Bantam Books

John Wiley & Sons

Warner Books

Simon & Schuster

Scribner

Perigee

Prentice Hall

Vintage Books

$1,253 $338 26.98% 19.2%

$1,011 $284 28.09% 15.5%

$892 $252 28.25% 13.7%

$810 $210 25.93% 12.4%

$744 $195 26.21% 11.4%

$644 $150 23.29% 9.9%

$438 $118 26.94% 6.7%

$376 $101 26.86% 5.8%

$358 $94 26.26% 5.5%



End onhand

Art & Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports & Health

Total

$918 $261 28.43% 1,980

$1,024 $275 26.86% 2,558

$826 $201 24.33% 3,328

$28 $7 25.00% 284

$439 $120 27.33% 857

$371 $97 26.15% 1,341

$3,606 $961 26.65% 10,348

25.0%

25.1%

20.3%

3.3%

17.2%

9.1%

Art &Architecture

Business

Literature


Science &Technology

Sports &

Health


Revenue




Books in Northeast



Attribute

Attribute

Metric

Metric

Metric

Metric

Attribute

Blank

MicroStrategyTemplate

CorporateTemplate(Custom)

ImportedDashboard

Design

Title

Grid

Advanced Visualization

Graph

1 2 3 4Pick a Templateto Start

Select SomeReports for Data Sets

Lay Out the Dashboard& Format as Desired

Done

step 5 – part 2: design dashboards using Microstrategy Web professional and new dashboard Templates

Figure 42: The MicroStrategy Report Services component handles both dashboards and enterprise report designs. MicroStrategy 9 dashboards now include

new capabilities to create dashboards more quickly and easily than ever before. Using new dashboard templates, business users are guided through a

process of populating and formatting their dashboards without programming or specialized skills.

36

3. MIcrOsTraTegy 9 cOnTaIns all OF The TechnOlOgy needed FOr deparTMenTal BI, OuT-OF-The-BOX

MicroStrategy 9 includes the complete set of technology and tools needed to implement a departmental BI system. With one

software installation, companies can get all of the products, tools, and interfaces necessary to deploy a fully functional, multi-

layered BI system that can potentially scale up to any size. MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP provides a seamless database

connection layer that allows data to be extracted from multiple databases, including Excel. MicroStrategy’s Architect tool can

create metadata models for all data, while MicroStrategy’s Designer tool lets users create all of the business-oriented metadata.

MicroStrategy’s Intelligence Server houses the metadata and the SQL engine that taps into the databases. MicroStrategy’s In-

memory ROLAP technology allows companies to set up high-performance mid-tier databases. MicroStrategy’s Desktop and Web

products let users design reports and graphs, while MicroStrategy Report Services allows users to create dashboards and Pixel

Perfect reports. The MicroStrategy Web interface gives users with any Web browser the ability to run and interact with reports

and dashboards. And finally, MicroStrategy Distribution Services lets companies distribute reports on a mass basis.

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Microstrategy 9 contains all of the Technology needed for departmental BI, Out-of-the-Box

Figure 43: With MicroStrategy 9, departments have all the technology they need to implement a comprehensive BI system out-of-the-box. MicroStrategy

9 technology covers all layers of a complete BI system, including the data access layer, metadata layer, database layer, reporting layer, dashboard layer, user

layer, and distribution layer.

V. MicroStrategy 9 Supports the Seamless Migration from Departmental to Enterprise BI

Almost all organizations have a mix of independent BI systems, and face the problem of having multiple versions of the truth

across these BI islands that can undermine the credibility of their BI systems. The solution is to consolidate the islands of BI

into a more cohesive, enterprise-wide BI system gradually and incrementally. MicroStrategy 9 was designed specifically to

enable a seamless and incremental consolidation of independent islands of MicroStrategy BI into a larger, more expansive

enterprise BI system. MicroStrategy 9 supports a three-stage process of consolidation.

