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Introducción a MicroStrategy 9

1. ¿Qué es MicroStrategy 9?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 es la versión más reciente de la plataforma de Business Intelligence (BI) de MicroStrategy líder en la industria con su arquietectura de BI de clase mundial ha mejorado considerablemente su performance, accesabilidad y escalabilidad de la plataforma detrás de sus altos niveles ya previamente demostrados. Con MicroStrategy 9 las empresas son capaces de desarrollar e implementar y mantener fácilmente su BI en cualquier escala gracias a sus funcionalidades de auto-Servicio, intuitivo y más flexible tecnología de BI.

    

2. ¿Cuáles son las nuevas funcionalidades disponibles con MicroStrategy 9?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 proveen nuevas funcionalidades, productos y mejoras:

   Soporte a Fuentes de Datos Múltiples
   Funcionalidad: MicroStrategy MultiSource Option, un nuevo componente completamente integrado a MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, permite a los usuarios reportar, analizar y monitoerar entre múltiplkes fuentes de datos a través de un modelo de negocio único.
   Beneficios: Performance de reportes y tiempos de consultas óptimos; utilizar solo algunos servidores y soporte de TI mínimo, al mínimo costo de BI, migrar gradual y fácilamente de islas departamentales distintas a un BI empresarial integrado y unificado.

   BI In-Memory
   Funcionalidad: Nuevo Intelligence Cube™ en MicroStrategy OLAP Services, cache in-memory dinámica que identifica y simplifica las consultas complejas que generalmente toman mucho tiempo procesarlos en una base de datos reduciendo la carga de trabajo del servidor y liberando capacidad de otras aplicaciones.
   Beneficios: Tiempo de consultas mínimo y reducción de tiempos de reporte, cargas de trabajo del servidor reducidos, posibilidad de trabajar dentro de "areneros" analíticos de manera autónoma sin impactar el desempeño empresarial. 

   Nueva Interfaz Web
   Funcionalidad: Una interfaz MicroStrategy Web con reingeniería, más rápido y más intuitivo que incluye funcionalidad de asutoservicio innovador, navegación de acordeón o de árbol, herranientas de cintas, rpompt, creación de filtros y nuevos diseños de tablas y gráficos, formateo sencillo y más.  
   Beneficios: Tiempos de Respuesta rápidos, diseño de tablas, gráficos y dashboards fácil, requerimientos mínimos de diseño de reportes y soporte de auto-servicio e interfaz de fácil uso.

   Diseño de Dashboard y capacidades de análisis
   Funcionalidades: Plantillas de dashboard Out-of-the box; conversión rápida de reportes a documentos, documentos multi-capas, “asistentes de colocación inteligente, autosestilos de dashboards, una librería extensa de visualizaciones avanzadas de DHTML y Flash; OLAP, drill, contenedores HTML y más.
   Beneficios: Diseño de dashboards de auto-servicio y para novatos, soporte de BI departamental al generar más BI con recusros y costos mínimos aspi como respuestas de tiempo a dashboards muy rápidas.

   MicroStrategy Distribution Services
   Funcionalidad: Nuevo producto, MicroStrategy Distribution Services es un sistema de distribución automatizada de reportes, dashboards y alertas de performance de negocio vía e-mail, archivos e impresoras.
   Beneficios: Entregas de información de altos volúmenes y de manera proactiva; interactividad fuera de horas de carga al más bajo costo de BI, ahorro de tiempo para la distribución y alertas personales. 

   Nuevas funcionalidades de reporteo empresarial
   Funcionalidades: Funcionalidades de formateo automático en MicroStrategy Report Services, como son secciones de repetición horizontal , imágenes de selección dinámica, capa de texto vertical, reportes multi-capa, generación de tabla de contenidos automática, paginación y marcas de agua. 
   Beneficios: Creación de reportes empresariales fácil y rápido, facturas, estados de clientes sin requerir de programación o soporte de TI. 

