Is there such a thing? When I look at all of the things we have to do with data, everything we have to do with infrastructure, and everything we have to do with the people and organizations who work with information, I have a hard time believing simple.

Think about it. What do we do with data? Acquire, cleanse, transform, load, update, model, store, manage, optimize, protect, report, analyze, search, mine, archive, query, retrieve, document, dispose.

What do we do with infrastructure? Configure, tune, test, optimize, deploy, tune again, protect, secure, scale, manage, refresh, repurpose, recycle, dispose.

What about all of the people who deal with data? Data modelers, data architects, data warehouse managers, systems administrators, database administrators, storage administrators, business analysts, data analysts, business managers, customers, suppliers, buyers, and everyone else who uses intelligence in any way to use do their job. The list goes on…

I do think there are ways to simplify the complex world of business intelligence, but I don’t think there is really such a thing as “simple business intelligence.” It does make sense to learn from those who have long term experience in the BI. It does make sense to look at ways of simplifying BI using appliances, accelerators, and cookbooks. It does make sense to look for new technologies that integrate the diverse components of BI (metadata management, master data management, etc.). But in the end, the only thing simple about business intelligence is the spelling of BI.