37

Enterprise DW

HR Dept Sales Dept

HR Sales

Enterprise

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Fin

HR Dept Sales Dept

Enterprise HR Sales

Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept

Enterprise DWEnterprise DW

HR Dept Sales DeptFinance Dept

Fin

Finance DeptFinance Dept

Fin

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Enterprise

Stage 1Disparate Islands of BI

All Running on MicroStrategy BI

Stage 2Merging Islands of BI

Using MicroStrategy Multi-source

Stage 3Consolidating Data

Re-pointing Metadata to the EDW

HR Sales

Microstrategy 9 supports a gradual and Incremental Migration from Islands of BI into a consolidated enterprise BI system

Figure 44: With MicroStrategy 9, companies can follow a three-stage process for consolidating islands of BI gradually into a cohesive enterprise BI

architecture. The first stage requires that all islands of BI are built using MicroStrategy BI technology so that there is metadata compatibility for future

consolidation. The second stage is to consolidate metadata for departmental islands into the enterprise system. Using Multi-source ROLAP, this stage can be

done without any disruption to users or their reports. The final stage is to consolidate the data from disparate databases into the enterprise data warehouse

and re-point the metadata to the new data source.

sTage 1: supporting disparate Islands of BI with a single BI Technology The core of MicroStrategy’s ability to consolidate islands of BI is to use MicroStrategy BI technology at all levels of the

organization. This creates a foundation of common technology for metadata and report designs that is critical to the seamless

merger of metadata and report designs at some point in the future.

sTage 2: consolidating BI Metadata using Multi-source rOlap Using Multi-source ROLAP, metadata and reports from departmental BI islands can be consolidated into enterprise BI servers,

while still providing access to the original data source. This first step is simple because it does not require the movement of

data from departmental data sources to an enterprise data warehouse, but it starts the process of consolidating BI servers and

metadata. The multi-source capability allows the previously-distinct metadata definitions to be merged gradually into a single

cohesive metadata.

sTage 3: consolidating data using Microstrategy graphical architect MicroStrategy Graphical Architect allows companies to take the third major step in consolidating islands of BI by supporting

the transparent movement of data from the disparate databases into fewer higher-performance data warehouses and data

marts. Graphical Architect allows companies to “re-point” the metadata to access the data at its new location, and all of the

reports, dashboards, and OLAP analyses automatically will begin using the new data location, with no disruption to reports or

redesign required.

38

Organizations need to gradually and incrementally consolidate their departmental islands of BI into

a cohesive enterprise framework that ensures a single version of the truth and low cost of operation.

MicroStrategy is directly addressing this challenge with MicroStrategy 9, which contains an In-memory

BI and Multi-source BI capability that will make MicroStrategy’s enterprise-caliber technology suitable

for departmental BI. MicroStrategy’s new platform includes capabilities that allow consolidation

and transformation of departmental islands of BI without having to redo reports or dashboards as

consolidation takes place.

– Mark Smith, CEO & EVP Research, Ventana Research

MicroStrategy 9 is breakthrough BI technology that builds on MicroStrategy’s unique strength at the high-end of BI to extend the

boundaries of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 offers these same enterprise-caliber capabilities to departmental

BI initiatives by offering rapid, out-of-the-box solutions for smaller-scale BI requirements. Most importantly, MicroStrategy 9

provides new and uniquely powerful capabilities to help organizations gradually consolidate their islands of BI into more cohesive

enterprise consolidations.

““

Extends the Performance, Scalability, and Efficiency of Enterprise BI

Enables Rapid Deployment of Departmental BI Applications

Provides a Smooth Migration from Islands of Departmental BI into a Cohesive Enterprise Framework

MicroStrategy 9 is breakthrough technology that allows companies to support all levels of BI initiatives, and helps companies to consolidate islands of BI gradually into a cohesive enterprise BI framework.

