Where will the course be run?

Wherever works for you! We can come to a venue of your choice, or we'd love to welcome you to our training centre in Wokingham, just outside Reading. Alternatively, all of our courses can be delivered remotely via Teams, Zoom, etc. Talk to our team to discuss what would be the best delivery option for you.

How many people can attend a closed course?

Typically, our closed courses are suited for groups of up to 8. If you have larger groups than this, please give us a call to discuss your requirements and the best options for you

Power BI is a cloud based analytics platform offering a suite of self-service business intelligence tools. It enables you to: 1. Connect to a wide range of applications and data sources to import data into the service 2. Powerful data transformation tools to clean, shape, and enrich your data ready for analysis 3. A high performance in-memory modelling engine that facilitates high speed interactive analysis 4. The DAX formula language for defining context rich calculations, metrics, and KPIs 5. An open source visualisation layer with a comprehensive range of built in rich visualisations along with a marketplace of extended visualisations and infographics

What is a Data Warehouse?

A data warehouse is simply a relational database designed specifically for serving reporting functions. It will typically store data collected from other databases or data-oriented applications, and may also change the shape and format of that data to better suite analysis as opposed to the more granular structure that may suit data entry and maintenance.

Data Strategy Platform Solutions - On-Premise to Azure

Use Case – On-Premise BI to Azure Migration

Our client is highly data driven, however processes for handling and manipulating data are very manual and potentially error prone and time intensive.

The objective for this solution was to Overhaul and markedly improve on the existing On-Premise SQL server stack reporting and business intelligence function. Data was to be integrated into a central Data Warehouse from data sources such as SAP and various on-premise and cloud hosted Transport, Logistics, CRM, Quality Control and Production systems, and a single authoratative source of truth built to enable a business wide view through through rich and engaging visualisations.

Business Requirement

Deliver insightful and engaging reports and dashboards
Build a central, authoritative, repository of data
Consolidate unstructured and semi-structured data into a Data Warehouse
Develop a Semantic Model
Automate cleansing, shaping and movement of data
Build a scalable solution
Take advantage of current technology Cloud offerings
Lower or remove On-Premise licensing costs

The PTR Solution

The solution implemented was built around Microsoft Azure SQL Database, Azure Analysis Services, Azure AD, Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Lake and Power BI.

Azure Synapse Analytics to host a newly designed Data Warehouse integrating data from across the business
Azure AD to service User Authentication & Authorisation to Power BI, Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Analysis Services
Blended On-Premise and Azure ETL and ELT tools
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2 to provide a single repository for source data
Azure Data Factory to facilitate ELT pipelines to extract data from the Data Lake, load data into Staging tables in the Data Warehouse, transform data by manipulating it into a desired tabular structure for consumption
Power BI Premium for Shared Datasets and a Self-Service Business Intelligence tool set

The Benefits

Newly designed Data Warehouse fit for purpose
Central Tabular Model providing unique and complex business calculations, measures and KPIs, and a single authoritative source of truth
Single sign on across the whole Data Platform enabling highly granular User Access Control to reports, source data and administrative functionality
Single repository for source data in its native format
Pipelines and dataflows tailored to meet high volume fact tables and real time requirements
Archive data accessible through Data Warehouse
Eliminate On-Premise Enterprise Licensing requirements
Delivery of rich, engaging visualisations empowering users with insight, interactive analysis and the ability to answer their own questions swiftly using a trustworthy, consistent single truth Tabular Model
Increased user adoption through better and more engaging reports
Provision for potential future development in the areas of AI and ML