   SQL mejorado
   Funcionalidades: Varios niveles de generación de SQL inteligentes que eliminan pases de SQL innecesarios  y una generación mejorada de multi-pass en SQL
   Beneficios: Performance de reportes y dashboards rápidos en cualquier momento del día y en cualquier escala.

   Soporte de Internacionalización
   Funcionalidades: Capacidad de traducir objetos e información de MicroStrategy y el desarrollo de una aplicación en varios idiomas permitiendo a los usuarios ver las interfaces de MicroStrategy, sus reportes, métricas, atributos y otros objetos de la metadata en su propio idioma. 
   Beneficios: Análisis mejorado de como cada usuario de negocio en el mundo puede tener acceso a información del negocio en su propio idioma.

   Administración y Diseño Mejorado
   Funcionalidades: Nuevos MicroStrategy Architect  gráfico que permite a los usuarios a mapa del modelo de negocio, migración de objetos sin fisuras a través de MicroStrategy Object Manager; y más.
   Beneficios: Desarrollo de aplicación rápida y sin fisuras, entregables más rápidos con la menor cantidad de administración de sistemas y al más bajo costo de BI en cualquier escala. 

   Extensión de la Plataforma más Flexible
   Funcionalidades: Lider en la industria en el soporte para portales, creación de “mashup”, edición gráfica en la interfaz de MicroStrategy Web vía Eclipse y otros plug-ins; integración mejorada a Adobe® Flex Builder para desarrollo de visualización de información rápida y más.
   Beneficios: Customización fácil, mantenimiento, actualizaciones, flexibilidad y soporte para todos los componentes dentro de un ecosistema de BI.

   Además de estos nuevos conjuntos de funcionalidades, MicroStrategy 9 incluye miles de mejoras en todos los productos en la plataforma de   MicroStrategy. Por favor contacte a su ejecutivo de cuenta para más detalles.

Actualización a MicroStrategy 9

1. ¿Cómo obtener MicroStrategy 9?
   

   Todos los clientes que tienen sus mantenimiento vigente pueden actualizarse con MicroStrategy 9 para todos los productos que tenga bajo licencia. Para más información de compra de MicroStrategy 9, contacte a  MicroStrategy directamente al 59292.6266.

    

2. ¿Cómo se mapea la nueva funcionalidad de MicroStrategy 9 en los productos individuales de MicroStrategy?
   

   La tabla mencionada abajo muestra la funcionalidad de MicroStrategy  por producto

   Funcionalidad	Productos que corresponden
   Soporte para Múltiples Bases de Datos	MicroStrategy Intelligence Server MicroStrategy MultiSource Option
   BI In-Memory	MicroStrategy OLAP Services
   Nueva Interfaz Web	MicroStrategy Web Professional & Analyst
   Distribution Services	MicroStrategy Distribution Services MicroStrategy Desktop Designer MicroStrategy Web Professional & Analyst
   Nuevas Capacidades de Anáñisis y Diseño de Dashboard	MicroStrategy Intelligence Server MicroStrategy Report Services MicroStrategy Desktop Designer & Analyst MicroStrategy Web Professional & Analyst
   Nuevas Funcionalidades de Reporteo Empresarial	MicroStrategy Report Services MicroStrategy Desktop Designer & Analyst MicroStrategy Web Professional & Analyst
   SQL Mejorado	MicroStrategy Intelligence Server
   Soporte de Internacionalización	MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Repository Translation Wizard (incluido en MicroStrategy Object Manager) MicroStrategy Desktop Designer MicroStrategy Web Professional & Analyst
   Administración y Diseño Mejorado	MicroStrategy Architect MicroStrategy Desktop Designer MicroStrategy Web Professional
   Extensión de la Plataforma Flexible	MicroStrategy SDK

3. ¿Cómo actualizar mis reportes de la versión actual a MicroStrategy 9?

