Microsoft updates SQL Server BI tool
ENT News | at | by Mike
Microsoft on Wednesday released an updated version of a tool to help system integrators and other Microsoft partners build business intelligence applications atop SQL Server. The 1.2 release of the SQL Server Business Intelligence Accelerator extends support down to the Standard Edition of SQL Server 2000, adds support for XML data imports and supports Office 2003, which has not yet been released.
At its core, the tool allows an architect to map out a business intelligence solution on an Excel worksheet, including data sources and targets. The tool then uses the Excel worksheet to set up and trigger services from SQL Server, including Data Transformation Services and Analysis Services, to build the BI application. The original version came out in May 2002 and supported only the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2000.