BLOX Chronicles

Analytics, BI and ECM should be ONE.

2006-08-17T13:06:00.000+08:00

I have tried using Cognos Suite, IBM Alphablox, Microsoft BI, SAP, all of which are bloated products with more than enough features that every user in the corporate environment needs. In a business user's perspective, they are complex because they are fundamentally architectured using the traditional software development environment whereas BI users are nowadays are using it on a browser.

Internet Explorer and Firefox are key access points for BI users. It's smart move, given that its easier to deploy and manage in a corporate environment and easy to migrate in case the company decides to extend it in the Internet or thru a private network to a satellite branch.

The success of Google Onebox is partly due to the complexity of getting the information from a myrad of this expensive and bloated Business Intelligence tools. Google Onebox allows users to search (with data security in mind) all the data available in and outside the organization.

ECM (enterprise content management) is another inovation that is catching up. With the abundance of blogs nowadays, we might have forgotten that behind it is a very user-friendly 'content management system concept', just like Blogger.

Since IBM recently acquired Filenet for $16bn, I am looking forward to the possibility of integrating analytics, business intelligence and content management systems into one. Though I doubt it, I am hoping because BI tools needs a lot of organizing to do.

IBM WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence

2006-06-05T09:56:00.000+08:00

IBM WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence enables users to find and take advantage of structured and unstructured information stored across their enterprise. The solution overcomes the limitations of standard business intelligence offerings that typically can analyze and report only on structured data and enterprise search solutions that do not provide direct access to business intelligence data.

Armed with insightful context and relevance capabilities, the new IBM solution delivers deep analysis of free form text fields, documents, audio, video, and other unstructured content, while at the same time providing a complete view of all related business information needed to make rapid business decisions.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee is using WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence to deliver a more complete view of the health care providers with whom they do business.

"IBM's solution has enabled us to implement a pilot project that demonstrates how Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee can bring all information about a provider into a single view," said Frank Brooks, senior manager of data resource management at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Tennessee. "This includes structured relational data from our enterprise data warehouse, internal and external web content, as well as unstructured data from other content sources such as free-form call center notes. By pulling this information into a single view, we will be able to save time, make quicker decisions, and deliver more information about our provider relationships."

Clients in other industries can reap similar benefits from WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence. For example, a manufacturer can use the solution to dig deeper into product sales, quality issues, return rates and buying patterns to help maximize profits. While conventional BI applications may display quantity, sales and return rate for a product, WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence can extract data from call center and warranty claims notes to help uncover reasons why return rates are high — information not easily accessible through other search and business intelligence solutions.

In addition to providing enterprise search across all applications and repositories, the IBM solution delivers highly relevant information from existing business intelligence systems, including reports, scorecards, dashboards and more. Users can also intelligently search directly against underlying data and easily navigate the data through a simplified interface to find information they are seeking without creating reports.

These capabilities, in combination, represent a new era in the convergence of enterprise search and business intelligence, allowing an expanded group of users such as marketers, engineers, technicians, analysts, sales and customer service agents to extract additional knowledge and use it for business insight and problem solving.

WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence builds upon the open source Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), a framework for connecting different text analytics modules, which helps identify and extract specific business information from unstructured data, such as comments, description and notes fields that are typically found in most applications for users to enter more details about a claim, a problem or a transaction. This knowledge can enable new types of reports and analysis, or be made available as a service to rules processing engines or other business applications to deliver information on demand. Users can also seamlessly access supporting documents, such as contracts, spreadsheets, project plans, scanned images, audio, video, e-mail and other correspondence, directly from within their business intelligence applications to provide valuable context for business decisions.

The new software helps ensure that BI reports, scorecards, dashboards and other relevant analysis can be displayed with other enterprise content as part of user search results. WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence provides advanced analysis of BI data, extracting specific information, analyzing the context of the request and refining user intent to deliver more highly relevant search results from all enterprise systems.

IBM has worked with Cognos to integrate the new solution with Cognos 8 Business Intelligence and Cognos Go!. "Cognos and IBM are once again at the forefront of combining powerful search capabilities with business intelligence," said Neal Hill, senior vice president corporate development, Cognos. "WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence enables customers to extend the value of business intelligence across their organization and provide a new level of business insight."

Users can also search and interact directly with the underlying business intelligence data to take advantage of knowledge extracted from applications without the up front requirement of report development or involvement from additional IT resources. Access to information is simplified with the ability to interpret user intent and context to deliver the most relevant information, and enable users to browse through data. Ambiguity in user queries is resolved while dynamic navigation enables users to drill down to relevant business topics, and helps users select the attributes and information they want displayed.

The solution can be combined with existing business intelligence applications or IBM DB2 AlphaBlox to automatically generate calculations, charts and graphs for enhanced presentation of data without the need for special user training.

