EBI is the name for Cognos’ comprehensive business intelligence platform that integrates the PowerPlay OLAP platform, ReportNet for enterprise reporting, and Metrics Manager for management of metrics.
In a pre-release briefing with ComputerWire yesterday, Paul Hulford, senior product marketing manager for EBI at Ottawa-based Cognos, detailed the key enhancements, which center mainly around the PowerPlay 7.3 tool.
Enhancements include an interactive drag-and-drop browser interface that is implemented through Java scripting; the ability to create sub-sets over the internet; more granular control over drill-through; better support for planning applications through scenario dimensions; and high-performance data caching with PowerPlay cubes’ support for more than a billion rows of data and two million categories.
We’re offering end users the capability to directly manipulate BI information using the web browser, Hulford said. [Users] can now do things like changing the order of nesting in hierarchies directly on the screen without having to press buttons or work through complicated menus.
Hulford pointed out that the new custom sub-set creation facility is similar to the notion of an alternative hierarchy. The main difference here is that end users can create it themselves and remove an administration layer, Hulford said.
We use rules and pick lists that govern dynamic and static representations of data structures [sub-sets] in a report hierarchy, rather than forcing users to view the entire dimension, Hulford said.
While Cognos has offered drill-through – back to relational tables – for some time in its software, the ability to specify it at a dimension level is a novel addition.
Hulford explained that the functionality allows companies to present query data on a contextual basis; i.e. based on where the user is in the hierarchy. Its really a way of presenting different queries at different levels of the hierarchy, and guarding against users asking for more information than they can consume from a browser interface, Hulford said.
Also, by restricting drill-through to lower levels, the volume of information set is reduced and the impact on network performance is minimized.
Cognos has also tightened its links to Microsoft Corp’s technology, announcing extended integration with Microsoft Office and data warehousing certification for Microsoft SQL Server. The latter effectively puts a seal of approval on Cognos’ technology to be a part of Microsoft’s overall data warehousing offering.
We’ve supported MAPI capabilities for some time and already deliver a PowerPlay for Excel add-in, Hulford said. Now we’re providing formatted Excel output capabilities [i.e. charting, formatting, and multi-sheet support] across the entire EBI solution set including ReportNet.
People have BI information and want to use it in many ways such as including it in PowerPoint presentations, Hulford said.
One other area of enhancement is centralized metadata management for relational, OLAP, and metrics data across the entire EBI suite. Here, Cognos has added a capability to pull out metadata across all the EBI suite tools and manage it in a single administration environment.
We’re now implementing a central metadata content store across PowerPlay, ReportNet, and Metrics Manager as well as providing a single portal for all metrics and relational and OLAP data.
Introducing this functionality is in tune with the current trend towards standardization in BI today, Hulford added. PowerPlay 7.3 is currently in beta and is expected in late August this year.
Given its recent preoccupation with corporate performance management (CPM) it has been a while since Cognos has made any significant announcements around PowerPlay, which remains one of its strongest selling products in its BI portfolio. Today’s announcements show that Cognos has not dropped the ball on its historically strong OLAP and BI tools business.
PowerPlay recently surpassed the $1 billion dollar in lifetime revenue, amassing over 22,000 customers worldwide in the process.
According to a survey by UK-based OLAP Report, PowerPlay is now the most widely deployed OLAP solution in the market; a claim that will no doubt rankle with Hyperion Solutions Corp, which develops a rival OLAP offering called Essbase.
Hulford said: PowerPlay’s ease of use and its zero-browser footprint have made it a cornerstone of our value proposition for all our solutions.
He added that most sales of PowerPlay to date are as part of larger suite deals, rather than as a standalone multidimensional analysis tool. Customers tend to buy more than one piece of our solution these days, the Cognos execuitive said.
The OLAP market is a large niche within the overall business intelligence and CPM space, estimated to be worth around $3.5bn.
