‘Business’ can be construed as a term that is redolent with connotations of sales and profit & loss. It sometimes means that the the concept of ‘business intelligence’ can be perceived as more relevant in the commercial sector than in the public sector.
‘Performance intelligence’ is perhaps a more appropriate term in the Public Sector. Whichever term you prefer, there is an increasing need to demonstrate value for money, higher productivity and improving results in terms of outcomes across the Public Sector.
At the WellcomeTrust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression at the University of Dundee, a research team under the aegis of Professor Angus Lamond is conducting research aimed at understanding basic cell mechanisms and how genes and chromosomes work. The research programme has completed the sequencing of the entire human genome which enables them to more effectively understand the relationship between genes, inherited disorders, and diseases, including cancer.
In terms of the data volumes, these experiments can involve analysing more than 400,000 fragments from as many as 10,000 proteins. This research can generate 600 gigabytes or more of raw data per experiment. The challenge for the research team was to identify a high performance business intelligence solution to help analyse large volumes of research data on how genes and chromosomes work.
The Dundee research team chose Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 for its experiments because it offered features that were highly applicable to their work. Biomedical researchers were already using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services to help understand the proteome—the set of expressed proteins in an organism—and have recently added Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel to their business intelligence suite of applications.
PowerPivot for Excel gives users the power to create compelling self-service business intelligence solutions. It supports sharing and collaboration in a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 environment, and helps researchers increase operational efficiencies through SQL Server 2008 R2–based management tools.
You can read the full story and view a video of the project to find out more about how to apply business intelligence (or performance intelligence if you prefer) to speed up acquiring outcomes from large volumes of data using tools such as PowerPivot for Excel.
Posted by Ian
First of all, welcome to the ‘new look’ Microsoft UK Government blog. To accompany the new look we are planning to publish a more frequent and broader range of postings that are of interest to Microsoft users throughout UK government organisations.
This week has already been a very active one for the new coalition Government with the announcement of the £6.2Bn of savings in the Public Sector and the formal announcement of the legislative programme for the coming year in the Queen’s speech on Tuesday.
ICT plays a pivotal role in these announcements. There are potential cutbacks in some of the larger-scale projects such as ID cards and biometric passports. There are also opportunities to deploy ICT smarter to improve the effectiveness and lower the cost of public service delivery.
Which brings me to the cloud. The purpose of this posting is not to pronounce that ‘the cloud is the future’ (although it certainly looks to be rapidly changing the IT strategy of most organisations) but simply to point you to more information about Microsoft Online Services and how you can view a demo of the potential for online services in your organisation and participate in a free trial of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)
We can also arrange customised demonstrations of the practical use of BPOS in public sector organisations. To find out more and arrange a demo for your organisation simply email ukps@microsoft.com and we shall contact you to discuss your requirements and arrange a demonstration.
Live in London*? Got a Windows Phone or an iPhone? Want to report an environmental problem in your borough for prompt action? You need to download the app for Love Clean Streets.
LoveCleanStreets is an award winning free online portal that helps people who live or work in any of London’s 33 local authorities to upload photographs of community problems that require action by the local authority. The system—pioneered by the London Borough of Lewisham—gives citizens the power to improve their immediate environment.
Users can submit reports using a free mobile phone application. They can also send a text or visit the lovecleanstreets.org Web portal. There they can see and search for all the reports in their area and share them through social networking sites, review progress, or subscribe to updates. The system can be fully integrated into local authority systems, ensuring that issues can be dealt with smoothly and allowing developers to create their own applications to submit and retrieve reports.
At a time when every penny counts, Love Clean Streets is a leading example of citizens being directly engaged in improving public services, seeing the difference it makes to their area and thinking more positively about the responsiveness of their local authority. The London Borough of Lewisham has seen graffiti complaints fall by 30 per cent and clean-up time improve by 87% as a result of the solution.
You can read the full story here, including the technical bit about the Microsoft technology (Bing Maps, Silverlight, .NET Framework) that Microsoft partner bbits used to develop and deliver the solution.
* FOOTNOTE: Although Love Clean Streets is currently only available across 33 London boroughs at the moment, many other local authorities nationwide and internationally are evaluating the innovative solution with a view to deploying it for the benefit of their citizens.
This is to remind you that we are continuing our current series of Live Meetings (webinars) together with Microsoft business partners that will demonstrate how new technology can deliver genuine cost-savings and improve the efficiency of public service delivery.
Our next Live Meeting in this series addresses Windows 7 – Application Compatibility and Migration (Invitation Code: 4ACF82) and takes place on Friday May 21st between 11:00 – 12:00.
ChangeBASE is a Microsoft partner specialising in automated application compatibility and remediation. Their CTO, Greg lambert, is joining us for this Live Meeting and will share his expertise and experience of how to ensure application compatibility and accelerate your organisation’s migration to Windows 7.