   Although MicroStrategy 9 represents a significant breakthrough in functionality, upgrading existing reports to MicroStrategy 9 is seamless. Customers can upgrade their projects by simply pointing their existing metadata to the MicroStrategy 9 Intelligence Server. In addition, MicroStrategy Integrity Manager can automate the regression testing of any or all reports before and after the upgrade. This can potentially reduce upgrade time from several months to just a few hours by eliminating the labor-intensive and error-prone manual testing that most companies perform. MicroStrategy Integrity Manager can also be used to ensure report integrity after other system changes, such as database design changes, database platform changes, VLDB changes, upgrading MicroStrategy to 64-bit operation, and ETL script changes.

4. How do I upgrade my customizations to MicroStrategy 9 from MicroStrategy 7.5 or 8.x?
   

   MicroStrategy Web and MicroStrategy SDK customizations can be easily migrated from MicroStrategy 7.5.x and 8.x due to the backward compatible nature of the underlying web architecture and parameter driven customization files. Also, the Web Customization Upgrade Utility within MicroStrategy's SDK facilitates 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 9?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 inherits and improves upon all the scalability, caching, scheduling, clustering, security and other enterprise class-IT features of the MicroStrategy platform. Customers should experience improved 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.

   MicroStrategy 9 introduces several key features that further enhance the high performance of the platform:

   • New Intelligent Cube (in-memory) architecture in MicroStrategy OLAP Services eliminates a large amount of the repetitive and expensive processing that would normally burden database servers by creating in-memory “cubes” for the most expensive and time-consuming queries.
   • Multi-pass SQL generation optimizations and SQL consolidations minimize query times
   • New report caching level and the caching of MicroStrategy Report Services documents in final formatted output: PDF, Excel, XML, CSV, HTML
   • VLDB drivers for new database versions leverage database-specific optimizations
   • Report archive management, enabling the storage of users’ personal report archives in a relational database
   • Greater scaling, potentially to infinite History List messages
   • Easier backups and administration
   • 64-bit support for Microsoft® Windows
6. What enhancements have been made to MicroStrategy’s world-class analytics?
   

   MicroStrategy contains over 270 built-in functions in the following categories: Standard, Date and Time, Null/Zero, OLAP, Rank and N-Tile, String, Arithmetic, Comparison, Logic, Data Mining, Financial, Mathematical, and Statistical. MicroStrategy 9 introduces a wide range of new data mining algorithms, statistical predictive, and OLAP functions, as well as improved metric grouping capabilities. Companies can use these types of advanced analytics to develop complex statistical calculations, more effective forecasting metrics, and many different forecast models for the same metric.

New Products and Support in MicroStrategy 9

1. What new products are included in MicroStrategy 9?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 includes the following new products:

   • MicroStrategy MultiSource Option
   • MicroStrategy Distribution Services

   In addition, MicroStrategy OLAP Services 9 provides the enhanced Intelligent Cube, a dynamic in-memory cache that leverages the strength of the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Security and Personalization Engines, and provides analytical flexibility by leveraging the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Analytical Engine. Learn more about new features in MicroStrategy OLAP Services

   Also, in MicroStrategy 9, MicroStrategy Administrator has been divided into three individual products: MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager, MicroStrategy Command Manager, and MicroStrategy Object Manager.

2. What platforms will be supported with this release?

   MicroStrategy 9 Intelligence Server is certified to run on Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 (64-bit), Linux, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, and HP-UX. Also, for the first time, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is certified on 64-bit Java Virtual Machines. MicroStrategy Web is certified on a combination of operating systems, including Windows, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and Linux, and application servers such as Microsoft IIS, IBM Websphere, SunOne, BEA Weblogic and Apache/Tomcat.

MicroStrategy MultiSource Option

1. What is MicroStrategy MultiSource Option?
   

   MicroStrategy MultiSource Option is a new and fully integrated add-on component of MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. It allows users to seamlessly report, analyze, and monitor data across multiple sources through a single business model.

