Chapter 14. Data Exploration and Predictive Modeling with R in SQL Server

Using the R language inside SQL Server gives us the opportunity to get knowledge out of data. We introduced R and R support in SQL Server in the previous chapter, and this chapter demonstrates how you can use R for advanced data exploration and for statistical analysis and predictive modeling, way beyond the possibilities offered by using T-SQL language only.

You will start with intermediate statistics: exploring associations between two discrete, two continuous, and one discrete and one continuous variable. You will also learn about linear regression, where you explain the values of the dependent continuous variable with a linear regression formula using one or more continuous input variables.

The second section of this chapter starts with introducing advanced multivariate data mining and machine learning methods. You will learn about methods that do not use a target variable, or so-called undirected methods...