Bing Maps BI White Paper

8/3/2019 Bing Maps BI White Paper

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DevelopingBusinessIntelligenceandDataVisualizationApplicationswithWebMaps


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IntroductionBusiness Intelligence (BI) means different things to different organizations and users. BI often refers to complex

business applications, tools, and technologies focused at understanding business metrics and performance. This

includes such concepts as data warehouses, data cubes, dimensional analysis (where time is often one of the di-

mensions), and performance monitoring. BI often involves users accessing this data in spreadsheets, pivot tables,

and reports. BI typically represents systems where business data is aggregated from different enterprise systems

with the goal of uncovering trends and insights.

These solutions are typically costly, taking years to build, and are targeted at specic business users such as

analysts or CFOs. Data often propagates slowly through these systems before useful analysis can be performed.

Often analysis insights come too late to effect short term business trends. Part of the issue is the complexity of BI

tools that too often require sophisticated understanding and specialized skills.

Portals have also begun to appear in many BI scenarios, where business data can be visualized in score cardsor dashboards providing quick access for targeted use i.e. VP of Sales can log into their intranet portal site and

see sales trends and details. The term Data Visualization is often used in these scenarios and applications are

targeted at providing better visualization of business data.

Some Geospatial Information System (GIS) vendors have been offering solutions and services in the BI space, in

which data can be analyzed geographically. However this does not typically address the issues of cost, com-

plexity, and ease of use. Most organizational datasets have a location component, such as assets, competitors,

sales territories etc. And whether this is in a GIS or other system, the ability to see business data with a location

context, layered with other relevant data provides real insight.

Many organizations have invested heavily in BI applications, portals, and GIS software for their users. However,

more often than not, these applications are point solutions i.e. solutions implemented specically for a short

term departmental need and not part of a larger strategy. Organizations should look at BI features as a set of

capabilities that can be leveraged over and over again in different parts of the organization.

Microsoft offers various products that enable business intelligence and data visualization solutions. This includes

capabilities for creating business data and data aggregates, storage of spatial and non-spatial data, processing

and querying of business data, with reporting and data visualization. Microsofts Business Intelligence strategy is

all about enabling better business insights for all users, not just specialized BI, GIS, or management groups.

Web mapping platforms like Bing Maps also add specic value to Business Intelligence solutions, providing

intuitive and cost effective data visualization capabilities. This can be enabled by using familiar reports (with

embedded maps), tools (e.g. Spreadsheets), maps, and portals to allow any users to access business insights in anintuitive manner.


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Figure 1- Shows a SharePoint portal application showing sales trendsand related retail locations.

Figure 2 Shows Bing Maps Silverlight with emergency response data and analysis overlays includ-ing incidents, 1-minute drive times and other points of interest.


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Solution Overview and ArchitectureBusiness intelligence and data visualization solutions often involve many components, hence the traditional

complexity and cost. With newer Microsoft based tools, many of the elements of BI and data visualization solu-

tions can be implemented with reduced cost and complexity. One approach to understand BI systems architec-

ture is the Microsoft Single View Platform. This provides guidance on how to create integrated data visualization

solution leverage many organizational datasets. Web mapping technologies like Bing Maps can complement

solutions by enhancing data visualization components.

Organizational data can come from many different operational systems; these can include sales information

from retail Point of Sale (POS) systems, production data from manufacturing, eld and asset data from eet

management and asset systems, customer service data from CRM systems, outage data from service and sup-

port systems, and the list goes on. This data can reside in different systems involving different technologies, da-

tabases, and data structures. This varied source data for many BI solutions is typically in the form of transactional

data e.g. sales orders, shipments, etc. If your organization has not yet gone down the BI road, then dont worry.

You can augment existing systems or reports with web mapping capabilities like Bing Maps. For example, using

SQL Server Reporting Services R2, you can easily integrate map views with existing sales reports for a particular

time period. These new reporting features allow for easy inclusion of Bing Maps with data in reports.

Figure 3 Shows data visualization components in the MicrosoftData Visualization Platform.