   With MicroStrategy MultiSource Option, BI architects can build a single multidimensional model spanning multiple data sources including data warehouses, data marts, operational databases, and departmental databases. Report designers and developers can seamlessly create new reports and documents regardless of these underlying data stores and end-users can enjoy the benefit of deploying quick strike reports, dashboards, and even entire BI applications in minimal time, while leaving the data in its disparate sources. Learn more about MicroStrategy MultiSource Option.

2. What are the benefits of using MicroStrategy MultiSource Option?
   

   MicroStrategy MultiSource Option allows users to:

   • Quickly develop fully reusable business intelligence reports, dashboards, and applications even if data is located in disparate sources
   • Lower the cost of BI by gradually evolving to an Enterprise BI architecture
   • Seamlessly explore any data regardless of its location
   • Interact with reports, dashboards and OLAP grids similar to single-source ROLAP engine
   • Offload simple queries to less expensive databases
   • Increase the richness, relevance and value of any report or dashboard by incorporating more data from many sources
3. What type of data sources are supported with MultiSource Option?
   

   In MicroStrategy 9, heterogeneous data access at the schema level supports multiple relational sources. Therefore, you can combine anything that you can access with an ODBC driver, including RDBMS, Excel, text file, SalesForce.com, and even some web services.

MicroStrategy OLAP Services and In-Memory Capability

1. What new features are available in MicroStrategy OLAP Services 9, and what are the advantages of In-memory BI?
   

   MicroStrategy OLAP Services is an extension of MicroStrategy Intelligence Server that provides MicroStrategy Desktop, MicroStrategy Office and MicroStrategy Web users with faster and more extensive analytics as part of In-Memory BI. MicroStrategy OLAP Services 9 brings the power of a completely new version of Intelligent Cubes, a finite set of new objects that are automatically populated by MicroStrategy's multi-pass SQL generation engine. Users can analyze the full depth and breadth of their data warehouse with OLAP Services since no limits are set in data scalability, analytical scope or drill-through capability. Learn more about new features and business benefits of MicroStrategy OLAP Services.

2. What are some business scenarios and use cases for In-Memory BI?
   

   The key benefits of in-memory analytics are speed and analytical flexibility, and the ability to save database capacity. This technology benefits companies in a wide variety of business scenarios, including the following:

   • “Manic Mondays” and other times during which many business users are accessing the same report at the same time
   • Making executives’ most important reports run faster
   • Multiple dashboards using the same report as a dataset
   • Protecting the database from SQL execution and/or from bringing back many rows
   • Ensuring that the longest and most complex SQL requests run against a cube instead of the database, enhancing performance
3. What is a derived element?
   

   Derived Elements are a new feature of MicroStrategy OLAP Services 9 that can be used to enhance the analysis on Intelligent Cube reports and Report Service Documents. Elements of an attribute can be combined spontaneously to create filters, groups, lists and calculations. These new analytical elements can be saved and reused.

New Web Interface

1. How has the web interface been enhanced in MicroStrategy 9?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 includes a newly re-engineered Web user interface that is designed to be faster, more powerful, and more personal than ever before. The new MicroStrategy 9 web architecture boasts a wide range of performance-enhancing changes that make the interface more interactive and more instantly responsive to user requests. The new interface also includes a wide range of user self-service features that allow every user to have more control over the reports, formats, and data they see, without requiring an IT person to make any changes. These enhancements include:

   • Intuitive, self-service Web 2.0 and Microsoft Office-like paradigms, including one-click actions, tree view navigation, default run modes, ribbon toolbars and menus, internationalization, personalized interfaces, accordion controls, collaborative notes in grids and graphs, and enhanced engine-driven online help.
   • Quick, easy ways to modify the format and arrangement of reports and dashboards, and analyze the data within them. For instance, business users can do the following:
     • Quickly select individual rows and columns to format and analyze
     • Use subtotals, time transformations, row calculations, and column calculations to adjust the analytics
     • Filter, prompt, and drill on any and all layers of data
   • Full prompt and filter creation, enabling business users to create more objects on-the-fly without using MicroStrategy Desktop
   • In-depth threshold creation, quick metrics, derived elements, a function wizard and library
   • New, optimized grid and graph designers
   • Complete drill capabilities on all data, including page-by elements and graphs
2. Will my users require retraining to be productive with the redesigned web interface?
   

