BYTE the Cloud

Chris 0:00
All right, cloud engineers, welcome back for another deep dive. This time we're taking a look at Amazon, QuickSight. Ah, yes,

Kelly 0:05
quick site.

Chris 0:07
And, you know, data visualization is becoming super crucial in the cloud these days, especially for folks like us, right? I mean, we've got to make sense of all this data. Yeah, it's not enough to just start anymore, exactly. So we're really excited to unpack this service. It's pretty cool. What you can do with it, for sure, and to help us do that, we've got our amazing expert here. So why don't we just start off with, like, the basics? What exactly is quick site? Well,

Kelly 0:32
simply put, it's a fully managed, serverless Business Intelligence Service, bi, as some people call it. Okay, bi got it, and it comes straight from AWS, of course, of course.

Chris 0:42
And you said serverless. So that means we don't have to mess around with servers, right? Exactly.

Kelly 0:46
You don't have to manage any infrastructure. Quick. Site handles all of that behind the scenes, nice.

Chris 0:51
So we can just focus on the data itself, exactly. So how does it actually work? Like, can anyone use it? Or do you have to be, you know, a data scientist or something.

Kelly 1:00
You definitely don't need a PhD in data science to use this. What quick site really does is it lets you create these interactive dashboaRDS, and it's really intuitive. You connect to your data, you build visualizations, and then you can share insights with your team, you know, without having to write complex queries or anything like that. So

Chris 1:18
it's like putting data analysis power in the hands of anyone, even if they're not like a coding whiz,

Kelly 1:24
precisely, it's all about making data insights accessible. I love

Chris 1:28
that. Okay, so I was reading about some of the real world use cases for QuickSight, and there's some pretty cool examples, like marketing teams are using it to track how well their campaigns are performing in real time. Yeah,

Kelly 1:39
imagine being able to see which ads are working best, you know, while the campaign is still running. That's

Chris 1:44
incredible. Yeah, and you can, like, tweak things on the fly to get better results. Absolutely, it's all about agility, right? So like, how else is QuickSight being used out there? What are some other examples?

Kelly 1:56
Well, I've seen financial analysts use QuickSight to, like, dive into their spending data, identify areas where they can cut costs, and then present those findings to say, the CFO or other stakeholders. So

Chris 2:10
it's not just about seeing the data, it's about presenting it in a way that's clear and compelling. Exactly.

Kelly 2:14
It's about storytelling with data. I love that data.

Chris 2:18
Storytelling. That's a great way to put it. Okay, so clearly, QuickSight has the potential to revolutionize how we work with data, but let's get into the specifics. What are some of the like core features that make it so powerful? Well,

Kelly 2:30
the one that stands out immediately is data visualization. Okay, data visualization? Tell me more about that. Quick site offers a ton of different charts, graphs and other visuals that can help you really represent your data in a way that's easy to understand, you know, make it come alive. Yeah,

Chris 2:44
because a spreadsheet full of numbers can be pretty overwhelming, right? But a good visualization can make things so much clear

Kelly 2:51
totally. And you can go beyond just static reports. You can create interactive dashboaRDS where users can drill down into the data filter it based on specific criteria. Oh,

Chris 3:00
so it's not just like a pretty picture, it's actually interactive.

Kelly 3:04
It's all about exploration and getting those insights. That makes

Chris 3:07
a lot of sense. So talking about insights and collaboration, can teams work together on these dashboaRDS, like share their findings and stuff? Oh, absolutely.

Kelly 3:16
QuickSight is built with collaboration in mind. You can easily share your dashboaRDS with colleagues. You can control access using AWS IAM, and you can even embed them into other applications.

Chris 3:26
Wait, hold on. Embed them like put a quick Site Dashboard right inside another app Exactly.

Kelly 3:31
Imagine you have a CRM, right? You can embed a quick Site Dashboard right in there, giving your sales team real time data right where they work. Wow,

Chris 3:39
that's really powerful. Okay, so QuickSight sounds amazing. It can do all these things, but there have to be some limitations, right? I mean, no tool is perfect.

