PowerPivot?

I'm wondering, what is PowerPivot, and why should I care?  

I went to  powerpivot.com, but couldn't get past the cheesy cartoon character and the description that it " enables IT organizations to increase operational efficiencies".   bleh.  X -- close.

I like the current Excel pivot table integration with SQL Server and cubes -- PowerPivot isn't going to make it more difficult and/or expensive to utilize this feature of Office, is it?   Anyone have any experience with it?

stirone,

I am reviewing and starting to play around with PowerPivot.  It is an Add-on to Excel 2010 and should not have any factor on changing the existing pivot table functionality.  What it does is allows power users to pull data in from various sources with virtually no limit to file size, it then allows the users to map relationships between the feeds (without using Excel Tables), and it allows users to anlayze and slice this data, create charts,  and ALL of this in Memory. 

You might think of this as Analysis Services Built into Excel with the ability to share these Excel files with your team without the need to manage connections.

PowerPivot is deamed as a SELF SERVICE BI tool.
I hope to start blogging my findings soon on this site.

Sweet. 

Thanks for your efforts, btretupdegraff, I look forward to reading your blog postings on this topic.  FYI, I am particularly interested in knowing what kind of infrastructure is required -- like, can you use just Excel 2010 and SQL Server, or does it require an investment in Sharepoint and/or something else?   If this is targeted at small companies, adding a resource to manage a Sharepoint server (in addition to a Sharepoint server) isn't going to go over very well with them.

Thanks again.

Good questions!  I know that it does not require SharePoint 2010 but if you do have SP2010 you can do some pretty slick collaborations.  I also don't yet understand the licensing of this product but I know that you do not need to install SSAS to get this functionality.

I hope to learn more soon - as soon as my real job lets me find the time ;-)

There is a video on the website that shows you the fundamentals of it

http://www.powerpivot.com/videos.aspx

If you donot have it installed, there is a Hyper V image for you to practice it as well

My impression is that its self service optimized for large data sets.  In the past we have found limitations with Excel's ability to handle this (around 1 million records).  PowerPivot exceeds this significantly. It also allows the ability create calculated columns and so on. The true value I see is integrating it into a collaborative tool such as SharePoint where the users do not have to have excel installed locally to do analysis on data allowing you to govern your solution and minimizing support for the end users (drivers etc). There are some good labs available on the PowerPivot site now.

TO cover the licencing, first we need to define the products:

PowerPivot (Project Gemini for those of you, who, like me, preferred that name), is an Excel add-in for self-service BI.

It is an in-memory column store (In-memory and column store often go together, but not always. Reference Sybase IQ, and Qlikview for a couple of very different examples.)

It is provided free - if you own Excel 2010. So think of it as an incentive to upgrade your office licence.

It provides other abilities, such as the access to various data stores, and large datasets

PowerPivot Services on the other hand, is an add-in for Sharepoint 2010 Excel Services. It is installed from the SQL 2008 R2 disk as Analysis Services in Sharepoint Integrated Mode

Essentially, Sharepoint, when you purchase the Enterprise licence, allows you to host Excel in a Sharepoint web page. This is Excel Services. PowerPivot Services thus is an add-in for Excel Services, similar to how PowerPivot is an addin for Excel.

Not free though. Sharepoint 2010 Enterprise, and SQL 2008 R2. So pricey in fact.