The Business Intelligence space is one fraught with vendors, tools, and opinions of how best to implement BI solutions. This book addresses key areas of BI such as data structure and delivery, tools evaluation, and more. The subject areas are presented from the author's point of view and experiences. At the heart of the materials are points to ponder, food for thought, and significant errors to avoid. Business Intelligence is the conscious, methodical transformation of data from any and all data sources into new forms to provide information that is business driven and results oriented. It will often encompass a mixture of tools, databases, vendors in order to deliver an infrastructure that not only will deliver the initial solution, but it will incorporate the ability to change with the business and current marketplace. The purpose of investing in BI is to transform from an environment that is reactive to data to one that is proactive. A major goal of the solution will be to automate and integrate as many steps and functions as possible. Another goal is to provide data analytics that are as tool independent as possible.