39

VI. MicroStrategy 9: 50+ Technological Breakthroughs

MicroStrategy 9 features over 8,000 new enhancements that build upon the already world-class architecture and

usability of the platform. The MicroStrategy 9 platform consists of the following products:

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server™An industrial-strength analytical server optimized for enterprise querying, reporting, and OLAP

analysis

MicroStrategy Report Services™

An extension to MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, MicroStrategy’s enterprise reporting engine

delivers the full range of report formats, including scorecards and dashboards, financial reports,

customer invoices and statements, and highly detailed operational reports

MicroStrategy OLAP Services™An extension to MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, OLAP Services enables MicroStrategy Web,

Office, and Desktop users to perform intuitive OLAP analysis with Intelligent Cubes

MicroStrategy Distribution Services™An extension to MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, Distribution Services enables high volume,

managed report distribution through e-mail, printers, and file systems on a scheduled basis

MicroStrategy MultiSource Option™

An extension to MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, MultiSource Option enables users to

seamlessly report, analyze, and monitor data across multiple data sources through a single

business model

MicroStrategy Web™An interactive environment for reporting and analysis through an all-HTML and zero-footprint

Web client

MicroStrategy Office™ Delivers the full power and sophistication of the MicroStrategy industrial-strength business

intelligence platform to the Microsoft Office Productivity suite

MicroStrategy Mobile™ An interactive user interface for monitoring, reporting, and analysis for BlackBerry devices

MicroStrategy Desktop™Provides an integrated development, administration, and run-time business intelligence

environment on the personal computing desktop

MicroStrategy Architect™A rapid development tool that maps the physical structure of the data warehouse into a logical

business model

MicroStrategy Object Manager™Manages business intelligence applications between development, testing, and production

systems

MicroStrategy Command Manager™Enables the creation and execution of text-based commands from a command line and a

graphical interface

MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager™A monitoring tool that provides usage and resource information about the business

intelligence environment

MicroStrategy Integrity Manager™A report comparison tool that provides automated information integrity assurance and

regression analysis

MicroStrategy SDK™Exposes the functionality of the MicroStrategy architecture via an open API for customization

of the Web interface and integration with third-party applications

MicroStrategy Clustering Option™An extension to MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, Clustering Option adds load-balancing and

fault-tolerance to mission-critical MicroStrategy BI implementations

40

The following list contains 50+ technological breakthroughs, which is a small cross-section of the over 8,000

enhancements available in MicroStrategy 9. These features are each specifically designed to support all levels of BI.

MaJOr archITecTural changes and neW prOducTs In MIcrOsTraTegy 9:

1. Microstrategy Multisource Option – With MultiSource Option, business users can surf-and-save across multiple

databases and seamlessly access data from any source. Completely transparent to both end users and report designers,

MultiSource Option enables a unified model of an organization’s data that spans the many individual data warehouses,

marts, and departmental databases within the BI environment. Any user can create and analyze reports and dashboards

that contain data from any and all sources in the enterprise.

2. Microstrategy Olap services and In-Memory capabilities – MicroStrategy OLAP Services provides the enhanced

Intelligent Cube™, a dynamic in-memory cache that leverages the strength of the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server

Security and Personalization Engines, and provides analytical flexibility by leveraging the MicroStrategy Intelligence

Server Analytical Engine. Users can analyze the full depth and breadth of their data warehouse with OLAP Services,

since no limits are set on data scalability, analytical scope, or drill-through capability. In-memory operation delivers faster

overall performance, improves performance for the most time-consuming queries (from hours to seconds), and shifts

the load onto the database, freeing up database capacity.

3. Microstrategy distribution services – Distribution Services provides high-volume, automated distribution of reports,

documents, dashboards, and business performance alerts via e-mail, file servers, and networked printers. Distribution

Services enables greater user self-service for all report distribution and business monitoring needs, reducing reliance on IT.

MOre BI / less IT eFFOrT: enhanced WeB InTeracTIVITy

4. More user-friendly Web Interface – A re-designed Web user interface that leverages many familiar, user-friendly

paradigms, including folder-tree navigation, ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, control-click multi-select capabilities,

and context-sensitive right-click actions.

5. prompt and Filter creation – Create stand-alone, reusable prompt and filter objects directly from Web, using

intuitive interfaces.

6. Multi-select Filtering and drilling – Select individual rows and columns on a grid to quickly and easily format, drill,

pivot, and perform other tasks on-the-fly.