Kelly 3:48
That's a fair point. While QuickSight offers a bunch of built in visualization options, if you need something super specific or like way customized beyond those templates, it can get a bit tricky. So

Chris 3:59
it's super user friendly for most things, but if you need to get really fancy with your visuals, you might need to look elsewhere or figure out some workarounds. Exactly, okay, good to know. It's always important to understand the strengths and the limitations of any tool, right? So, how does QuickSight fit into the whole AWS ecosystem? Like, how does it play with the other services?

Kelly 4:20
The integration is pretty seamless, which is a huge plus. If your data is already in S3 Redshift, Athena or RDS Quick Set can connect to it directly, okay? So

Chris 4:31
no need to move data around or set up like these complicated pipelines. It's all about making things easy and efficient, right? Because we've got enough to worry about as cloud engineers, right? Absolutely. And I think I read somewhere that it can connect. It can connect to stuff outside of AWS too, right, like external data sources. You're

Kelly 4:47
right. It's not limited to just AWS. It can connect to all kinds of databases and applications, even if they're not in the cloud. Wow. So

Chris 4:53
it's really flexible. Okay, so we've got a good grasp of what QuickSight is, how it works and where it fits in. Now let's. Shift gears and talk about something that I know you dear listener, really care about exam prep.

Kelly 5:06
Ah, yes, the exams you're probably

Chris 5:08
starting for an AWS certification. And let's be honest, they love to throw in those QuickSight questions.

Kelly 5:13
They do love to test your knowledge on this service, for sure. So let's

Chris 5:16
dive into some example scenarios that you might see on the exam, just to get you thinking, sounds good, let's do it. Okay. So first up, imagine you get this question, what are the different ways you can connect QuickSight to your data?

Kelly 5:28
That's a classic one, a real fundamental concept, totally.

Chris 5:32
So how would you approach answering that? I'd start with the most

Kelly 5:35
common method, direct connections. This is where QuickSight connects directly to those AWS services where your data is, you know, like S3 RDS, Redshift,

Chris 5:46
okay, so that makes sense, because the data is already in the AWS world, right? Exactly.

Kelly 5:49
It's often the easiest and most efficient

Chris 5:51
option. Makes sense. What else would you mention? I definitely talk about file uploads. Okay, file uploads like, when you're working with a smaller data set maybe, yeah, exactly

Kelly 6:01
like if you just need to do a quick analysis, and you're not worried about a persistent connection. Got

Chris 6:05
it. What's the third way to connect data connectors?

Kelly 6:08
These are for when you need to connect to something outside of AWS.

Chris 6:12
Oh, right, like those external data sources we

Kelly 6:14
talked about. You got it. If your organization is using a hybrid cloud setup or has data stored in a different platform. You'd use a data connector.

Chris 6:23
So basically, QuickSight can access data from pretty much anywhere.

Kelly 6:27
That's the goal. Make it as versatile as possible. Now I'm guessing

Chris 6:32
the exam wouldn't just ask you to list the different ways to connect. They'd probably give you a scenario. Oh, for sure, maybe they'd say a company stores all their sales data in a MySQL database that they host on premises. What's the best way to connect that data to QuickSight? Ah, a good scenario based question, right? So how would you tackle something like that? Well, the

Kelly 6:53
key here is to recognize that the data is outside of AWS, right? It's on premises,

Chris 6:59
okay, so direct connections are out because those are just for AWS services exactly,

Kelly 7:03
and file uploads wouldn't really work for a database that's constantly being updated. So that leaves us with data connectors, and you'd need to know that there's a specific data connector designed for MySQL databases.

Chris 7:16
So it's not just about knowing the connection types, it's about understanding when to use which one

Kelly 7:21
exactly the exam wants to know that you can apply the concepts not just memorize them.

Chris 7:27
Great point. Okay, so we've talked about connecting QuickSight to our data, but what about security? I bet they love to ask about how quick site integrates with other AWS services for you know, keeping our data safe.

Kelly 7:40
You're absolutely right. A common question might be, how does QuickSight handle authentication and authorization? Oh,

Chris 7:46
yeah, because we don't want just anyone accessing our sensitive dashboaRDS. Exactly.