Creative vs Apple - a patent lawsuit

2006-05-22T10:50:00.000+08:00

If you are an avid mac fan or a flamming Ipod worshipper, you've probably knew the whole story about Creative vs Apple and the much recent news, Apple vs Creative.

The dispute started about the Creative patent for a portable music device that allows searching indexed content. The content is indexed by genre, artist, album, and track. This provides a searchable, intuitive, cross-referenced database via the User Interface. It is basically a relational database patent for a music player.

Apparently the US Patent Office, just awarded Creative the patent last year which they decided to sue Apple this year.

Relational databases already existed way before the MP3 player revolution began, and in my opinion, it is imperative that this great technology will find its way to other devices - such as the case with the portable audio players.

I'm a believer of Intellectual Property. But if technology, innovation and creative thinking is hindered by having "software ideas" patented way ahead by huge companies, we should re-think again.

IBM gets Unicorn to add semantic metadata management

2006-05-17T13:49:00.000+08:00

The Big Players (IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft) are progressively putting more of their investments in the once small industry of business intelligence and data management.

IBM just acquired Unicorn, their 18th acquisition since 2001 that are related to data management and BI. This is just to prove the point that the big players are slowly materializing their roadmap to better position their companies to have an end to end solution in data management and process.

IBM in their press release gave a nice definition of what metadata means:

Businesses need to take steps to understand the nature of their systems, processes and information sources - their structures, functions, meanings and interdependencies. This information about systems, processes and information - known as metadata - is critical to key business and technical initiatives.

Metadata is a base requirement of any SOA project. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), is a style of systems architecture that breaks down business applications into individual functions called services that can be mixed, matched, and reused to address various business problems. Metadata makes it easier to share services because it enables all parties to understand the meaning, structure and lineage of the information or processes being shared.

Even though they already have a metadata management tool when their acquired Ascential Metastage, this is still a good acquisition for IBM. In the last 2004 Gartner Metadata Quadrant, Unicorn was in the visionary quadrant. Ascential Metastage in that same report was not even in the quadrant because it is still limited compared with other enterprise class tools in that category.

Having the technology of Unicorn in the IBM means better positioning for their Websphere II (Information Integrator) 2007 Edition. This technology will better position WII for better handling semantic metadata management in the future releases.

20% use Open Source BI according to Ventana

2006-05-15T16:15:00.000+08:00

Among organizations surveyed by Ventana Research, more than 20% had already deployed open source business intelligence. Another 19% were in development with open source BI, with an additional 43% currently considering open source BI. 11% of organizations were already deploying open source BI to 1,000 or more users, with more than 38% planning to support more than 1,000 users at full deployment. And only 4% of survey respondents indicated that they did not plan to deploy additional open source BI software.

Read the entire press release from Pentaho.

Web 2.0 and Business Intelligence

2006-05-09T21:11:00.000+08:00

Image courtesy of Tim (O'reilly).

In the "Web 2.0 Meme Map" above, it summarizes the characteristics and some prominent examples that will best describe Web 2.0 technologies. The rich interface by Google Maps and Gmail, Wikipedia - the social encyclopedia, Blogs (like what you are reading now) are all examples of successful implementations of Web 2.0 principles.

The consumer world has been seeing a lot of emerging Web 2.0 companies, and it would not be long enough before it bridge through the enterprise world. Peter Rip has made a good analogy about the whole Web 2.0, or some might call it Enterprise 2.0.

Companies are communities. Supply chains are social networks. A customer base is a community, albeit often not interconnected, except by indirect methods like lawyers and analysts. Shareholders are a community, often interconnected the same ways.

Companies have known this for a while. Recruiting has been an exercise in social networking for a long time, both on the employer side ($500 referrals) and the job seeker side (the origin of the concept of “networking”).

But the difference between collaboration in the consumer and business worlds is one of purpose. Expression is the primary purpose is many Web 2.0 consumer sites. It may be expression for entertainment, expression for reputation enhancement, expression for contribution to collective knowledge, or something else.

Business Intelligence is among the first who will adapt this technology. Mash-ups represent a potentially powerful way to create new ad hoc Web applications out of existing enterprise data and web services. Using a single interface, Business Intelligence tools will integrate (mash-up) business process in a single interface.

Enterprises that harness this fountain of real-time and granular information will have a huge competitive edge - an edge equivalent to the first uses of data warehouses and data mining. They will find and react to opportunities the way that program traders find and react to market inefficiencies. This may well be the new Strategic IT. The strategic IT asset is not the software that automates the process. The asset is the embedded knowledge of all these enterprise communities and its integration into business processes.

JasperIntelligence: the upcoming Open Source BI

2006-05-04T19:25:00.000+08:00

After Pentaho ruled the headlines for a whole month, JasperSoft - the commercial company behind the famous JasperReports - announced their plans to release a complete BI stack called JasperIntelligence.

