The Vivification Problem in Real-Time Business Intelligence: A Vision

In the new era of Business Intelligence (BI) technology, transforming massive amounts of data into high-quality business information is essential. To achieve this, two non-overlapping worlds need to be aligned: the Information Technology (IT) world, represented by an organization's operational data sources and the technologies that manage them (data warehouses, schemas, queries, ... ), and the business world, portrayed by business plans, strategies and goals that an organization aspires to fulfill. Alignment in this context means mapping business queries into BI queries, and interpreting the data retrieved from the BI query in business terms. We call the creation of this interpretation the vivification problem. The main thesis of this position paper is that solutions to the vivification problem should be based on a formal framework that explicates assumptions and the other ingredients (schemas, queries, etc.) that affect it. Also, that there should be a correctness condition that explicates when a response to a business schema query is correct. The paper defines the vivification problem in detail and sketches approaches towards a solution.