Kelly 7:49
This is where I am comes into play. I am

Chris 7:53
identity and access management. It's like the bouncer for AWS, right, controlling who can access what?

Kelly 7:59
That's a great analogy, and quick site integrates seamlessly with IAM. You can create IAM users and groups and then give them very specific permissions within QuickSight.

Chris 8:09
So we can say, like the marketing team can only see the marketing dashboaRDS and the finance team can only see the finance dashboaRDS

Kelly 8:16
precisely. It's all about maintaining that granular control. Love

Chris 8:19
it. Okay. So last question for this section, spice. Ah, yes,

Unknown Speaker 8:25
spice. I

Chris 8:25
remember you mentioned that this is what makes quick sites so incredibly fast, right?

Kelly 8:29
It stands for super fast parallel in memory, calculation engine, catchy name.

Chris 8:35
So what kind of question might they ask about spice on the exam?

Kelly 8:39
Probably something like, what is spice and how does it contribute to quick sites performance?

Chris 8:43
Okay, so break that down for us. How would you explain spice to someone who's never heard of it before?

Kelly 8:48
Well, I'd say that spice is like having a dedicated superhighway for your data. Okay, I

Chris 8:53
like that, so it's not stuck in traffic with all the other stuff,

Kelly 8:55
right? Instead of relying on, you know, traditional disk storage, spice keeps your data in memory, and that makes query processing super fast.

Chris 9:03
It's like having everything readily accessible on a giant whiteboard instead of having to dig through file cabinets Exactly.

Kelly 9:08
And spicy, also uses parallel processing, which means it can break down complex calculations into smaller chunks and process them all at the same time.

Chris 9:17
So it's like having a team of data analysts working in parallel to crunch all those numbers

Kelly 9:23
exactly, and that's why QuickSight can generate insights so quickly. Awesome. Welcome back. We're diving right back into those QuickSight exam questions. Ready for another one? Hit me with it. All right. So picture this. You're setting up QuickSight for, let's say, your company, but security is a top priority, like, super important. How would you make sure the data is locked down tight? Okay, data

Chris 9:45
security, that's crucial, especially when you're dealing with sensitive information. So how do we approach this with QuickSight? How do we make it like Fort Knox? Well,

Kelly 9:54
the foundation of it all is IAM,

Chris 9:56
right. IAM identity and access management. It's like our. Security guard in the cloud, exactly,

Kelly 10:01
and QuickSight works hand in hand with IAM to control who gets access to what.

Chris 10:06
Okay, so we're not just giving everyone free rein over all the data. Nope.

Kelly 10:11
It's all about being very specific. You can set up different IAM users and groups and then give them very precise permissions in QuickSight.

Chris 10:18
So like maybe our analysts get full access to create and edit dashboaRDS, but our executives only get to view

Kelly 10:26
them precisely. That's what they call least privilege. You only give people access to what they absolutely need to do their job

Chris 10:32
makes sense, and QuickSight even lets you get more granular than that, right? With something called row level security, you're

Kelly 10:38
remembering that good think of row level security as a way to filter the data based on who's looking at it. Okay, give me an example. So let's say you've got a sales dashboard that shows data for all regions, right? But you have different sales managers for different regions with row level security, you can set it up so that each manager only sees the data for their specific region. I

Chris 11:01
get it. So even if they're looking at the same dashboard, they're seeing different subsets of data depending on their permissions

Kelly 11:07
Exactly. It's like a customized view for everyone. That's really cool. Okay,

Chris 11:11
so we've got security covered. What about real time data? Like a lot of businesses, need to track metrics that are constantly changing, right absolutely. And QuickSight

Kelly 11:20
can handle that, no problem. It integrates with streaming services like Kinesis data streams, which lets you capture, analyze and digitalize data as it comes in.

