Better Business Decisions Every Day

Frequently Asked Questions

Introduction

1. What is MicroStrategy 8?
MicroStrategy 8 is the latest release of the MicroStrategy Business Intelligence (BI) Platform. With the addition of over 2,000 enhancements across the entire platform as well as several exciting new sets of functionality (see question 2 below for details), MicroStrategy 8 sets the gold standard for ease-of-use, comprehensive functionality, scalability, security and lowest total cost of ownership in the business intelligence software industry.

2. What are the significant new features available with MicroStrategy 8?
MicroStrategy 8 provides the following eight significant new breakthroughs:

Breakthrough 1: Redesigned Web Interface	Breakthrough 5: Direct Access to SAP BW for Reporting and Analysis
Feature: Streamlined Web interface utilizing the latest XHTML technology Benefit: Fast, intuitive, simple BI interface for business users	Feature: Direct access to SAP BW through MDX via OLAP BAPI's Benefit: Reporting, analysis, and monitoring of SAP BW content through a high performance, fully-managed, zero-footprint Web interface that is fully integrated with all other reporting and analysis
Breakthrough 2: Fully Interactive Reporting	Breakthrough 6: Operational Database Reporting
Feature: Drag-n-drop interactivity from any web browser, such as Microsoft IE, Mozilla, Firefox or Netscape, that is completely zero-footprint, using no Java or Active X controls Benefit: Industry's richest reporting experience, and business user self-service, inside and outside the fire- wall, with flexibility and security	Feature: Access any operational system with MicroStrategy's free-form SQL engine Benefit: Instant, managed reporting against data from operational systems - secured, parameterized and personalized; small and fast BI implementations that can grow with MicroStrategy to manage enterprise levels
Breakthrough 3: Seamless Integration of Analytics and Reporting	Breakthrough 7: Heterogeneous Data Source Access
Feature: OLAP features embedded directly in enterprise reports Benefit: Seamless user experience to uncover root causes from any enterprise report without prior programming or switching interfaces	Feature: Join data from multiple relational and multi-dimensional sources using MicroStrategy Report Services Benefit: Combine data from across the enterprise, including data warehouses, data marts, operational systems, and SAP BW data sources, into a single document
Breakthrough 4: WYSIWYG Document Design and Editing Over the Web	Breakthrough 8: Integrated Predictive Analytics and Forecasting
Feature: First-ever ability for end users to easily design and refine reports over the Web Benefit: Radically reduces the time needed to design and deploy new reports	Feature: MicroStrategy Data Mining Services Benefit: Put predictive insight into everyday MicroStrategy reports by incorporating advanced forecasting models and predictive models from best-of-breed data mining products

In addition to these major new sets of functionality, MicroStrategy 8 includes over 2,000 enhancements to all products in the MicroStrategy Platform. Please contact your account representative for more details.

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Upgrading to MicroStrategy 8

1. How do I get MicroStrategy 8?
MicroStrategy 8 is an upgrade for all MicroStrategy customers under maintenance.

2. How does the new functionality in MicroStrategy 8 map to individual MicroStrategy products?
The table below shows the major new functionality by MicroStrategy product.

3. How do I upgrade my reports to MicroStrategy 8 from my current version?
Although MicroStrategy 8 represents a significant breakthrough in functionality, upgrading existing reports to MicroStrategy 8 is seamless. Since there are no fundamental changes to the metadata, overall architecture or new products, customers can upgrade their projects by simply pointing their existing metadata to the MicroStrategy 8 Intelligence Server.

4. How do I upgrade my customizations to MicroStrategy 8 from MicroStrategy 7.5?
MicroStrategy Web and SDK customizations can be easily migrated from MicroStrategy 7.5.x due to the backward compatible nature of the underlying web architecture and parameter driven customization files. Also, MicroStrategy 8's SDK has a utility to facilitate customization upgrades. A small number of customizations may need to be manually converted.