   No. MicroStrategy 9 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 will be intuitive to any user familiar with Microsoft Outlook®, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint®.

3. 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 (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla FireFox) without requiring the use of cookies or code downloads. Also, MicroStrategy 9 uses no Java or ActiveX controls.

Enterprise Reporting and Dashboard Enhancements

1. How can I create statements, report books, or dashboard books in MicroStrategy?
   

   Users have the ability to maintain separate documents and combine them into a single, finalized document (report book, statement, or dashboard book). The individual documents can be maintained by different users and they can have the following unique qualities:

   • Page groupings
   • Layout
   • Page Orientation
   • Vertical or horizontal repeating sections
   • Conditional formatting
   • Pagination
   • Datasets

   Enabling users to group together multiple documents into one makes it significantly easier to develop and maintain individual pieces of the unified document.

2. What OLAP capabilities do I have within a Report Services document?
   

   Users have the ability to drill within the document, drill anywhere, or disable drilling. Drilling capabilities can be applied to a grid or graph, enabling users to perform an investigative analysis directly on a dashboard, scorecard, or enterprise report. Users can drill out of the dashboard to investigate across the data warehouse or multiple data sources and generate new information-rich reports.

   Using the multi-select feature, business users can dynamically select any group of elements and create derived element groups on the fly. Elements can be removed or added dynamically and users can create their own calculations between various groups or individual items.

3. I want only one version of the dashboard to view in Flash and DHTML (AJAX), but I have Flash-advanced visualizations in the dashboard. How can I design this dashboard for DHTML?
   

   Only one design of the dashboard is required. Flash-advanced visualizations have flash plug-ins that are maintained within the container of the advanced visualization. Flash-advanced visualizations can be rendered in both Flash and DHTML, and the same controls are made available to users, enabling a seamless integration between Flash and DHTML design.

4. How can users design dashboards quickly and without programming experience or training?
   

   MicroStrategy offers out-of-the box templates that provide a great starting point for dashboard designers. Each template contains a series of containers, or panel stacks, that enable users to quickly add components to each panel stack, such as: text boxes, shapes, reports, grids, graphs, panel stacks, HTML containers, selectors, and widgets. Also, pre-formatted customized templates can be created to place the design experience in the hands of end-users. These pre-formatted templates can include the corporate logo and color layout. Users can simply drag, drop, and select dashboard components to quickly design a dashboard in the matter of minutes.

MicroStrategy Distribution Services

1. What is MicroStrategy Distribution Services?
   

   MicroStrategy Distribution Services is a new product, introduced in the MicroStrategy 9 release. MicroStrategy Distribution Services provides high-volume, automated distribution of reports, documents, dashboards, and business performance alerts via email, file servers, and networked printers. MicroStrategy Distribution Services distributes any and all MicroStrategy reports, documents, and dashboards contained within HTML, Excel, PDF, Flash, Zip, plaintext, and CSV.

2. How is MicroStrategy Distribution Services integrated into the MicroStrategy Platform?
   

   MicroStrategy Distribution Services is an integral component of the MicroStrategy 9 architecture – using the full BI infrastructure of MicroStrategy 9. MicroStrategy Distribution Services is installed along with MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, and MicroStrategy Distribution Services functionality is integrated across the platform, as are other service modules such as MicroStrategy Report Services and MicroStrategy OLAP Services.