JasperReports has became the de facto reporting tool for J2EE developers as with Crystal Reports for Visual Studio users.

“Open source is the key to solving people’s frustration with complex, inflexible, and overpriced BI solutions from large proprietary software vendors that have taken their customers’ IT systems hostage,” said Doscher, in a statement. “Customers want BI for everyone in their organization. JasperSoft is committed to giving businesses freedom of choice with JasperIntelligence, an affordable, open and extensible BI architecture that empowers everyone within an organization, from those in the board room to accounts receivables.”

For more information, you may want to visit their newly redesigned website at http://www.jaspersoft.com.

Java in Manila

2006-04-27T13:22:00.000+08:00

The Philippine's largest Java developer's conference was held last April 25 - Java in Manila. Our country was one of the six competency centers chosen by Sun Microsystems for its huge potential for development. Philippines's Java competency center is focus on wireless technology; Singapore focuses on grid computing, while Malaysia concentrates on incubation center.

The event lasted from 8 to 5pm at ShariLa Makati. Java is the de facto application development tool for many enterprises today. We were there under sponsor status, so were exempted from paying the PhP1500 entrance fee. And that is just what we need to enjoy all the nice looking and nice tasting food that Shangri-La offered all through out the session. All in all, the event is a success, and is worth the buck if ever you decide to attend next year's event.

Rags Srinivas, on cowboy hats presented Java SE GUI makeover.

Javapassion.com guy, Sang Shin has a thick but cool oriental accent - "how-e-vveeerrr". He charms the audience with his knowledge about Java EE, Web 2.0, AJAX, and the new technologies emerging in the pioneering web-based application development today.

Dr. Doris Chen, the beautiful Miss Lady geek, discussed Java Server Faces.

Google's love story with Business Intelligence

2006-04-20T17:13:00.000+08:00

This is not a perfect love story.

Google is a He. He alone is synonymous with search. And search is about finding something that you want to know or knew a little about. It's a process of discovery, and a source of the data might be unknown as well. He wants to prove to the world that he is still capable of showing more of his data search skills by selling them to the Enterprise world. He is trying to court the lucrative business intelligence market. He gave a proposal to Business Intelligence by making a $30,000 Google Onebox.

Business Intelligence is a She. She has enticed small al the way to the biggest businesses to invest a lot of their money to enable them to "make sense" of their data. She provides them with auto-generated reports and dashboards just so it would be easy for these good paying companies. She has enabled managers of high caliber who understands the language of business to have a larger and deeper insight of their company.

They are destined to be together. Businesses wants a higher deployment for their business intelligence tool. They need to make it available to the next generation knowledge workers who are more adept in using the skills of web searching.

He is not alone, Autonomy and Fast Search & Transfer are also the first companies who are doing enterprise data search.

She is not alone too, Cognos 8 Go! Search, IBM Omnifind and Oracle Enteprise Search 10g are also targeting the same market.

As you can see, these love story is not an easy one.

ROLAP, MOLAP, HOLAP for beginners

2006-04-20T11:23:00.000+08:00

Why do you want an OLAP in your company in the first place? I mean you already have a relational databases with years and years of data in it. If your company (SMB) just needs a simple data reporting and query. (Stop reading here, OLAP is not for you.) You may want to read more about OLAP if your company needs a technology beyond query and reporting.

What is OLAP?
OLAP represents data using a multidimensional model (think rubik's cube) rather than the traditional tabular data model. Tabular data model treats data as a single occurrence in time (sort of a list of transactions). Multidimensional data model (rubric’s) treats data as a cumulative series of occurrences (days, weeks, months, years). This means that this data model allows you to pivot the data, just as you would in a real world rubik's cube. By turning it into different angles you are in turn looking at your data in different perspective. OLAP also allows interactive querying. In our example of the rubik's cube, let's say you’re interested in the color red; you can twist the cube to arrive at more colors of red. If you’re interested in your yearly sales reports, you can drill down and look for sales report in monthly basis, or change into reports monthly and departmentalized at the same time. It may not even surprise you that data model implementations in OLAP are called "cubes".

What are the types of OLAP?
OLAP tools do not indicate how the data is actually stored. Given that, it’s not surprising that there are multiple ways to store the data. In the world of OLAP, there are mainly two different types - Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) and Relational OLAP (ROLAP). Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP) is a combination of the two.

MOLAP - data is stored in a multidimensional database (most of them are proprietary). This is the more traditional approach to OLAP analysis.
Pros: fast data retrieval, fast and complex calculations (bec. computations are done during the creation of the cube.)
Cons: handles limited amount of data, cube size are computed exponentially, potential investment in manpower to maintain the proprietary multidimensional database.

