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Siebel Analytics Server in the Decision Support Environment

The Siebel Analytics Server serves as a portal to structured data that resides in one or more data sources—multiple data marts, the Siebel Data Warehouse, an enterprise data warehouse, an operational data store, transaction system databases, personal databases, and more. Transparent to both end users and query tools, the Analytics server functions as the integrating component of a complex decision support system (DSS) by acting as a layer of abstraction and unification over the underlying databases. This offers users a simplified query environment in which they can ask business questions that span information sources across the enterprise and beyond. This section shows how the Analytics server fits into the decision support environment.

Components of the Environment

Figure 1 shows the Siebel Analytics Server along with other components of the data warehouse.

Figure 1.  High-Level Environment Diagram

The Siebel Analytics Server is designed to complement decision support systems, not replace them. Well-designed systems allow business users to analyze large quantities of historic information in several forms—detail, snapshot, and summary. Each type of information has a specific use:

• Detail data provides insights into the specifics of the business. For example, such analyses can lead businesses to maximize product strategies or cut marketing costs.
• Snapshot data shows a view of the business data at a given time. Snapshot data can be used to understand trends and to monitor business performance. Product profitability, customer segmentation, and shelf management strategies all benefit from snapshot data.
• Summary data can be used to generate reports at a higher level of aggregation to monitor performance at the upper levels of the business organization. Analysts needing more detailed information can drill down to lower-level snapshot or detail data.