BI Vendors

  • How about having a few of the vendors do a proof of concept? You'll never be able to nail down performance issues without testing under circumstances as close as possible to actual.

    That said, I have experience mostly with the Cognos products. Modifying and adding cubes is very easy. The cube-building software is multi-processor aware, so it can be quite fast. The browser-only software relies on the server, so any speed issues are addressed in one place only. As for moving report development from IT to the users; all Cognos products, even the browser-only versions allow users to develop and share their own reports. Cognos also has a notification feature which allows users to set the system to watch for certain conditions then contact them via email or whatever. A properly developed and structured B.I. system can allow the users to help themselves.

    Questions: How many rows of past sales data will you be analyzing? Millions? Billions? Also, how many categories would you have in the largest dimensions? For example, how many customers? Item? Lastly, do you need to track type 2 slowly changing dimensions? This will greatly affect the complexity of the DW.

    Donhttp://www.biadvantage.com

  • If you want your reports on the web, I highy recommend the olap thin web client from the SQL server 2000 resource kit or download from http://groups.msn.com/OLAPServicesDevelopersForum/web.msnw?action=get_message&mview=1&ID_Message=45

    I have an example here http://www.utcodes.org/queryabledata/cube/analyzer/default.asp

    It uses analysis services, heres a good tutorial for your first cube: http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/1429671

    Otherwise cognos and proclarity are very good, but very very expensive.

    Good luck, let me know if I can help.

    Brian

  • Lori,  you have a PM. 

     

     

    Trey Johnson | Chief Business Intelligence Architect | Cizer Software (www.cizer.com)

    Who? - Cizer - http://www.cizer.com/about.htm - Blog - http://www.sqlserverbi.com/
    What? - Products enhancing Microsoft Business Intelligence - http://www.cizer.com/products.htm
    Wow! - Empower your Developers.... NEW Drop In Reporting - http://www.cizer.com/cnr-drop-in-reporting.htm
    How? - BI Training - http://www.cizer.com/training.htm - Cizer Solutions - http://www.cizer.com/solutions.htm

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