Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009 (Part I)

When you think of Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009, what comes to mind? There will actually be several ways to get data, reports, and information feeds that help build one's business intelligence from their given Dynamics AX 2009 instance. What I want to cover in this post, is what Microsoft is calling Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009, talk about Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Application and working with Dynamics AX 2009, as well as using Applications like Excel for retrieving data from Dynamics AX 2009 and creating Ad Hoc Business intelligence reports and information applications.

First lets start with what Microsoft is calling Business intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009. In order to do that, let me point out the MSDN home for Business Intelligence in Dynamics AX 2009:

MSDN: Dynamics AX 2009, Business Intelligence

In looking over this, it's actually similar to Dynamics AX 4.0, in what is considered to be Business Intelligence, which revolves around OLAP cubes, creating OLAP cubes, and working with / processing OLAP cubes from Dynamics AX that can be defined and created from the Transactional Data in your Dynamics AX instance.

With that said, Microsoft has done a Lot under the covers to SQL Server 2008, specially in regard to OLAP and OLAP services, processing engine, etc. So this new benefits can now be used in Dynamics AX 2009. There is a good write up on what all is new and improved in SQL Server 2008, Analysis Services located here: Cube Squared: Migrating Analysis Services to the SQL Server 2008 Platform, Part 1 of 2

So in Dynamics AX 2009, there are improvements already in what is referred to as Business Intelligence, and for sure you should be installing Any new Dynamics AX 2009 instance on SQL Server 2008, so if you do, then you will see a lot more benefits and improvements to Analysis Services and Business Intelligence together!

Next post I will talk about Microsoft Office PerformancePoint and using that with Dynamics AX 2009 to create and define Business Intelligence Processes! Check back soon!



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