1. Microsoft Ignite 2016
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
BRK2223
Achieve Extreme Advanced Analytics Optimization using SQL Server R Services
Justin Silver
Scientist, PROS, Inc.
Joe Sack
Principal PM, Microsoft
© 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

2. Session Agenda
How PROS optimized their process with SQL Server R Services
Legacy pain points
Understanding the PROS Advanced Analytics usage scenario

3. Revenue & Profit Realization PROS provides a real-time software solution platform to help companies drive pricing & sales effectiveness
Reduce Quote Turnaround Time
Simplify Complex Product Catalogs
Raise Win Rates
Grow Deal Sizes
Increase Margins
Reduce Sales Cycle Duration
Increase Quota Attainment

4. Segmentation Foundation for PROS smart pricing guidance
Pricing Optimization
Expert
Target
Floor
Group customers, products & transactions into micro-segments of similar willingness-to-pay
Apply optimization algorithms to target the pricing envelope ‘sweet spot’ in every segment

5. Pricing segmentation process
Identify appropriate set of business attributes and model how they can be used with statistical and practical soundness to provide intelligent pricing benchmarks for future transactions.
Customer data export
Handoff to PROS
Data science process
Configuration files
Sent to customer and consumed by app
Attribute Selection
Segmentation
Scoring

6. Pricing segmentation: Pain points
Bring data science to the data
Sometimes difficult to get our current tools in same place as where customer data lives
Especially challenging for Cloud implementations, which are now the norm
Connect data science with products
Lack of integration of segmentation analysis with some products
Generate valid results quickly
Current homegrown tools can struggle with performance for large data sets

7. Why R? What is R? Who uses R? Why use R?
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Why R?
What is R?
A language and an open-source statistical computing environment
R language + graphical facilities + data analysis tools and methods
Who uses R?
2M+ statisticians, scientists, data scientists, data analysts, engineers
Why use R?
Free and easy to start prototyping/exploring/modeling
Embraced by academics and research
Extensible – > 8,000 available community contributed packages (CRAN: Comprehensive R Archive Network)
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

8. Common Pain Points with Open Source R
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Common Pain Points with Open Source R
Performance of data exploration activities may be slow (data locality | single-threaded | memory constraints)
Data may leave “trust boundary”
Solutions may not be easily operationalized, requiring re-coding in other solutions
Data Scientist may not be aware of already-cleansed and collected data
Data Scientist may be using data cleansing techniques which would be more efficiently performed by SQL Server
Database Engineer may be facilitating analytic and statistical operations which would be better performed using R
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

9. Interact directly with data
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
SQL Server R Services
Example Solutions
Fraud detection
Sales forecasting
Warehouse efficiency
Predictive maintenance
Extensibility R
R Integration
Data Scientist
Package Library
Interact directly with data
010010
100100
010101
010010
100100
010101
Data Developer/DBA
Manage data and
analytics together
T-SQL Interface
Relational Data
Built-in to SQL Server 2016
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

10. SQL Server R Services and PROS
Participated in Microsoft SQLCAT lab engagement
1 week lab engagement (PROS, MSFT)
Evaluate performance improvement potential of SQL/R using Segmentation process as test case; comparing to Excel/C++/Python tools as baseline
Expand PROS science modeling utilizing ScaleR libraries
Opportunity for Microsoft PMs and Engineering to work directly with PROS, get feedback, identify bugs, and optimize

11. 11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Lab Workflow
Verify R scripts are in a working state with local 20M row data set (5GB compressed) via IDE
Migrate to sp_execute_external_script
Confirm correct results
Measure baseline performance characteristics
Weave in performance optimizations
Re-test and re-measure, ensuring correct results along the way
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

12. Attribute Selection Tool Segmentation & Scoring Tool
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Before After
Attribute Selection Tool
Excel Tool
SQL Server DB
SQL Server DB
C++ code
Attribute Selection
sp_execute_external_script
‘R code’
Data tables
Data tables
Segmentation & Scoring Tool
Excel Tool
Segmentation
sp_execute_external_script
‘R code’
Stored Proc
Scoring
sp_execute_external_script
‘R code’
C++ code
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

13. 11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Before After
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

14. 2+ days in current system
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
The Results
Attribute Selection
Segmentation
Batch Scoring
2+ days in current system
45 mins
5 mins
2 mins
Current System
SQL Server 2016 R
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

15. How was this achieved? 11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Leveraged SQL Server machine’s compute context to benefit from the resources of the SQL Server machine
Leveraged ScaleR function equivalents whenever possible (rxDForest, rxDTree, rxPredict)
Adjusting parameters for ScaleR functions further improved performance (described next)
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

16. Number of Trees for rxDForest
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Number of Trees for rxDForest
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

17. Number of Tasks and rxForest
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Number of Tasks and rxForest
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

18. Number of Tasks and rxDTree
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Number of Tasks and rxDTree
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

19. Tips for successful migrations
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Tips for successful migrations
Ensure both the scientists and DBAs are engaged
For scenarios where multiple packages are needed, see “Create a Local Package Repository Using miniCRAN”
Ensure validity of scripts in sp_execute_external_script before optimizing
Make one change at a time – testing the impact of changes on results and performance
Leverage SQL Server native optimizations and R-function equivalents where available
Narrow down your SELECT list to only the attributes needed (13 hours vs. 5 minutes in one rxCreateColInfo scenario)
Your results will vary based on your data characteristics, so be sure to experiment with thread counts, batch size, and algorithm-based configurations
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

20. Call to Action
Consider which scenarios may benefit from SQL Server R Services within your company or with your customers
Want to get started? See Early Customer Experiences with SQL Server R Services

21. Free IT Pro resources To advance your career in cloud technology
Microsoft Ignite 2016
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Free IT Pro resources To advance your career in cloud technology
Plan your career path
Microsoft IT Pro Career Center
Cloud role mapping
Expert advice on skills needed
Self-paced curriculum by cloud role
$300 Azure credits and extended trials
Pluralsight 3 month subscription (10 courses)
Phone support incident
Weekly short videos and insights from Microsoft’s leaders and engineers
Connect with community of peers and Microsoft experts
Get started with Azure
Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials
Demos and how-to videos
Microsoft Mechanics
Connect with peers and experts
Microsoft Tech Community
© 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

22. Please evaluate this session
11/17/2018 2:42 AM
Please evaluate this session
Your feedback is important to us!
From your PC or Tablet visit MyIgnite at
From your phone download and use the Ignite Mobile App by scanning the QR code above or visiting
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

23. 11/17/2018 2:42 AM
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.