Samsung Electronics considered the meaning and weight of this BI system as a strategic weapon acting as the ‘brain’ required for establishing logical business strategy and it conducted a survey about various BI solutions at the end of 2007, entering thorough solution selection process including technology analysis and benchmarking test process to compare performance.
Jo said, “Since the BI system had to process a large amount of data and frequent queries including frequently unexpected queries and accesses, reliability is the most important requirement of mass data processing. In addition, other selection criteria that we check thoroughly include query speed and cube write-back performance. Our basic requirements as well as other conditions include expandability, development productivity and maintenance operating ability, taking into consideration the characteristics of the BI system, which evolves according to the utilization of users.”
After spending several weeks in the investigation process, Samsung Electronics narrowed its search to a total of 3 solutions including Oracle’s AceBase, SAP’s Business Objects and Microsoft’s BI solution. In the initial bid against each other, SAP’s Business Objects was the first solution to be excluded due to limitations in creating simulations while Oracle’s AceBase and Microsoft’s BI solution underwent severe competition.
Jo said, “In the case of Microsoft’s products, we had SQL Server 2008 in mind but at that time, the product had not been released officially, so we had no choice but to conduct the comparison with SQL Server 2005. We performed benchmarking tests for a week using actual data in systems installed with these two solutions and results showed that there was almost no or meaningless differences in terms of cube write-back function as well as query speed and performance.”
Samsung Electronics began their BI implementation project centering on SQL Server, which satisfies all three of their major challenges including performance, cube write-back, and user convenience, as well as provides mining tools, reporting capabilities, and additional functions not offered in Oracle’s AceBase. This BI system is a key system of enterprise-wide business and Samsung Electronics began the first stage development based on SQL Server 2005 rather than the beta version of SQL Server 2008. Later in 2008, one month before the release of the official version, Samsung Electronics decided to participate in Microsoft’s RDP (Rapid Development Program).
Through this program, Samsung Electronics closely cooperated with Microsoft’s consulting organization to investigate its BI implementation scenario, which is expected to become the business brain of its group of companies and searched for ways to implement optimal performance. In addition to development tasks, it also established detailed checklists for the migration process, setting complete before and after measures so that no issues would arise during the process, including programs created with the 2005 version and procedure components. Having promoted the project following these processes, Samsung Electronics, full of confidence, promoted aggressive upgrade tasks the day after SQL Server 2008 was released.
Since the 1:1 benchmarking test, Samsung Electronics was certain of SQL Server 2008’s performance and decided to deploy it but it emphasized that there were other noteworthy factors involved, such as user familiarity. Jo says, “The BI system we wanted to implement should provide intelligence required for decision making before its potency disappears, since it is used in making decisions with deep financial impact. Since users can easily use and feel familiar with this BI Solution, its implementation benefits can be maximized. Accordingly, we judged that Microsoft’s platform is much more advantageous.”
In August 2008, after 3 months of planning and implementing, simulation and verification processes, Samsung Electronics launched its SCM system with a new look filled with market information. Samsung Electronics built their DW/ODS and OLAP server in SQL Server 2008 and applied Smart Client in a simulation UI/management UI to create employee-familiar UI. Also, it used Microsoft SilverLight to create a BI dashboard, making special efforts to enhance the completeness of the system.
After upgrading to SQL Server 2008, Samsung Electronics’ BI system showed dramatic changes. Jo says, “After upgrading to SQL Server 2008, we executed the system to perform tests and at first, we were almost deluded that the system was not operating. In the past, due to the limitations of system speed on RDBMS, we could not even think of performing queries, but with SQL Server 2008, the system was transformed to provide these queries with responses within one second.”