Easy to Use Analytic Tools
McLaren Electronics values the ease of use race teams gain through SQL Server 2008 integration with Microsoft Office Excel. A SQL Server stored procedure is used to expose the FILESTREAM information as tabular data for consumption by ODBC-compatible clients such as Office Excel.
“Working in a high-pressure racing environment, people want to use the tools they are already familiar with, which within Formula One racing means Excel,” says Spence. “There’s no time to be fumbling with an unfamiliar interface. We’ve found that race team engineers know and trust Excel, so we were relieved to see how easily data could be moved from SQL Server to Excel for analysis and visualization.”
Using Excel visualization to analyze data can help engineers reach faster decisions. “Race engineering requires the ability to reduce vast amounts of data to some critical decisions that improve the car’s performance,” says Spence. “Excel is very good at helping engineers identify key data points.”
Looking further down the line, McLaren Electronics is interested in using SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services to create multidimensional data cubes to provide additional pathways for analyzing ECU data.