7. Threshold creation – Quickly apply predefined thresholds, such as the top 5% performing products, or define your

own detailed thresholds and conditional formatting using new editors.

8. Flash content in dhTMl – Display and interact with Flash content, such as widgets or flash-enabled selectors, in

Interactive, View, or Flash modes.

9. Full Function library – Instantly create complex derived metrics using the Function Wizard, which includes a

documented library of functions available for any calculation imaginable.

10. complete subtotal control – Calculate the exact subtotals you need for reports using an improved Subtotal Editor

that enables the definition of more advanced subtotals.

11. link editor – Easily define connections between one report or document and another report or document while

passing parameters to answer any prompts in the target object.

12. 64-bit Web server support – Maintain far more concurrent user sessions and run much larger reports, all within the

same server. This is achieved via full support for 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well

as ASP.net Web Servers. The expanded memory available in 64-bit JVMs allows for optimal Web performance across

the enterprise.

41

13. extreme aJaX code structures – Leverage a re-engineered Web server that adheres to an “Extreme AJAX” model,

delivering a much more responsive, interactive Web experience for business users. In Extreme AJAX, processing is

shifted from the Web server to the Web browser, freeing up Web servers so they can support additional user sessions.

With Extreme AJAX, MicroStrategy Web supports more users with faster performance using the same Web servers,

resulting in a lower cost of departmental and enterprise BI.

MOre BI / less IT eFFOrT: enhanced dashBOard and enTerprIse repOrTIng

14. Out-of-the-Box statement printing – New Report Services features allow business users to develop complex

enterprise reporting and customer statements, without programming, through flexible, automatic formatting features,

such as horizontal repeating sections, dynamically-selected images, vertical text layout, multi-layout reports, automatic

table of contents generation, automatic pagination, and watermarks.

15. Multi-layout documents – Combine frequently-used dashboards into a single convenient “dashboard book” that can

be run once and quickly referenced throughout the day. Or, include multiple document layouts in a single document to

simply provide an integrated view of business data.

16. hTMl containers – Add depth and perspective to your dashboards by incorporating live Web content such as stock

tickers and real-time feeds.

17. dashboard Templates – Create or use out-of-the-box dashboard templates to decrease document design time. A

dashboard template is a predefined structure that can contain data sets, layouts, and controls, such as titles, panels,

and panel stacks.

18. Instant document creation from reports – Instantly create a document or dashboard from an existing report, which

is displayed as a Grid/Graph on the document.

19. document autostyles – Employ a varied collection of new autostyles to quickly apply a set of fonts and colors to an

existing dashboard.

20. dashboard drilling – Perform OLAP manipulations, such as drilling, directly on grids and graphs contained within dashboards.

21. linked Formatting – Link a Grid/Graph to the original report by adding it to the document as a shortcut. Any changes

made to a report, such as formatting a metric or changing the graph type, are passed to the Grid/Graph in the document.

MOre BI / less eFFOrT: enhanced BusIness user selF-serVIce

22. streamlined report design for Business users – Assemble reports more quickly and easily via intuitive, self-service

features, such as the simplified browsing of available dimensions, attributes, and metrics; drop zones that provide visual

cues to users as to where to drag-and-drop these building blocks; and a formatting control for report formatting that is

intuitive to Microsoft Office users.

23. new graph report designer – Interactively build graph reports with dozens of visualization options using a new and

intuitive graph design tool that makes it easier for designers to visualize the final output of their graphs. Drag-and-

drop elements into metrics, categories, and series zones; use right-click options to quickly format graph elements; and

quickly apply a variety of colors and styles to graphs.

24. derived elements – A new feature of MicroStrategy OLAP Services that can be used to enhance the analysis on

Intelligent Cube reports and Report Service documents. Elements of an attribute can be combined on-the-fly to create

and save reusable filters, groups, lists, and calculations.

25. collaboration and notes – Add notes and comments to reports and documents to provide instructions to other

users, share information, and more. Every report and document can maintain and display a set of notes, with details on

who left the note and when.

