Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server is a business intelligence software product released in 2007 by Microsoft. Enterprises gather data related to line-of-business (LOB) operations. Data as-is is not useful. You need to transform it into information so you can understand your business and make decisions. PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a product that can help you to build a performance management application.
Designing a Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 topology should begin at the back end and move towards the front end. Define the number of users. Define the number of PerformancePoint Planning applications. Then determine the number of databases and cubes needed. Then build the topology plan from back end to front end. 
To setup PerformancePoint server for an enterprise includes,
Planning Server
When determining your Planning Server deployment, research and install additional application dependencies. Any applications that Planning Server depends on should be installed first. For example, if you are using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for the templates and reports repository, then Office SharePoint Server 2007 should be installed before you install PerformancePoint Server. The same is true for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.
SQL Server
Installing and configuring Planning Server creates two system databases. Creating a Planning application creates another database (an application database) and an Analysis Services cube. If you create a staging database for the application, that is one more database. Therefore, consider deploying the system databases on one computer running SQL Server and the application databases on another. Also, when you are building multiple model sites, multiple Analysis Services computers should be used.
Monitoring Server
Before you install Monitoring Server and build a dashboard, you should first plan your development process. Begin by defining performance management goals. Decide if you want to build one dashboard or a set of dashboards. Define the scorecard and any related key performance indicators (KPIs) that you require to build those scorecards, and determine whether those scorecards will share a set of common KPIs. Design any reports that contribute to the information provided in the scorecard or that might help in understanding the KPIs.
Next steps include:
•    Identify contributors and users   In particular, identify the contributors who will participate in dashboard development.
•    Identify information technology resources   Locate existing databases and documents that can provide business data for KPIs, and determine whether existing SQL Server or Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies installations can be used. Determine if you require new databases in order to develop and deploy dashboards.