PowerPivot with SQL Server 2008 R2
One of the prime-time features of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is provided by the “Project Gemini” technology known as PowerPivot for “Self Service BI”. Working with Office Excel 2010, data from multiple sources can be combined and analyzed together with the underlying complexities hidden from the analyst. Microsoft’s Business Intelligence tool-of-choice on the client-side is Office Excel. This makes sense since the typical Business Analyst lives in Excel so why have them learn a new technology? Using the OLE DB Provider for SQL Server/Analysis Services, the end-user can connect to a Data Source directly and build a Pivot Table or PivotChart using standard Excel functionality. The importance of Excel 2010 in conjunction with SQL Server 2008 R2 lies in the PowerPivot feature that incorporates extensive column compression technology named “VertiPaq”. It was not too long ago that Excel had a meager 100,000 row limit. Now Excel 2010 will support hundreds of millions of rows with sub-second sorting capability on the client. In addition to this functionality, there is tight integration with Sharepoint 2010 using the server-side version of PowerPivot for publishing dynamic results using Excel Services. You can download a free version of the software from the following web site: http://www.powerpivot.com/ It requires Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 and can run on Windows XP (SP3), Vista (SP1), Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 SP2 with the Platform Update that includes the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. PowerPivot functionality exists in two versions: PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for Sharepoint. PowerPivot for Excel is the Add-In for Excel 2010. This is the client-side version for developing powerful results using Pivot Tables and PivotCharts within Microsoft Office 2010 to produce PowerPivot workbooks. PowerPivot for Sharepoint is the Add-In for Microsoft Sharepoint 2010. This is the server-side version of PowerPivot and works in conjunction with SQL Server 2008 R2. PowerPivot workbooks can be published using Excel Services for dynamic access via Sharepoint. I’ll be testing this feature out using the RTM versions of the products so watch this space! Cheers Brian