Figure 4 Shows the SQL Server 2008 R2 Report Builder allowing mapsoptions to be congured for reports, including the use of Bing Maps.


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In addition to enterprise data sources, organizations can also access external or third party datasets to enhance

business insights. These could include, for example, weather data or projected hurricane paths adding intelli-

gence for weather events affecting operations.

Data Warehousing is the process of aggregating data from different enterprise systems (and external data

sources). The rst step is to create the processes to access and load data from different systems to a central stan-

dardized format. This is also known as an ETL (extract, transform & load) process. If you dont have this process

in place today, SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (SSIS) provides many of these features. Data is typically de-

normalized during this process (often in a star schema) to minimize lookup data for faster queries. The next step

is often to pre-calculate possible results. This is known as creating a data cube via Online analytical processing

(OLAP) where for example the sales statistics for days, weeks and months are pre-calculated results. Hence when

it comes time to do BI analysis all the possible combinations exist without having to perform complicated joined

queries on the y. This lets users quickly explore data and trends. If you dont have these processes in place

today, SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services (SSAS) provides these capabilities.

User tools for BI and data visualization as discussed previously are typically very complicated with specialized

analysis and/or GIS tools. More recently, however, many users have been accessing BI data using spreadsheets

like Microsoft Excel. Typically this data is in a tabular format with pivot tables and using Visual Studio Tools for

Ofce (VSTO) with Excel for example, task panes can be added next to the spreadsheet allowing data to be more

easily visualized in the content of the Excel environment. Web mapping capabilities like Bing Maps can easily be

embedded alongside the spreadsheet. See Figure 5 and 6 for more information.

Figure 5 Show an Excel sales spreadsheet with sales person locations shown on Bing Maps in a VSTO task pane.


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Figure 6 Shows a drill down from sale person location in BingMaps to access more information and trends.

Reporting tools and reports are common in most organizations. Using web maps capabilities like Bing Maps you

can enhance existing reports or create new reports with a compelling data visualization features. Per previous

discussions, you can use SSRS R2 to easily incorporate Bing Maps into reports. You can also include Bing Mapswith any reporting product.

In addition to the SQL Server 2008 BI and reporting features, SQL Server 2008 includes new spatial data types

and spatial functions, which enable organizations to easily add location capabilities to existing data such as

customer locations, retail locations etc, stored as geospatial data. Using SQL Server 2008 spatial functions, spatial

queries can be created to access and analyze business data with a geographical context. These spatial data capa-

bilities combined with existing business data and business intelligence features can provide signicant business

insight.

Portals are a common way to allow business users to access BI information and perform data visualization.

Portals offer the framework for enterprise user authentication, access, and collaboration so data can be easily

presented to users of all types, customized based on their membership roles. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server

2007 provides a platform for building collaborative portal applications. This provides a platform where maps

and analysis features can be integrated acting as glue between BI and mapping capabilities. Web maps like

Bing Maps offer unique value in portals, where data can be easily visualized on map views from data cube/BI

datasets, SharePoint lists, and/or SQL server. Additionally, data that is visualized can also be edited with changed

saved back to source systems, making for a very interactive environment. There are a number of options for

adding Bing Maps within a SharePoint portal application.


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1) Using the Bing Maps AJAX or Silverlight controls, the maps can be embedded in the portal as a customer web

part. In SharePoint 2010, this becomes even easier with the direct support for Silverlight applications. The Silver-

light XBAP le can be directly referenced in a SharePoint web part.

2) Using third party tools, various Microsoft partners have implemented integration with SharePoint

a. IDV Solutions Their Visual Fusion Server integrates with SharePoint. This requires server components

to facilitate the integration.

b. ESRI Their MapIT product has a native SharePoint web part that can be implemented with SharePoint

installations.

c. Component One Their Maps for SharePoint control can also be implemented with any SharePoint

installation and easily allow integration of SQL or SharePoint list data.

Overall, if you want full control over the mapping web part features and BI data integration, it is likely easier toimplement a custom web part with Silverlight and .NET.

SharePoint Portal Server 2007 also contains other features that can facilitate BI and Data Visualization solutions

Excel Services which allow spreadsheet data to be centrally stored, and hence can be geo-coded and

mapped.