5. What is the performance and scalability impact of upgrading to MicroStrategy 8?
MicroStrategy 8 inherits and improves upon all the scalability, caching, scheduling, clustering, security and other enterprise class-IT features of the MicroStrategy 7i platform. In addition, features such as asymmetrical clustering, improved memory management and high throughput document bursting have been added to the platform. Customers should experience comparable performance and scalability levels for existing applications after upgrades (exact performance depends upon hardware, usage patterns and other factors). Sizing and performance for new applications follows previously published guidelines.

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Interactive Reporting

6. Will my users require retraining to be productive with the redesigned web interface?
No. MicroStrategy 8 preserves all existing functionality and workflow paradigms from the previous web interface. Existing MicroStrategy users will feel immediately comfortable using the new interface. In addition, new functionality such as one click toolbars, icons, and dialog boxes are intuitively familiar to any user familiar with Microsoft® Outlook®, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint® .

7. Does any of the exciting new interactive reporting functionality require a thick-client web interface or downloads?
No. MicroStrategy remains firmly committed to providing all web-based functionality through a zero-footprint thin-client web interface. Through the use of XHTML technologies, functionality is provided across multiple browser platforms (IE, Netscape, Mozilla FireFox) without requiring the use of cookies or code downloads. Also, MicroStrategy 8 uses no Java or ActiveX controls.

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Accessing SAP BW

8. How does the MicroStrategy SAP BW connector work?
MicroStrategy 8 Intelligence Server contains a new MDX Generation Engine that accesses SAP BW using SAP's OLAP BAPI's. MicroStrategy automatically imports cube definitions into the MicroStrategy metadata to speed development. When users create and execute reports against the SAP BW cubes, MicroStrategy 8 dynamically generates MDX, executes it against SAP BW, and retrieves and formats the result set. All OLAP functionality such as pivoting, filtering, adding derived metrics, and drilling within cubes is available to end users.

9. Has MicroStrategy been certified by SAP?
Yes. MicroStrategy has achieved both the "Powered by NetWeaver" and SAP BW certifications from SAP. Details on the certifications can be viewed on SAP's website at
http://www50.sap.com/softwarepartnerdir/.

10. Will MicroStrategy 8 help improve my SAP BW performance?
Yes. MicroStrategy utilizes a sophisticated caching architecture to store results for frequently accessed queries. This ensures that these results are retrieved for the user from the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server without re-execution against SAP BW. In addition to MicroStrategy OLAP services, users can drill within the cache for further OLAP analysis. Scheduling of these caches during non-peak hours improves performance.

11. Can I combine data from multiple SAP BW cubes and instances as well as SAP and non-SAP data onto one document?
Yes. Using MicroStrategy Report Services, data from different SAP BW cubes and instances from SAP, and from non-SAP sources can be combined onto one document.

12. Will the end user experience differ for reports from SAP BW and Operational Databases as compared to regular Data Warehouse-based MicroStrategy reports?
No. End user interactions and experience for SAP BW based reporting is the same as for regular MicroStrategy reports, as users access data through the same interface and with a single login mechanism. Users have a seamless data consumption experience and may not even know where the data they are accessing is coming from.

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Accessing Operational Data Sources with Free-Form SQL

13. Can I access multiple operational databases from within a single project?
Yes. A single MicroStrategy project can create reports accessing data from any available data source across the enterprise. Developers can create these reports by typing SQL into a free-form SQL editor or Query Builder editor and can even re-use stored procedures, prompting, and security filters to create powerful reporting applications.

14. Does MicroStrategy 8 allow me to combine heterogeneous data sources?
Yes. Using MicroStrategy Report Services, data from multiple operational systems, data warehouses, data marts, and SAP BW, Microsoft Analysis Services and Hyperion Essbase cubes can be combined onto a single document.