3. What are some of the many ways in which my organization can benefit from MicroStrategy Distribution Services?
   

   The personalized, scalable, and cost-saving features of MicroStrategy Distribution Services provide organizations with many important benefits.

   • High-volume, low-cost information dissemination: Support 100,000s of users easily and 100,000s of reports and dashboards per day.
   • Save costs by offloading peak-hour interactivity: Large amounts of routine activity can be pushed to off-hours, when DB capacity is available – avoid costly database upgrades to accommodate peak hour traffic.
   • Proactive information delivery: Ensures that business people see important information, without requiring that they go through the effort of seeking the information.
   • Automated Personal BI: Personal distributions and personal alert triggers mean that people will spend far less time seeking information -- instead the information will find them.
   • Reduced information latency: Reduces the delay between an adverse business event happening and a business user being aware that they should take action.

Internationalization

1. What is internationalization, and what benefits does it provide to my organization?
   

   Internationalization enables the concurrent deployment of a single project in multiple languages. This ensures that employees and customers all over the world can always access essential business information in their own language. Business users can view MicroStrategy interfaces, as well as their own reports, metrics, attributes, and data in their own language, enabling more convenient and collaborative analysis across the enterprise.

2. How does internationalization work in MicroStrategy 9?
   

   Internationalization is an out-of-the-box capability in MicroStrategy 9, and can be applied to the metadata, as well as the actual data within your organization’s data sources. Metadata objects such as reports, attributes, and metrics can be translated into different languages manually through the Desktop interface or in bulk by extracting them from the metadata into an external database and re-importing them back. This bulk translation can be performed using the Repository Translation Wizard, which is included with MicroStrategy Object Manager. Data can be internationalized by adding new columns to lookup tables or creating new tables that store internationalized data. Attributes can be simply modified to point to the new tables/columns.

   Administrators can choose to apply a number of different languages to the project and customize it to the preference of the user. For example, a user from France may see the project in French but a user in Germany may see the same project in German. Additionally, administrators can set languages for individual users if, for instance, user A wants to see all projects in English but User B, being German, wants to see all projects in German. This flexibility allows administrators to deploy one BI application in multiple languages to different users such that the whole process is transparent to them.

   Another key feature of MicroStrategy’s internationalization support is that it enables an incremental, phased approach to translating BI applications. Most companies pursue this gradual approach since they may not have complete translations for their data or metadata yet. MicroStrategy enables this functionality by tagging specific attributes as "multi-lingual" attributes, which is done at the attribute form level. When this is tagged, MicroStrategy will then check the user language preference and apply languages there only.

3. What components of a BI application can be translated and presented in multiple languages?
   

   Every component of a BI application can be translated and presented in multiple languages, including all MicroStrategy user interfaces, metadata objects such as the names of reports and documents, and data within a data warehouse.

Improved Design and Administration

1. What is the new MicroStrategy Architect?
   

   MicroStrategy Architect allows users to map their business model into a MicroStrategy metadata from a single interface that can be used to build metadata objects through simple drag-and-drop and right-click operations. The new MicroStrategy Architect streamlines the project modeling experience, making it interactive and visual, thereby drastically reducing the time required to build and deploy complex project models.

2. What are some of the new features of MicroStrategy Architect?
   

   In addition to providing a single interface that allows architects to visually map a project model, MicroStrategy Architect has a number of new features to enhance and streamline the project modeling experience. Tables can be dragged and dropped into the project model and attributes and facts can be directly defined on the table by right mouse-clicking on relevant columns. New forms can be defined by dragging a column from a table and dropping them on the attribute. MicroStrategy Architect recognizes table foreign keys and uses advance heuristics to automatically define attributes and link different tables. The System hierarchy as well as User Hierarchies can be designed in the same interface.