Chris 11:30
So let's say we're tracking website traffic. We can see the number of visitors, where they're coming from, what they're doing on the site, all in real time, exactly,

Kelly 11:38
and your QuickSight dashboaRDS would update automatically as new data comes in. So it's

Chris 11:43
like a live feed of your data insights. You've got it, but streaming all that data, yeah, that has to take a lot of processing power, right? How does quicksite handle that? Performance wise, remember, spice? Oh, right, spice, our trusty superhighway, exactly.

Kelly 11:59
Spice is designed to handle real time data streams really efficiently,

Chris 12:03
so our dashboaRDS won't slow to a crawl. Even if we're getting bombarded with data, they'll stay nice and responsive. Now, with all this talk about real time data and super fast processing, I can't help but think about the cost. You know, cloud services can get expensive if you're not careful.

Kelly 12:18
That's a valid concern, but the good news is QuickSight uses a serverless pricing model,

Chris 12:23
okay, serverless, so that means we only pay for what we use exactly.

Kelly 12:27
There are no upfront costs or long term commitments. You just pay for the resources you actually consume. So

Chris 12:34
what does that look like in practice? Like, what are we paying for specifically? Well, there

Kelly 12:37
are two main things, user sessions and spice capacity.

Chris 12:41
Okay, so user sessions, I'm guessing that's like, how many people are using QuickSight at a given time, exactly,

Kelly 12:46
and you pay a fixed monthly fee per user

Chris 12:50
got it. And spice capacity is what exactly spice

Kelly 12:54
capacity is all about how much processing power you need to handle your data. You only pay for spice capacity on an hourly basis. So you can easily scale up or down depending on how much you're using it.

Chris 13:05
Ah. So if we have a busy month with tons of data crunching, we can RAMp up the spice capacity and then scale back down when things quiet down exactly. It's all about flexibility. Okay, I like that flexible and cost effective. Now let's shift gears and talk about some of quick sites more advanced features, I've heard that you can actually embed QuickSight dashboaRDS into other applications.

Kelly 13:26
That's right. QuickSight has a really powerful API that lets you integrate your interactive dashboaRDS into your own web apps, portals, even mobile apps,

Chris 13:35
like if I'm building a CRM tool, I could embed a quick Site Dashboard right into it

Kelly 13:39
exactly give your users those data insights without having to switch between different applications. That's

Chris 13:45
super cool. It's like bringing the data to where the users already are. And don't

Kelly 13:49
worry, those embedded dashboaRDS inherit all the security settings from your main quick site account,

Chris 13:54
so we're not compromising on security just for the sake of convenience. Nope. It's all built in. Awesome. Okay. Last question I keep hearing about this thing called QuickSight Q. What's that all about?

Kelly 14:04
QuickSight Q is pretty amazing, especially if you don't want to deal with writing SQL queries. It uses natural language processing, NLP, to let you ask questions about your data using just plain English. So

Chris 14:15
instead of writing some complicated query to figure out our top selling products, I could just type in what were our best sellers last quarter exactly.

Kelly 14:24
You can ask things like, which marketing campaigns performed the best, or which regions had the highest customer churn, and QuickSight Q will understand what you're asking. It's

Chris 14:34
like having your own personal data analyst. That's a great way to put it. Now with all this power at our fingertips, there must be some common mistakes that people make when using QuickSight, like, what are some things our listeners should watch out for?

Kelly 14:48
One of the biggest mistakes is not preparing your data properly before bringing it into QuickSight. You really need to spend time cleaning and structuring your data. Yeah, garbage in, garbage out, right? Exactly. If. Data is messy to begin with, your insights won't be accurate.

Chris 15:02
Okay, so Data Prep is crucial. What else?

Kelly 15:05
Another common mistake is trying to cRAM too much information into a single

Chris 15:10
dashboard. Ah, yeah, I can see how that would get overwhelming. Keep your dashboaRDS focused

Kelly 15:14
and concise, highlight the key metrics and insights and tell a clear data story. Okay,

Chris 15:20
less is more when it comes to dashboaRDS. Got it so how does quick site stack up against other BI tools out there? There are a lot of options. Where does quick site shine and where does it maybe fall short? Well,

Kelly 15:33
one of quick sites biggest advantages is its integration with AWS. Yeah,

Chris 15:38
we talked about that earlier. It plays really nicely with all the other AWS services, exactly,

Kelly 15:41
and it's super cost effective, especially compared to those traditional BI tools that have those massive licensing fees. Right

Chris 15:48
serverless for the win. But what about features? Are there areas where quick site might not be the best choice?

