business intelligence interview questions with answers

7/31/2019 Business Intelligence Interview Questions With Answers

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Business Intelligence Interview Questions with Answers

Q. What is Business Intelligence?

A1. Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering,

storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better businessdecisions.

A2. Business Intelligence is process of exploring data inorder to take strategic decisions

whether to drive profitability or to manage costs

A3. Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of application programs and technologies for

gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make betterbusiness decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support, query and

reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining.

A4. Business Intelligence is a technology based on customer and profit oriented models that

reduces operating costs and provide increased profitability by improving productivity, sales,

service and helps to make decision making capabilities at no time.

Q. What is a Universe?

A1. Universe is a symantec layer between database and the actual user useing the objects for

query. It hides the typical database structure from the user.

A2. A "universe" is a "Business object" terminology. Business objects also happens to be the

name of the company. The universe is the interfacing layer between the client and the

datawarehouse . The universe defines the relationship among the various tables in the

datawarehouse.

A3. Universe is ann layer between the backend Database and Front end tool of reports. In This

We have an Metadat about the database and connection,Classes, and Objects.In The Universe

the dta structure will be modified as Business Terminology and user can easily understand .

A4. A universe is a business-oriented mapping of the data structure found in databases: tables,

columns, joins, etc. It can represent any specific application, system, or group of users. For

example, a universe can relate to a department in a company such as marketing or accounting.

In the BusinessObjects User module, universes enable end users to build queries from whichthey can generate and perform analysis.

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Q. Name some of the standard Business Intelligence tools

in the market?

A1. Some of the standard Business Intelligence tools in the market According to there

performance

1)MICROSTRATEGY

2)BUSINESS OBJECTS,CRYSTAL REPORTS

3)COGNOS REPORT NET

4)MS-OLAP SERVICES

A2.1. Seagate Crystal report

2. SAS

3. Business objects

4. Microstrategy

5. Cognos

6. Microsoft OLAP

7. Hyperion

8. Microsoft integrated services

Q. What is OLAP?

A1. OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing. It is used for Anaytical reporting

A2. OLAP: online analytical process

This helps to do Business analysis of you data, but normal reporting tools are not supporting to

Business analysis. This is the major difference between reporting tool and OLAP tool.

A3. OLAP is an Online Analytical Process, Which used especially for analysis purpose but not

for reporting. It is a GateWay between the Business user and DWH.

Q. What is OLAP, MOLAP, ROLAP, DOLAP, HOLAP?

Examples?

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A1.

Cubes in a data warehouse are stored in three different modes. A relational storage model is

called Relational Online Analytical Processing mode or ROLAP, while a Multidimensional Online

Analytical processing mode is called MOLAP. When dimensions are stored in a combination of

the two modes then it is known as Hybrid Online Analytical Processing mode or HOLAP.

MOLAP

This is the traditional mode in OLAP analysis. In MOLAP data is stored in form of

multidimensional cubes and not in relational databases. The advantages of this mode is that it

provides excellent query performance and the cubes are built for fast data retrieval. All

calculations are pre-generated when the cube is created and can be easily applied while

querying data. The disadvantages of this model are that it can handle only a limited amount of

data. Since all calculations have been pre-built when the cube was created, the cube cannot be

derived from a large volume of data. This deficiency can be bypassed by including onlysummary level calculations while constructing the cube. This model also requires huge

additional investment as cube technology is proprietary and the knowledge base may not exist

in the organization.

ROLAP

The underlying data in this model is stored in relational databases. Since the data is stored in

relational databases this model gives the appearance of traditional OLAPs slicing and dicing

functionality. The advantages of this model is it can handle a large amount of data and canleverage all the functionalities of the relational database. The disadvantages are that the

performance is slow and each ROLAP report is an SQL query with all the limitations of the

genre. It is also limited by SQL functionalities. ROLAP vendors have tried to mitigate this

problem by building into the tool out-of-the-box complex functions as well as providing the users

with an ability to define their own functions.