42

26. personalized prompt answers – Store personalized answers for a prompt and reuse them wherever the prompt is

present, saving time and ensuring efficient prompt handling while running documents and reports.

27. new, Faster prompt Interface – More user friendly and responsive prompt interface, delivering vastly improved

performance for both the display and use of prompts.

28. complete Olap analysis – Freely investigate data and “surf” through the data warehouse without having to design

a new report for each new combination of data you want to see. Perform OLAP manipulations, such as pivoting and

drilling, directly on graph reports.

29. create and edit Microstrategy reports and documents in Microsoft excel, powerpoint, and Word with

Microstrategy Office – Edit and create reports and documents directly from MicroStrategy Office, through a seamless

integration with MicroStrategy Web.

MOre BI / less eFFOrT: IMprOVed analyTIcal capaBIlITIes

30. new, Improved Widgets – Analyze and control advanced visualizations such as the Heat Map widget in new,

innovative ways.

31. greater range of analytics – Leverage a wide range of new data mining algorithms; statistical, predictive, and OLAP

functions; as well as improved metric grouping capabilities. Integrate with these analytics to develop complex statistical

calculations, more effective forecasting metrics, and many different forecast models for the same metrics.

32. report directly against salesforce.com – Available as part of MicroStrategy MultiSource Option, a Salesforce.com

ODBC driver allows users to seamlessly create and run BI reports and dashboards using Salesforce.com data.

glOBal applIcaTIOns and dIsTrIBuTed OperaTIOns

33. Multi-lingual Metadata and data – Deploy a single project in multiple languages, ensuring that employees and

customers all over the world can always access essential business information in their own language. Business users

can view MicroStrategy interfaces, as well as their own reports, metrics, attributes, and data in their own language,

enabling more convenient and collaborative analysis across the enterprise.

34. repository Translation Wizard – A component of MicroStrategy Object Manager, the Repository Translation Wizard

facilitates the translation of metadata objects by copying the object strings into a translation repository to assist with

the translation process.

35. update packages – Available in MicroStrategy Object Manager, Update Packages enable multiple and independent

development teams to coordinate the inclusion of their new developments into the global operational BI system. Each

development team can independently submit updates, additions, and changes to an existing operational system. The new

Update Packages are then used to incrementally install each team’s updates and reconcile all overlaps or conflicts that

might arise.

36. distributed administration – A new administrative capability that allows the sub-setting of administrative duties

and the distribution of administrative responsibilities to business units and departments. This enables central IT groups

to relinquish routine administrative duties, such as user administration, project administration, and user security

administration, to other administrators in the system.

37. Web-based administration – Administrators can create, modify, and manage users, groups, and security roles from

MicroStrategy Web, allowing them to manage the BI system from anywhere, at any time.

43

TIMe-TO-Value: rapId prOJecT desIgn

38. graphical architect – A new version of MicroStrategy Architect that allows users to map their business model into a

MicroStrategy metadata from a single interface that can be used to build metadata objects through simple drag-and-

drop and right-click operations. MicroStrategy Graphical Architect streamlines the project modeling experience, making

it interactive and visual, thereby drastically reducing the time required to build and deploy complex project models.

39. cube advisor – A new tool that allows users to create and support a dynamic sourcing strategy that can best support

the reports in their projects. Cube Advisor helps achieve this by analyzing reports to determine if their report definitions

can support the use of dynamic sourcing, and recommending and creating Intelligent Cubes that can provide data to

reports using dynamic sourcing.

lOWesT TOTal cOsT OF OWnershIp: adMInIsTraTIOn and perFOrMance

40. support for 64-bit Windows – MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, and its integrated technologies (OLAP Services,

Report Services, Distribution Services), are now supported on the Microsoft Windows 64-bit Operating System.

41. sql engine Optimization – A new level of SQL optimization designed to improve performance by eliminating

unnecessary SQL passes and optimizing multi-pass SQL generation. This delivers the fastest report performance at

all times, at any scale, to all business users in the enterprise.

42. change Journaling – A new change journaling feature in MicroStrategy Object Manager, designed to track and audit

changes made to any metadata object in the BI system. This is a major feature of object versioning that will ensure that

companies successfully complete audits and remain Sarbanes-Oxley compliant.

