Brett Baloun

I recently attended the IBM Business Analytics Summit in Chicago.  My IBM “Analytics” experience at this point in my career is limited.  Consequently, the purpose of attending this summit was to gain a better understanding of the IBM product offerings, gain some contacts in the industry, and to understand some “real-life” examples of what is […]

I often use the SQL Server (MSDB) Database to store and execute SSIS packages.  However, I found it cumbersome to migrate multiple packages back and forth from network locations to the MSDB or from the various environments (DEV, QA, PROD).  So, I created a simple script to generate the dtutil commands necessary to quickly migrate […]

A little over 3 years ago I began what I would call an internal transformation as I started to reevaluate my career and personal life.  I had been working as a Full-time Employee (FTE) in two large corporations over the course of 10 years and I was very proud of what I had accomplished.  I […]

I have had limited experience with SPSS Data Mining for Predictive Analytics.  I was very impressed with the predictive capabilities of the tool.  The business cases for this and any predictive analytics tool are endless.  While conducting some research about predictive analytics, I came across a Microsoft solution – Microsoft Analysis Services Data Mining; which […]

As 2012 ends, I thought it would be interesting to look at a category of tools that is gaining a significant hold in the Business Intelligence (BI) world. These tools are Personal Analytical Tools. The design of these tools allows users to be self-sufficient, to explore data, and to analyze it without IT involvement. The […]

This is my second blog in a two-part series to introduce Data Quality Services (DQS) in SQL Server 2012.  Please refer to my first blog which discusses the interactive client for DQS – Introduction to Data Quality Services (DQS) – Part I.  In this blog, I will introduce the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) component which […]

I was recently introduced to SQL Server 2012 and discovered Data Quality Services (DQS); a new feature of SQL Server 2012.  I wanted to use this blog as an introduction to DQS, define key terms, and present a simple example of the tool.  According to MSDN, The data-quality solution provided by Data Quality Services (DQS) […]

My previous blog post was about Enterprise Search.  Within my research, I continuously came across the term Big Data.  Obviously, I had heard of this before, but I was not well versed on what it actually meant.  While I was waiting at the airport, I saw a Harvard Business Review (HBR) magazine staring at me, […]

I recently investigated a few Enterprise Search tools.  After attending some training, I was really excited to learn more about the software and what Enterprise Search is all about.  I wanted to use this blog as an opportunity to share some information that I have obtained and present my opinion on where this industry is […]

This is a great video recently put out by SAP that covers real-time analytics with big data.  Watch closely for some interesting figures, including that “the total amount of data will grow 50 times in the next 8 years.”:

Yesterday Oracle announced that they had acquired the cloud based analytics company Collective Intellect. The acquisition will open up the Oracle stack to a new kind of business intelligence/analysis by taking in social media “conversations” from Facebook and Twitter and turning them into real time manageable stats and data for analysis. Pairing this with Oracle’s […]

Great article highlighting changes in business analytics industry: Enterprise BI models undergo radical transformation from ComputerWorld.com. Some mention of ROI, the reporting tools in the forefront of “new analytics” and the “service-heavy implementation model” seen in these BI projects today.