Verifies Business Intelligence Reports Contain Complete and Accurate Data
McLean, Va. (July 09, 2007) –
MicroStrategy® Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence (BI) software, today announced its plans to launch MicroStrategy Integrity Manager(TM), a new product that tests the accuracy of BI applications by validating data and report integrity. MicroStrategy Integrity Manager automatically compares and verifies the consistency of reports as changes are made to the BI ecosystem, and then highlights issues and discrepancies to monitor the overall reliability of the BI content used by business decision makers. This product will be introduced tomorrow at the MicroStrategy Symposium in London.
Companies typically monitor the integrity of their BI data through manual data validation. However, despite the increasing importance of BI applications, BI support teams often lack the necessary resources to ensure that data or software integrity problems have not been unexpectedly introduced during data loads or software upgrades. Additionally, in self-service BI systems where end users create their own reports, many companies fail to perform validation testing on the large number of user generated reports. MicroStrategy Integrity Manager automatically reviews the integrity of data across an organization’s BI system, verifying that BI reports and analyses are based on reliable data.
MicroStrategy Integrity Manager reduces the need for resource-intensive manual testing by comparing versions of reports after data updates and throughout the BI development cycle, thereby automating report regression testing. Data inconsistencies can be captured much sooner in the development cycle, saving time in report testing, end user support, and issue resolution. With MicroStrategy Integrity Manager, companies can increase the scope, effectiveness, and accuracy of their data validation efforts, and free developers to focus on content creation rather than manual testing.
Even minor changes in the BI ecosystem may impact data accuracy and lead to inconsistencies across versions of BI reports. Common types of BI ecosystem changes that require report and data validation include:
* Software upgrades – MicroStrategy Integrity Manager ensures that database and BI software upgrades designed to address defect fixes and enhancements do not impact report integrity, and that inconsistencies are identified so they can be corrected prior to being viewed by business users.
* BI project migrations – As part of the normal BI development life cycle, developers continuously migrate entire BI projects or project objects across the development, test, and production environments. Administrators need to confirm that migrated objects perform as expected and do not negatively impact existing BI reports.
* Data warehouse ETL processes – Data loads and ETL scripts can modify or even corrupt existing information within the data warehouse. Database administrators require certainty that the ETL processes are successfully completed, without altering previously loaded data and introducing inconsistencies to BI reports and content.
* Database optimizations – System tuners can alter existing database objects and report parameters, or add new objects such as indexes and aggregate tables to improve report performance and system throughput. Developers need to ensure that subtle SQL changes and database alterations made for performance do not alter query results.
* User profile modifications – As BI applications are modified to provide richer capabilities or as end users move roles within companies, administrators must modify user and user groups’ application privileges and data security profiles. Validation testing ensures that user profile changes do not improperly alter users’ BI reports.
“Data integrity is paramount to the success of any business intelligence application,” said Sanju Bansal, MicroStrategy’s COO. “The more mission critical the business intelligence system, the greater the need for validation testing. MicroStrategy Integrity Manager is an important new product that can give our customers a high degree of confidence that the data in their BI environment is complete and accurate.”
Availability of MicroStrategy Integrity Manager
MicroStrategy Integrity Manager is currently in beta-testing and expected to be generally available in the second half of 2007, as part of the MicroStrategy 8.1.1 release.
To find out more about MicroStrategy Integrity Manager, visit: http://www.microstrategy.com/Software/Products/Dev_Tools/IntegrityManager/
About MicroStrategy
Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a global leader in business intelligence (BI) technology. MicroStrategy provides integrated reporting, analysis, and monitoring software that helps leading organizations worldwide make better business decisions every day. Companies choose MicroStrategy for its advanced technical capabilities, sophisticated analytics, and superior data and user scalability. More information about MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) is available at www.microstrategy.com.
MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy 8, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy Integrity Manager are either trademarks or registered trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated in the United States and certain other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Source: MicroStrategy