Kelly 15:54
Quick site has a really solid set of features, but some other BI tools might offer more in terms of advanced customization or like really specialized features for specific industries. So it's

Chris 16:06
all about choosing the right tool for the job as always precisely. All right, we've covered a ton of ground here, from security and real time data to advanced features and even how quick site compares to the competition. We've been through a lot we have, but hold on tight, because there's one more part to go. We'll be back in a flash to wrap things up and leave you with some final thoughts and maybe a challenge or two to take your quick side skills to the next level. We'll

Kelly 16:31
see you soon. All right, welcome

Chris 16:32
back to the deep dive. We're at the finish line of our QuickSight journey, and man, I'm feeling pretty energized after all that. You know, deep diving into those features, the use cases, the exam, prep, all that. It's

Kelly 16:43
been quite a ride. It really has.

Chris 16:45
But before we, before we say goodbye, let's take a step back and make sure we've got all the pieces in place. Like, did everything click? Did it make sense? You know what? I

Kelly 16:53
mean, it'll review. Never hurt Exactly.

Chris 16:55
So let's, let's do a quick recap. What would you say is, like the elevator pitch for Amazon QuickSight. If we had to explain it to someone in 30 seconds, what would we say? Ooh,

Kelly 17:07
30 seconds. That's a challenge. I guess I'd say that QuickSight is AWS way of giving you a really powerful but user friendly BI service. It's all about making data visualization and analysis accessible to anyone you know, even if you're not a data scientist.

Chris 17:24
Yeah, that's a great point. You don't need a PhD to use this thing. So what makes quick site stand out from all those other BI tools out there?

Kelly 17:31
Well, for starters, it's fully managed and serverless. So no more infrastructure headaches, right?

Chris 17:38
No servers to manage, no software to install, it just works

Kelly 17:42
exactly. And of course, we can't forget about spice. Yes,

Chris 17:46
spicy, yeah, our trusty superhighway for data. That's the

Kelly 17:50
one. Spicy is what makes QuickSight so responsive, even with those massive data sets. It's all about speed and efficiency,

Chris 17:58
and let's not forget that seamless integration with all those other AWS services, right?

Kelly 18:02
Exactly. If your data is already in S3 or Redshift QuickSight can access it directly. No need to move anything around.

Chris 18:09
It's like having all your data tools working together in perfect harmony. You got it. So I think we've done a pretty good job of covering the basics of how quick site works, the different features, the real world applications, all that. But before we officially wrap up, I want to leave you with a thought, all right, I'm listening. QuickSight has the power to turn anyone into a Data Explorer. It doesn't matter if you're a seasoned data analyst or just starting out. Quick site gives you the tools and the you know the interface to unlock those insights hidden in your data.

Kelly 18:37
It's about empowering people to make sense of their data and use it to make better decisions Exactly.

Chris 18:42
So we've given you the knowledge, the tools, hopefully a bit of inspiration. Now, here's the challenge, don't just stop at understanding these features. Go out there and get your hands dirty. Experiment. Play around with it exactly. Find some use cases that you know resonate with you. Try out different visualizations, explore that API. Embed some dashboaRDS in your own applications. The possibilities are endless,

Kelly 19:04
and the world of BI is always changing. So keep learning. Stay curious. Exactly

Chris 19:08
We want you to become QuickSight champions, huh? You know, spread the data visualization love throughout your organizations. Who knows?

Kelly 19:15
You might come up with some amazing new way to use QuickSight that we haven't even thought of. That's what's

Chris 19:19
so exciting about technology, right? Yeah, all about pushing the boundaries and finding creative solutions. So Cloud gurus go forth, embrace the power of QuickSight, and let's revolutionize how we work with data. What do you say? Sounds like a plan? All right, that's it for this deep dive. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll see you next time.

Kelly 19:39
See you later. Any.