The short answer is both. Companies today are using both to deal with ever-larger volumes of data. For the business user, analyzing large data can be challenging simply because traditional tools are slow and cumbersome. Some companies are turning to in-memory analytics, which lets users extract set of data and take advantage of the computing power on their local machine to speed up reporting and take query load off their transactional systems. This is especially important for SQL Server, which is often a critical part of the IT environment.
This whitepaper details:
- How self-service reporting and analytics is now 100% possible without tedious custom development.
- Why already overburdened SQL Server databases don't have to be the end of blazing fast queries with today's advances around in-memory technology.
- How companies like the National Motor Club combine live and in-memory data from SQL Server to perform rapid-fire reporting.
Tableau Software was recently recognized by both the editors and community of SQL Server Magazine as the best business intelligence (BI) and reporting tool.
2010 Best Business Intelligence and Reporting Tool
Editors' Best and Community Choice
Why It Won: "Tableau Software’s business intelligence solution stands above the rest because it offers a rich, robust environment that lets users share their data visualizations (e.g., reports, dashboards) with one another quickly and easily."