43. security enhancements – Ensure enterprise-wide data security and login flexibility via improved password strength

requirements, encryption, and out-of-the-box single sign-on capabilities, supporting Microsoft Active Directory (LDAP

and Kerberos), Tivoli, and SiteMinder. The enhanced security integration significantly speeds up user configuration.

44. Intelligent clustering – Improved job distribution and Intelligence Server clustering delivers higher throughput, better

asset utilization, and enhanced system performance. Scheduled jobs can now be shared across clustered Intelligence

Servers and are distributed by job load.

45. Improved caching – Experience minimal report and document wait times as a result of a new, automatic report

caching level and the caching of Report Services documents in their final formatted output, including PDF, Excel, XML,

CSV, and HTML.

46. Flexible history list Management – Store History List messages, along with their entire caches, in a database, as

opposed to a file system. This flexibility improves the reliability of retrieving the messages and data, and also improves

scalability since there can be an “infinite” storage of history lists in the database.

47. Improved enterprise Manager – Take advantage of new operating system performance counters, and report on In-

Memory ROLAP cube usage, Distribution Services, and prompt answer statistics.

48. Improved command Manager – Command Manager now runs on all supported platforms, and includes new

Java programming capabilities, including conditions, loops, and variables. Where no graphical user interface is

available, Command Manager’s new text-based interface allows script creation and execution. New procedures

allowing for the creation of custom extensions and a large number of usability enhancements result in a rapid

script development experience.

49. Improved Integrity Manager – Take advantage of the improved prompt resolution functionality in Integrity Manager

by prioritizing prompt resolution strategies or specifying report-level prompt answers to be used in each Integrity Manager

test. Integrity Manager also enhances integrity testing by comparing the PDF output of reports and documents.

44

lOWesT TOTal cOsT OF OWnershIp: easIly eXTend yOur MIcrOsTraTegy BI TO MOre peOple

50. portlet-to-portlet communication – Portal Integration is available out-of-the-box and included free with every Web

server. Integrate your BI easily with Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and IBM Websphere.

Portal integration enables greater user scale and easier user adoption for your business intelligence using your existing

enterprise portals.

51. plug-in architecture – The Customization Upgrade Wizard facilitates the management of customizations by creating

portable pieces of software, called plug-ins. These plug-ins can be easily installed and deployed in MicroStrategy Web,

so that compilation or modification of the source code is no longer required. Sample applications such as the External

Security Sample Application are now available as plug-ins.

52. Improved composite applications and Mash-ups – Improved integration with Adobe Flex 3 and Adobe’s Air

Engine eases the development of fully-functional and fully-disconnected flash-based applications that can download

and store all necessary data, but run on the desktop without any Web connectivity.

53. eclipse ready™ Web configuration editor – Organize, streamline, and simplify customizations in MicroStrategy

Web. Eliminate the need to manually modify default configuration files such as the Page Configuration file, the Style

Catalog Configuration file, or presentation files such as JSP or ASP.NET files.

54. Integration with FlexBuilder Ide – Create a variety of Adobe Flash-based RIA Applications, Adobe AIR applications,

and more, via a tight MicroStrategy integration with Adobe Flex.

