What is SQL and how is it used in Business Intelligence (BI)?

I often tell my students that it's not mandatory to master SQL to work with Business Intelligence, but sooner or later, you will need to master it (and it will happen sooner than you think!). SQL is the language with which we "communicate" with practically all relational databases. It is through it that we can insert, modify, and, most importantly, do what we do most in BI: read data. Even though BI tools have evolved to the point of almost not needing SQL anymore, it is still, and will certainly be necessary for a long time. Mastering SQL will give you a competitive advantage because you won't depend on the BI tool to read the data, and you will be able to "go straight to the source," ensuring greater control.

SQL is foundational in all aspects of a BI implementation. In the beginning you need to use SQL to write your Data Definition Language (DDL) to create your tables in a warehouse. Then you'll need Data Manipulation Language (DML) to insert your data. During the ETL process you'll use SQL to combine, alter, and transform your data. Finally, in the presentation layer, you can use SQL to build your dataset and to write test scripts to validate against.

SQL applications are used in websites, apps, and businesses to handle data storage, retrieval, updating, and deletion. They ensure efficient data organization, searching, and analysis, making them essential for managing information in a wide array of systems.

Our team has implemented data encryption as one of the measures to safeguard our data. This is particularly important when it comes to customer data, where data fields are anonymized to protect customer privacy. Access to this data is limited to specific members of certain teams who have been authorized to access it.

I would suggest to continuously assess and enhance your database's performance. You can do this by identifying and addressing slow queries and bottlenecks to boost efficiency. It is also crucial to stay abreast of the most recent SQL capabilities and recommended methodologies to consistently enhance your database administration expertise.

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems (RDBMSs). It is used to perform tasks such as data retrieval, data manipulation, and data definition. BI engineers use SQL to query data from databases and generate reports and dashboards. They can use SQL to perform a wide variety of tasks, including: Extract data from a variety of sources. BI engineers can use SQL to transform data into a format that is suitable for analysis.This may involve cleaning the data,aggregating it,or calculating new variables. Can use SQL to analyze data and generate vizual insights. Further can use SQL to create reports and dashboards that communicate data findings to stakeholders.