Download Brochure | Features | Benefits | FAQs MicroStrategy Products: Architect & Desktop

1. What is MicroStrategy Architect?
MicroStrategy Architect is a rapid development application that maps the physical structure of your database to a logical business model stored in a centralized metadata repository.

2. What does MicroStrategy Architect allow users to do?
MicroStrategy Architect lets developers design and maintain sophisticated business intelligence applications, at low cost and risk, in a comprehensive environment that is powerful, intuitive and secure.

3. What are the benefits of using MicroStrategy Architect?
All users of business intelligence applications use the same business definitions, ensuring consistent reporting across the organization. Modifications to either the data warehouse or to any business models can be applied quickly and deployed instantaneously to all users.

4. How easy is it to create new BI applications using MicroStrategy Architect?
MicroStrategy Architect contains a four-step project creation assistant, which includes many automated steps, to help define a project quickly and easily. Project Builder is also available for quickly creating proof-of-concept applications.

5. What happens if there are changes to my business definitions?
Modifications to business terms are made directly in the metadata repository using MicroStrategy Architect’s graphical interface. Many of these changes do not require changes to the database itself.

6. Can I test my business model by running reports?
MicroStrategy Architect integrates directly with Microstrategy Desktop. Business terms can be defined and tested without leaving the Desktop application. Project Builder contains an end-to-end wizard to connect to your data source, build your business model, and run reports through a single interface.

7. What documentation capabilities are available in MicroStrategy Architect?
MicroStrategy Architect can print details about the physical database schema and logical data model defined in the metadata repository. This information can also be exported to Microsoft® Excel.

Technical

8. What are the minimum requirements for MicroStrategy Architect?
Minimum requirements are a computer with at least a 450MHZ Pentium-compatible CPU, 256MB of RAM and 500MB of hard disk.

9. What database platforms can be mapped using MicroStrategy Architect?
You can access data in all the major databases including Oracle, IBM DB2, Informix, NCR Teradata, Netezza, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Red Brick, Sybase and Non-Stop SQL.

10. Is MicroStrategy Architect available in other languages?
MicroStrategy Architect is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Italian, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese.

11. How long does it take to get MicroStrategy Architect up and running?
MicroStrategy Architect installs in minutes, and automatically presents a list of available MicroStrategy Intelligence Servers. Within an hour, the installation and setup are completed.

12. How does MicroStrategy Architect integrate with the rest of the MicroStrategy platform?
MicroStrategy Architect is the intuitive client-server interface used by application developers to create business intelligence applications that can be accessed by all MicroStrategy’s products.

13. What types of schemas does MicroStrategy Architect support?
MicroStrategy Architect provides the widest range of schema support in the industry. Star, snowflake, normalized, and denormalized schemas can be mapped with MicroStrategy Architect.

14. Does MicroStrategy Architect provide the ability to join keys that do not follow any sort of standard naming conventions across tables?
Yes. MicroStrategy Architect provides heterogeneous column naming functionality to address this. For example, an attribute DATE could use a column called DATE_ID in one set of tables and a column called ORDER_DATE in another set of tables. The administrator can define these to mean the same attribute DATE.

15. How can I define complex business terms using MicroStrategy Architect?
Business terms can be defined using single or multiple columns, compound keys, constants, and/or user-defined expressions through editors and wizards. Expressions can use arithmetic operators to relate multiple columns, or define them using specialized functions that allow MicroStrategy to perform calculations, even if the underlying database doesn't support them.

16. How do I model aggregate tables in MicroStrategy Architect?
MicroStrategy Architect automatically identifies and calculates the correct level of granularity of the aggregate tables included in your model, and the SQL Engine dynamically references them when appropriate. No manual manipulation of fact definitions is necessary when using aggregate tables.

17. Does MicroStrategy Architect recognize partitioned fact tables?
Partitioned fact tables, used to speed up database query performance, are identified by MicroStrategy Architect using a partition mapping definition. This definition can be stored either in a database table or directly in the metadata repository.

18. What are the VLDB (very large database) drivers?
VLDB drivers adjust the way the MicroStrategy generates the SQL used to extract information from the database. VLDB drivers allow you to tune this SQL so that it is optimal for your specific database and environment. There are over 90 parameters that can be modified.

19. What are fact extensions?
Fact extensions lower the granularity of a fact based on an arithmetic expression, make a fact available to unrelated attributes, or disallow a certain fact to be calculated at particular attribute levels. This introduces considerable flexibility when designing data models and reduces the amount of data that needs to be stored in the data warehouse.

20. Explain how transformations are used?
Transformations enable users to perform sophisticated time-series analysis across metrics by grouping and comparing data at different time periods. Reports that include current period, prior period and period-to-date comparisons are possible using a single metric definition and without needing to redefine the report filter.

21. What is special about MicroStrategy’s hierarchies?
Hierarchies represent a set of attributes with paths between them. The System Hierarchy contains the true relationships (i.e., parent-child) between all the attributes in the schema. The System Hierarchy is automatically defined when attributes are created and their relationships to related attributes are specified. MicroStrategy Architect provides a unique abstraction of hierarchies above the System Hierarchy called User Hierarchies, which can contain an arbitrary number of attributes and paths between them. These User Hierarchies allow users to browse through the data and drill as required by business needs, as opposed to how the data is physically stored in the data source.