During our Live Meeting you will learn about:
· Windows 7 enhanced features and functionality
· Public Sector customers who are successfully deploying Windows 7
· Sample testing your application portfolio for Windows 7
· How you can automatically remediate 95%+ of application compatibility issues quickly and easily
· Avoiding unnecessary migration costs and reducing the risks to your organisation
Our Live Meetings are delivered by Microsoft experts and business partners with experience in the Public Sector. You will have the opportunity to interact with the presenter(s) during the Live Meetings and get answers to your questions.
It has been a busy day. The UK has its first coalition Government in 70 years and Microsoft has launched significant new versions of major software platforms. I’ll leave you to decide which is the most momentous event.
You know which news sites to visit for more information on the coalition Government but, just in case it had escaped your notice, I thought I’d remind you where you can view the launch presentations for Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010.
Take your pick from 25 short videos on the new products and how customers are using them to improve productivity, business intelligence and collaboration.
This is to remind you that we are running a fresh series of Live Meetings (webinars) together with our business partners that will demonstrate how new technology can deliver genuine cost-savings and improve the efficiency of public service delivery.
The first in this series of Live Meetings addresses how to Simplify your migration to Windows 7 with Citrix and Microsoft (Invitation Code: BAC0F1) and takes place on Friday May 14th from 11:00 – 12:00.
Taking part in our Live Meeting will provide you with a genuine insight into how to:
· Deliver virtual applications on demand: With multiple ways of virtualising applications, Citrix will set your applications up for Windows 7 by separating them from the endpoint and the desktop operating system.
· Re-use the PCs already installed: Repurpose desktop refresh/upgrade budget to build a desktop as a service infrastructure either running on a virtual desktop in the Datacentre or streamed directly to the endpoint PC or thin client.
· Access Windows 7 desktop from any device, anywhere: Users will be fully productive with all the corporate productivity tools available to them on any endpoint on any network. A simple network connection is all that is required for them to access their corporate desktop.
· Lock down corporate data in the datacentre: By simply removing corporate data from the Windows 7 endpoint, data security concerns are minimised.
I felt compelled to write this blog posting today as, in theory, it should be a once in every 4-5 year opportunity. However, if the plethora of polls is to be believed there is high probability of a hung Parliament, or ‘balanced Parliament’ if you prefer the parlance of the SNP and Plaid Cymru. And that could have us engaging in a further round of general election voting sooner than we think.
Whatever the outcome, and I have no intention of making predictions, as we are currently in ‘political purdah’ like all media, the one certainty is that public sector budget constraints are on the way. A spending review will be required as one of the proof points of the new Government’s commitment to reduce the budget deficit.
How challenging will the budget constraints be? To answer that question I shall defer to the expert analysis conducted by CIPFA and SOLACE in their report: After the Downturn. The report outlines three strategic scenarios for the Public Sector budget in the coming years and is a thought-provoking analysis that is also concise and easy to read.
Whatever the outcome, lowering the cost of delivering public services will be a priority. Innovation in achieving this will rely on smarter use of your current ICT resources and appropriate investment in the solutions that enable more public services to be delivered more cost-effectively online.
We’ll be sharing numerous examples of innovative public service delivery from across the globe in this blog in the weeks to come. Although ICT cannot be a universal panacea to the challenges that lie ahead, it can certainly be an important enabler to unlocking more value from public service investments.
The chances of persuading your manager to let you fly over to Las Vegas for the recent annual Microsoft Management Summit were always pretty slim.
Fortunately, the UK team has put together a “Best Of…” event, where you can get all of the best content from the summit, packed into a full day’s agenda on Tuesday 18th May in central London. And unlike the Vegas event, which cost $2,000+, this event is free.
Best of Microsoft Management Summit UK 2010 will provide the best possible opportunity to learn about the latest IT Management products, solutions and technologies from Microsoft and how to apply them in your organisation. With a number of significant management product releases and announcements planned from Microsoft in the coming year, including some early Beta releases, this event is a valuable investment of your time in discovering how to lower the cost of your IT operations with Microsoft system management technologies.
This 1-day event will provide you with an understanding of the latest technical updates on Desktop, Datacenter and Cloud management features and solutions from Microsoft. The event will share expert knowledge and information, covering current System Center products as well as Windows platform management solutions for virtualisation of servers, desktops and applications.
The agenda includes:
· Managing Systems from the Datacenter to the Cloud
o Ryan O'Hara, Director - System Center
· Configuration Manager v.Next: Overview
o Jeff Wettlaufer, Technical Product Manager - System Center
· What's New Since the Release of Operations Manager 2007 R2
o Paul Collins & Ellis Paul, Management Technology Specialist
· Opalis IT Process Automation: Introduction & Technical Overview
o Greg Charman, Opalis Technology Specialist
· ISystems Management in Midsized Organizations with System Center Essentials 2010
o Gordon McKenna, MVP - System Center Specialist
· Technical Introduction to Data Protection Manager 2010
o Anthony Tyler, Storage Technology Architect
· Service Manager Integration with System Center
o Nigel Cain, Senior Program Manager - System Center