Explain different phases in development of business intelligence system.

Explain different phases in development of business intelligence system.

Answer:

Phases in the development of Business Intelligence System:

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 necessary to clearly describe the general objectives and

priorities of the project, 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-term. First, it is necessary to

make an assessment of the existing information infrastructures. Moreover, the

main decision-making processes 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, identifying development

phases, priorities, expected execution times and costs, together with the required

roles and resources.

Planning:

The planning stage includes a sub-phase where the functions of the business

intelligence system are defined and described in greater detail. Subsequently,

existing data as well as other data that might be retrieved externally are assessed.

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 verifying 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, as

described in Chapter 3. 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.