Azure ML, SSAS Cubes, Power BI

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Azure Machine Learning Course

SSAS Cube Design Course

And...

Irish Economic Crisis Visualised in Power BI

Carmel Gunn and Bob Duffy explore the Irish Economic Crisis using Power Query, Power Map, Power View and Q&A in this 40-min video. Could Power BI prevent a small country run a shocking €200bn debt? This is a stunning tour-de-force of Power BI which shows how a data-equipped armchair economist could analyse—and predict—what would happen to a country. The conclusion of the video is that...I'm not telling. You have to watch it (but you can use the "Jump to a chapter" links on the right to jump to the conclusions). Go on, enjoy it this weekend and have a cool story to share with friends and the family at the dinner table.

SSAS Cube Design

I am very pleased that the world-expert on cubes and SQL Server Analysis Services, Chris Webb, has just recorded a full, new course focused on multidimensional cube design for us. We are releasing modules every month, and we already have three for you to get started.

Start with a short, 5-minute video, which demonstrates how to use the SSAS Deployment Wizard.

Then learn how to use SQL Server Data Tools-BI (SSDT-BI, previously called BI Development Studio or BIDS) used for building SQL Server Analysis Services projects, in this 40-minute video. You will learn how to create an SSDT-BI project, set its properties, connect to relational data such as a data warehouse, and how to create Data Source Views (DSVs).

FInally (for now) learn how to build dimensions: one of the foundations of multidimensional cube design, in this 1-hour video. You will also learn the concept of attributes, and their relationships, parent/child and ragged hierarchies, data aggregation, and Date dimensions. The next module, on measures, will be ready soon.

Azure ML

Azure Machine Learning is now generally available for production use, and the new pricing kicked in today! It is new, but it is already quite competent. It is one of the three key data science tools I use, the other two being SQL Server Data Mining and R, including RStudio, and also the Revolution Analytics engine, which I am pleased to see Microsoft have decided to buy together with its company: read my notes why it matters in this detailed post.

Microsoft Azure ML, or Machine Learning, is a cloud-based platform for designing, developing, testing and deploying predictive models. I introduce it to you in this 10-minute video, which shows an experiment and a predictive web service in ML Studio—this video is now available for everyone to watch.

The main part of our new data science course is the full-length, 1-hour 40-minute, in-depth introduction to all aspects of Microsoft Azure Machine Learning, that is: tools and concepts, the process, uploading data, modelling, validating results, preparing and publishing scoring experiments and even using deployed machine learning web services by calling them from a simple Python application.

Since I have published those videos Microsoft have made some minor changes to the UI in ML Studio, notably the process of creating a web service requires an additional couple of clicks and the API for calling the scoring service now supports multiple rows of input data. On one side, this means I have to re-record the video (grhr), I suppose, at some stage, on the other side, I am glad they continue to evolve this technology. Since we expect plenty of new stuff in Azure ML before this summer (in the northern hemisphere), I will be recording more videos throughout the year. My next one will focus a bit more on R and RStudio, as always, from the perspective of an educated business power user.

Practical Data Science with Azure Machine Learning, SQL Data Mining and R

I am pleased to deliver the first-in-the-world, hands-on, classroom-based 4-day course on Azure ML and the rest of the Microsoft data science stack. It will take place in Stockholm on 25 May 2015 and is offered by Cornerstone. We have 15 seats, and as of now 4 are still available, so go ahead and grab yours now: click here for the full agenda and to book. As we are going to get full, we will be taking names for the second course, which is likely to also take place in Sweden, then in UK and perhaps in Ireland, still in 2015.

Data Science for Business Analytics Roadshow & Ignite 2015

I am running a smaller roadshow this year than the last year, but if you are in Austria, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, or United States you can still catch it—I have already presented in Czech Republic, Norway and Sweden, I am sorry I have not announced those locations earlier... Find out the agenda and the dates here.

I am presenting at the sold-out Ignite 2015 in Chicago. If you are attending, catch my intensive pre-conference 1-day Azure ML seminar on Sunday May 3, or come to see my afternoon session on this subject on Monday May 4.

Newsletter Promo: 10% Off

For all newsletter readers: take 10% off when subscribing or renewing, until the end of April. Use it for every membership you wish to buy, even our group memberships—great for companies. The code is:

10NEWSLETTER2015APR

If you renew, your new membership will extend your existing one.

Enjoy learning modern BI with us.

Rafal