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Predictive Analytics and Data Mining

15. What new Data Mining and Predictive Functionality has been added to MicroStrategy 8?
MicroStrategy 8 provides exciting new functionality that permits insight from Data Mining and forecasting algorithms to be added to reports. The function library has been expanded to include advanced functions such as multi-variant regression (used for forecasting) as well as the most popular data mining algorithms: neural networks, decision trees and clustering. The predictive models can be imported from a third-party data mining tool via PMML (Predictive Modeling Markup Language) and executed within MicroStrategy Intelligence Server.

16. What Data Mining tools are supported with MicroStrategy 8?
MicroStrategy 8 can import Data Mining models from any tool that can export models to the PMML format. These include SAS®, SPSS® and IBM® Intelligent Miner, among others.

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New MicroStrategy 8 Platform and Product Features

17. What platforms will be supported with this release?
MicroStrategy 8 Intelligence Server is certified to run on Windows 2000, Linux, Sun Solaris IBM AIX, and HP-UX. MicroStrategy Web is certified on a combination of operating systems, Windows, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and Linux, and application servers such as Microsoft IIS, IBM Websphere, SunOne, BEA Weblogic and Apache/Tomcat.

18. How is MicroStrategy's metadata unique?
MicroStrategy's metadata is unique for three key reasons.

1. MicroStrategy uses a single metadata for all BI applications. For example, MicroStrategy 8 does not use separate metadatas to support a scorecard application or a reporting application or an analysis application. Because of that, MicroStrategy truly delivers one version of the truth because the definition for key business performance metrics is always consistent.
2. MicroStrategy's metadata controls every aspect of the BI application including mappings to the database, business model abstraction, objects to build reports, even formatting. Everything in the BI application is encapsulated within an "object" that can be used modularly to create whatever dashboard, report, or analysis is required. This provides a positive network effect in that every developer can efficiently and effectively benefit from each other's work.
3. MicroStrategy's metadata is fully object-oriented. That has two important implications.
   1. Every object is reusable. That means objects can be used to build other objects. A straightforward example is using two business metrics, M1 and M2, to create another unique business metric, M3.
   2. Change control is automatic. If the business definition of M2 changes, everywhere M2 is used, the new definition is automatically applied with no additional steps required. Since M3 is made up of M2, M3 also changes automatically to assure all calculations are consistent and correct.

19. What type of security does MicroStrategy 8 offer?
MicroStrategy's security model governs three fundamental areas of every BI application: (1) access to the BI functionality each user gets, (2) the report objects each user can use, and (3) cell-level data each user can access. MicroStrategy 8 applies these security controls according to users, user groups and user roles for precise set up of security policies. MicroStrategy's approach to security ensures that administrators have centralized control and maximum flexibility in implementing the security required for their users.

1. Privileges control BI functionality by defining the types of actions users may perform in the system such as printing, saving, exporting to Excel, drilling, pivoting, sorting, formatting and creating reports.
2. Access Control Lists control the report objects each user see. This is particularly useful in maximizing report flexibility. A developer could create one report for thousands of users. That report could contain ten business metrics. Each user would run that report and only see the business metrics he or she has access to. There is no need to build thousands of variants of the same report to serve those users.
3. Security filters prevent users from seeing specific data in the database and/or cells in reports. Automatically applied, they ensure that users only see data they are authorized to view.

20. What type of authentication does MicroStrategy 8 use?
MicroStrategy 8 authenticates users using any of the following methods:

1. Standard user name and passwords: Stored in the MicroStrategy metadata and encrypted at 160-bits
2. Database Pass-through: use user name and password security from the databases. This is very convenient when user communities already exist in database tables.
3. Windows Authentication
4. LDAP or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol systems such as Microsoft Active Directory, Novell or SunOne
5. Integrated with Single Sign-on products such as Netegrity or Oblix

21. Can MicroStrategy 8 automatically generate full BI application documentation?
Yes. The documentation covers every object such as reports, filters, metrics, database mappings, their definitions, where they are used, and their dependencies with other object - every aspect of the BI application. Conveniently, the documentation is in HTML so it can be posted on a website for use by the entire user population. Also, since it is in HTML, users can quickly navigate through it using hypertext links.

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