HOLAP

HOLAP technology tries to combine the strengths of the above two models. For summary typeinformation HOLAP leverages cube technology and for drilling down into details it uses the

ROLAP model.

Comparing the use of MOLAP, HOLAP and ROLAP

The type of storage medium impacts on cube processing time, cube storage and cube

browsing speed. Some of the factors that affect MOLAP storage are:

Cube browsing is the fastest when using MOLAP. This is so even in cases where no

aggregations have been done. The data is stored in a compressed multidimensional format andcan be accessed quickly than in the relational database. Browsing is very slow in ROLAP about

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the same in HOLAP. Processing time is slower in ROLAP, especially at higher levels of

aggregation.

MOLAP storage takes up more space than HOLAP as data is copied and at very low levels of

aggregation it takes up more room than ROLAP. ROLAP takes almost no storage space as datais not duplicated. However ROALP aggregations take up more space than MOLAP or HOLAP

aggregations.

All data is stored in the cube in MOLAP and data can be viewed even when the original data

source is not available. In ROLAP data cannot be viewed unless connected to the data source.

MOLAP can handle very limited data only as all data is stored in the cube.

A2.

OLAP Online analytical Processes

MOLAP Multidimensional Online analytical Processes (Cubes)

ROLAP Relational Online analytical Processes (RDBMS)

HOLAP Combination of MOLAP & ROLAP

DOLAP Desktop Online analytical Processes (Cubes are stored in desktop also)

Q. How to Import universes and user from business object

6.5 to XI R2, it is showing as some ODBC error is there any

setting to change?

A1. You can import universes through import option in file menu.if ur odbc driver is not

connecting then u can check ur database driver

Q. What are the various modules in Business Objects

product Suite?

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A1.

Supervisor

Supervisor is the control center for the administration and security of your entire

BusinessObjects deployment.

Designer

Designer is the tool used to create, manage and distribute universe for BusinessObjects and

WebIntelligence Users. A universe is a file that containe connection parameters for one or more

database middleware and SQL structure called objects that map to actual SQL structure in the

database as columns,tables and database.

BusinessObjects Full client Reporting tool

Helps to create businessobjects reports based on the universe and also from the other data

sources.

BusinessObjects Thin client Reporting tool

Helps to querry and analysis on the universe and also share the report among other users. It

doesn't require any software, just need a webbrowser and the system connected to the

businessobjetcs server.

Auditor

Tool is used for monitor and analysis user and system activity.

Application Foundation

This module covers a set of products which is used for Enterprise Performance Management

(EPM). The tools are

Dashboard manager

ScorecardPerformance Management Applications

Q. What is Hyperion? Is it an OLAP tool? what is the

difference between OLAP and ETL tools? What is the future

for OLAP and ETL market for the next five years?

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A1.

What is Hyperion?

- Its an Business Intelligence tools. Like Brio which was an independent product bought over

my Hyperion has converted this product name to Hyperion Intelligence.

Is it an OLAP tool?

- Yes. You can analyse data schemas using this tools.

OLAP: Its an online analytical processing tool. There are various products available for data

analysis.

ETL: Extract , Transform and Load. This is a product to extract the data from multiple/single

source transform the data and load it into a a table,flatfile or simply a target.

There is a quite a bit compitation in the market with regard to the ETL product as well as the

OLAP products. These tools would definately be widely used for data load and data analysis

purpose.

A2.

What is Hyperion?

- Its an Business Intelligence tools. Like Brio which was an independent product bought over

my Hyperion has converted this product name to Hyperion Intelligence.

Is it an OLAP tool?

- Yes. You can analyse data schemas using this tools.

OLAP: Its an online analytical processing tool. There are various products available for data

analysis.

ETL: Extract , Transform and Load. This is a product to extract the data from multiple/single

source transform the data and load it into a a table,flatfile or simply a target.

There is a quite a bit compitation in the market with regard to the ETL product as well as the

OLAP products. These tools would definately be widely used for data load and data analysis

purpose.

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business intelligence interview questions with answers

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