All Contents Copyright © 2009 MicroStrategy Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy 6, MicroStrategy 7, MicroStrategy 7i, MicroStrategy 7i Evaluation Edition, MicroStrategy 7i Olap Services, MicroStrategy 8, MicroStrategy 9, MicroStrategy Distribution Services, MicroStrategy MultiSource Option, MicroStrategy Command Manager, MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager, MicroStrategy Object Manager, MicroStrategy Reporting Suite, MicroStrategy Power User, MicroStrategy Analyst, MicroStrategy Consumer, MicroStrategy Email Delivery, MicroStrategy BI Author, MicroStrategy BI Modeler, MicroStrategy Evaluation Edition, MicroStrategy Administrator, MicroStrategy Agent, MicroStrategy Architect, MicroStrategy BI Developer Kit, MicroStrategy Broadcast Server, MicroStrategy Broadcaster, MicroStrategy Broadcaster Server, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy Consulting, MicroStrategy CRM Applications, MicroStrategy Customer Analyzer, MicroStrategy Desktop, MicroStrategy Desktop Analyst, MicroStrategy Desktop Designer, MicroStrategy eCRM 7, MicroStrategy Education, MicroStrategy eTrainer, MicroStrategy Executive, MicroStrategy Infocenter, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition, MicroStrategy MDX Adapter, MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server, MicroStrategy Objects, MicroStrategy OLAP Provider, MicroStrategy SDK, MicroStrategy Support, MicroStrategy Telecaster, MicroStrategy Transactor, MicroStrategy Web, MicroStrategy Web Business Analyzer, MicroStrategy World, Alarm, Alarm.com, Alert.com, Angel, Angel.com, Application Development and Sophisticated Analysis, Best In Business Intelligence, Centralized Application Management, Changing The Way Government Looks At Information, DSSArchitect, DSS Broadcaster, DSS Broadcaster Server, DSS Office, DSSServer, DSS Subscriber, DSS Telecaster, DSSWeb, eBroadcaster, eCaster, eStrategy, eTelecaster, Information Like Water, Insight Is Everything, Intelligence Through Every Phone, Your Telephone Just Got Smarter, Intelligence To Every Decision Maker, Intelligent E-Business, IWAPU, Personal Intelligence Network, Personalized Intelligence Portal, Query Tone, Quickstrike, Rapid Application Development, Strategy.com, Telepath, Telepath Intelligence, Telepath Intelligence (and Design), MicroStrategy Intelligent Cubes, The E-Business Intelligence Platform, The Foundation For Intelligent E-Business, The Integrated Business Intelligence Platform Built For The Enterprise, The Intelligence Company, The Platform For Intelligent E-Business, The Power Of Intelligent eBusiness, The Power Of Intelligent E-Business, The Scalable Business Intelligence Platform Built For The Internet, Industrial-Strength Business Intelligence, Office Intelligence, MicroStrategy Office, MicroStrategy Report Services, MicroStrategy Web MMT, MicroStrategy Web Services, Pixel Perfect, MicroStrategy Mobile, MicroStrategy Integrity Manager and MicroStrategy Data Mining Services are all registered trademarks or trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated.

All other products are trademarks of their respective holders. Specifications subject to change without notice. MicroStrategy is not responsible for errors or omissions. MicroStrategy makes no warranties or commitments concerning the availability of future products or versions that may be planned or under development.

Patent InformationThis product is patented. One or more of the following patents may apply to the product sold herein: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,154,766, 6,173,310, 6,260,050, 6,263,051, 6,269,393, 6,279,033, 6,501,832, 6,567,796, 6,587,547, 6,606,596, 6,658,093, 6,658,432, 6,662,195, 6,671,715, 6,691,100, 6,694,316, 6,697,808, 6,704,723, 6,707,889, 6,741,980, 6,765,997, 6,768,788, 6,772,137, 6,788,768, 6,792,086, 6,798,867, 6,801,910, 6,820,073, 6,829,334, 6,836,537, 6,850,603, 6,859,798, 6,873,693, 6,885,734, 6,888,929, 6,895,084, 6,940,953, 6,964,012, 6,977,992, 6,996,568, 6,996,569, 7,003,512, 7,010,518, 7,016,480, 7,020,251, 7,039,165, 7,082,422, 7,113,993, 7,181,417, 7,127,403, 7,174,349, 7,194,457, 7,197,461, 7,228,303, 7,260,577, 7,266,181, 7,272,212, 7,302,639, 7,324,942, 7,330,847, 7,340,040, 7,356,758, 7,356,840, 7,415,438, 7,428,302, 7,430,562, 7,440,898 and 7,457,397. Other patent applications are pending.

MicroStrategy Incorporated • 1861 International Drive • McLean, VA 22102 • 703.848.8600 • www.microstrategy.com • [email protected] COLL-0859 0209

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