Explain the phases of development of Business Intelligence System.

 Q. Explain the phases of development of Business Intelligence System. 

Ans. Development of a Business Intelligence System The development of a business intelligence system cm 1 assimilated to a project, with a specific final objective, expected development times and costs, and the usage and coordination of the resources needed to perform planned activities. Figure shows the typical development cycle of a business intelligence architecture Obviously, the specific path followed by each organization might differ from that outlined in the figure.

Analysis:

 During the first phase, the needs of the organization relative to the development of a business intelligence system should be carefully identified. This preliminary phase is generally conducted through a series of interviews of knowledge workers performing different roles and activities within the organization. It is necess to clearly describe the general objectives and priorities of the proj as well as to set out the costs and benefits deriving from the development of the business intelligence system.

Design

The second phase includes two sub-phases and is aimed at deriving a provisional plan of the overall architecture, taking into account any development in the near future and the evolution of the system in the mid terms. First, it is necessary to make an assessment of the existing information infrastructures. Moreover, the main decision-making processses that are to be supported by the business intelligence system should be examined, in order to adequately determine the information requirements. Later on, using classical project management methodologies, the project plan will be laid down.

Planning: 

The planning stage includes a sub-phases where the functions of the business intelligence system are defined and described in greater detail. Subsequently, existing date as well as other data that might be retrieved externally are anaeserd. This allows the information structures of the business intelligence architecture, which consist of a central data warehouse and possibly some satellite data marts, to be designed. Simultaneously with the recognition of the available data, the mathematical models to be adopted should be defined, ensuring the availability of the data required to feed each model and verfying that the efficiency of the algorithms to be utilized will be adequate for the magnitude of the resulting problems. Finally, it is appropriate to create a system prototype, at low cost and with limited capabilities, in order to uncover beforehand any discrepancy between actual needs and project specifications.

Implementation and control: 

The last phase consists of five main sub-phases. First, the data warehouse and each specific data mart are developed. These represent the information infrastructures that will feed the business intelligence system. In order to explain the meaning of the data contained in the data warehouse and the transformations applied in advance to the primary data, a metadata archive should be created.

Moreover, ETL procedures are set out to extract and transform the data existing in the primary sources, loading them into the data warehouse and the data marts. The next step is aimed at developing the core business intelligence applications that allow the planned. analyses to be carried out. Finally, the system is released for test and usage.