Enterprise search, which could allow other enterprise datasets to be found and visualized.

Business Data Catalog, allows connections to data sources from within SharePoint.

Lists, some enterprise data such as employee contact information could be stored directly in

SharePoint lists, and serve as a map layer.

Figure 7 Sample BI/Data Visualization and Web Mapping Architecture


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Bing Maps Platform

Bing Maps is a web mapping platform that provides signicant value for business intelligence and data visual-

ization solutions. Bing Maps services can be used to accurately pinpoint locations from addresses (a.k.a geoc-

oding). This latitude, longitude data can be stored in enterprise systems and/or SQL 2008 spatial data types

and then aggregated in BI systems. Bing Maps provides base maps and imagery; hence you can overlay your

customer locations, analysis data, and any other information in the web mapping interface. This is done using

the Bing Maps APIs including JavaScript/AJAX or Silverlight Controls. Data from SQL Server or other BI data

sources can be easily visualized without the complexity of traditional GIS systems. Bing Maps maintains and

updates road, geo-coding, and imagery datasets so organizations can focus on core business data and analysis

to provide timely business insights.

Figure 8- Bing Maps Platform and Features ShowingBing Maps platform, datasets, APIs and applications.


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Bing Maps APIs

AJAX/JavaScript APIs These APIs are primarily for web browser development, so are a good t for data

visualization apps. There is direct support for KML, GeoRSS, native vectors, and raster tile layers. Advantages

of these APIs include working directly in a users browser without specialized plug-ins beyond the ubiquitous

JavaScript. Many UI features (such as panning/zooming etc) are part of the APIs. UI development with these API

building blocks is relatively easy, and entry skill level is not high. JavaScript will also work with many web server

technologies making the implementation very exible. Disadvantages are seen with the richness of possible

applications, and performance limitations due to JavaScript implementations. JavaScript can be integrated with

SharePoint Web Parts.

SOAP/XML APIs SOAP/XML web service APIs support server side calls. Requests can be made with rich result

objects in XML. Advantages include ease of use with .NET and other development technologies that supportSOAP/XML, running as multithreaded background services, (e.g. bulk geo-coding), and support of any type of

UI, including older browser versions, mobile, and smart clients. Disadvantages are that maps returned are static,

lacking any navigation controls, so these features need to be developed as part of the application. These APIs

are well suited to integrating maps in reports and geocoding organizational location data etc.

Silverlight APIs These APIs use Microsoft Silverlight technology, which are primarily .NET based APIs with

code that runs inside the users browser. Advantages include ease of development with .NET, powerful UI

features such as animation, rich graphic design, and transparency. In addition managed client side code means

high performance display of large vector data sets and in some cases GPU accelerated graphics (10x perfor-

mance increases are not uncommon). Similar to AJAX, these APIs are well suited to data visualization either with

or without SharePoint.

Important Features Bing Maps AJAX Control Bing Maps Web Service Bing Maps Silverlight Control

Data Visualization Yes No Yes

Report Integration Limited Yes Limited

Spreadsheet Integration Yes, via IE control in VSTO Yes Limited

Bulk geo-coding organizational

data/ locations

No Yes No

Portal Integration Yes, via Web Parts Limited Yes, via Web Parts in SharePoint

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Conclusion

Web mapping platforms like Bing Maps offer signicant value to BI and data visualization solutions. This can

include integration with existing BI systems or creating new reports, spreadsheets, and portal data visualization

features. You can take advantage of web maps at any level to enhance solutions and provide improved business

insight.

More Information

Bing Maps Overview -hp://www.microsof.com/maps/

Bing Maps APIs - hp://www.microsof.com/maps/developers/

Microsoft Business Intelligence - hp://www.microsof.com/bi/

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 BI - hp://www.microsof.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/business-intelligence.aspx

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Spatial Data - hp://www.microsof.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/spaal-data.aspx

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2-SSBI.aspx

Microsoft Single View Platform -

hp://www.microsof.com/industry/government/soluons/Single_View_Plaorm

Bing Maps BI White Paper

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