3. Do project architects need to learn any new modeling concepts and how to use the new interface?
   

   No, project architects will not have to learn any new modeling concepts and will not have to go through any training to use the new MicroStrategy Architect interface. The new interface is a single entry point to identify tables and define schema objects that map your business model. The editors used to defined schema objects can be directly accessed from this interface eliminating the need for architects to define objects one at a time. The interface is designed to be very interactive and intuitive and users can create objects such as attributes and facts by simple right click operations. Additionally, Architects can drag and drop tables into the project and define attributes and facts directly on the tables.

4. Will the new MicroStrategy Architect still support all data schemas?
   

   Yes, MicroStrategy Architect will still support all data schemas such as star and snowflake, including those with sparse aggregate tables, partitioned tables, or split fact tables. It will support direct access to operational data stores, data-marts and multi-dimensional data. Additionally, project models based on heterogeneous data sources are also supported, employing MicroStrategy MultiSource Option.

5. How can MicroStrategy 9 help me track all changes made to metadata objects and remain compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 introduces a new change journaling feature in MicroStrategy Object Manager, which is designed to track and audit changes made to any metadata object in the BI system. This is a major feature of object versioning that will ensure that companies successfully complete audits and remain Sarbanes-Oxley compliant.

6. How does MicroStrategy 9 make it easier to design a grid or graph report?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 introduces many enhancements and capabilities that allow business users to more quickly and efficiently design grid and graph reports. These new features include:

   • A new graph editor in MicroStrategy Web and MicroStrategy Desktop that allows you to place metrics and other objects in drop zones and preview their effect on a graph immediately, while editing
   • Improved report editor in MicroStrategy Web
   • Improved dashboard and document editors
   • New filter and prompt editors in MicroStrategy Web
   • Create and edit reports and dashboards in MicroStrategy Office
7. How does MicroStrategy 9 ease object migrations?
   

   Migrating object changes is the biggest challenge facing administrators as typically a live connection to the source as well as the destination is necessary. Using MicroStrategy Object Manager, developers and architects can bundle object changes into packages, which are stand-alone files. Packages are like any other files and can be transported via email or shared with others. To migrate changes, the administrator would typically create a package (file) at the source and transfer it to the destination and simply apply it. Packages, therefore, eliminate the need to have a live connection to the source. Additionally, instructions to migrate any dependent objects can be bundled into the package thereby reducing the need to provide detailed instructions to administrators. With the elimination of a connection to the live source, the source project is not locked reducing source project downtime.

8. How is the MicroStrategy platform even easier to administer with MicroStrategy 9?
   

   MicroStrategy 9 presents a wide range of advancements that further ease and streamline platform administration.

   User management and security features include:

   • The ability to manage users, project access, security roles, and perform other administrative tasks from anywhere, using MicroStrategy Web.
   • More granular privileges for monitoring and administering users and security, that allow administrators to assign the perfect set of privileges to every user in the enterprise.
   • Easy distribution of administration and monitoring tasks to many administrators and users.
   • Out-of-the-box single sign-on capabilities, supporting Microsoft Active Directory (LDAP and Kerberos), Tivoli, and SiteMinder.
   • Most powerful encryption algorithms in BI, which can also be applied to report caches.
   • More options to manage passwords and logins, including password complexity, rules for re-use, and account locking.

   Features designed to help administrators manage MicroStrategy Intelligence Server operations include:

   • Multiple levels of SQL generation optimization, allowing you to choose the most appropriate one for your environment.
   • MicroStrategy Command Manager runs on all supported platforms, and includes new Java programming capabilities (conditions, loops, variables).
   • All batch activities run off MicroStrategy Intelligence Server time -- and event-based schedules, including e-mail, print, send-to-file, history list, cache creation, Intelligent Cube publishing, and administrative functions.
   • Employ more governing settings to fine-tune administrative settings, including maximum subscriptions per user by type of delivery and time limit settings for SQL execution, prompt wait time, maximum number of interactive, and scheduled jobs.