ROLAP - sits on top of previous relational databases and inherits most of its limitations and functionalities.
Pros: faster load times, standard SQL accessibility, better support for textual descriptions, and more flexible data modeling, can handle large amounts of data
Cons: slower query performance and more demanding processing and system memory requirements, limited by the calculations done using SQL

HOLAP - marriage somewhere between ROLAP and MOLAP, thus the term Hyprid OLAP.

It tries to get the best of both worlds. It uses cube for summary type information to provide a faster performance. And when drill through is needed, its links itself with an underlying relational data.

At a glance, here are the information about OLAP:
OLAP – Online analytical Processes
MOLAP – Multidimensional Online analytical Processes (Cubes)
ROLAP – Relational Online analytical Processes (RDBMS)
HOLAP – Combination of MOLAP & ROLAP
DOLAP – Desktop Online analytical Processes (Cubes are stored in desktop as well)

If we were to compare the three main types of OLAP, we will arrive at the following conclusion:

The type of storage medium impacts on cube processing time, cube storage and cube browsing speed. Some of the factors that affect MOLAP storage are:

Cube browsing is the fastest when using MOLAP. This is so even in cases where no aggregations have been done. The data is stored in a compressed multidimensional format and can be accessed quickly than in the relational database. Browsing is very slow in ROLAP about the same in HOLAP. Processing time is slower in ROLAP, especially at higher levels of aggregation.

MOLAP storage takes up more space than HOLAP as data is copied and at very low levels of aggregation it takes up more room than ROLAP. ROLAP takes almost no storage space as data is not duplicated. However ROLAP aggregations take up more space than MOLAP or HOLAP aggregations.

All data is stored in the cube in MOLAP and data can be viewed even when the original data source is not available. In ROLAP data cannot be viewed unless connected to the data source.

MOLAP can handle very limited data only as all data is stored in the cube.

For additional reading on evaluating the technical advantages and disadvantages of MOLAP versus ROLAP, I suggest visiting this website: http://www.donmeyer.com/art3.html

Oracle's Ellison to own his own Linux Distro

2006-04-18T09:39:00.000+08:00

The last time Larry Ellison mulled over buying a company, a corporate war erupted. However, in the end Larry got his way and PeopleSoft is now Oracle. Is the same thing going to happen to Novell? If so, it will be good for Linux and the best thing to happen to desktop computing in 20 years. - ITWire

Oracle has been the second largest software company, next to Microsoft. And Larry is showing signs that his not comfortable in the "next to Microsoft" status of Oracle. He expresses his interest in acquiring a Linux distro (SuSE) and offering it as part of Oracle's software stack.

What will Oracle gain from this? Using their marketing clout and expertise, they can place Oracle on the top if they were able to lure companies/consumers to use Linux. Of course, they still need to work a lot on improving the OS, but with their deep pockets, why not?

What will Linux gain from this? A solid financial and marketing backing that can springboard Linux to a larger market share.

Can't wait what will happen next.

A Simple Guide for Choosing the Best Business Intelligence Tool

2006-04-03T10:24:00.000+08:00

Choosing the right Business Intelligence Tool for your company is a risky business. Here is a simple guide that would help you in choosing the best BI for your company:

(1) RESEARCH
- sit down and have a coffee with your managers to talk about the Business (What are the needs?), Functional (who are the users?) and Technical Requirements (what are your existing database and servers?).

- Get an idea of the Business Intelligence market using Gartner, Forrester, TDWI and Ventana Research.

- Think long-term. If you are going to choose and grow with this BI tool, think of how stable the company and how would it respond to your changing demands in the future.

- Estimate the Total Cost of Ownership. (Licensing for all possible users, first year technical support and maintenance, training, hardware - client and server requirements, anticipated system administration and consulting.)

(2) COMPARE ("Proof-of-Concept")

- As much as possible, make a list of 3 or 4 BI vendors (supporting multiple BI tools if possible) before contacting them. Put more "points" on features that your company need, items that you discussed during the 'coffee meeting'. Put fewer points on the additional "cool factor" of the product.

- Ask them for a presentation format that you design yourself.

- Choose 2 out of the 4 and do a Proof of Concept that you talk about during the presentation using your companies' test data.

- Weigh the advantages and the additional "cool features" that you discovered during the POC.

(3) DECIDE

Choosing the right BI tool and vendor is a tough decision, so I hope this mini guide will help you make the right choice.

For more information, you may want to visit these websites:
DM Review - Choosing the Right BI Software and Vendor
BI Review - Lessons Learned
Intelligent Enterprise - Flying High with BI
BitPipe - Business Intelligence (BI) First Step
B-eye Network - Best Practices for Business Intelligence Tool Selection
Business Intelligence General Information
Wikipedia: Business Intelligence

Complete List of COMMERCIAL BI TOOL: (updated last April 3, 2006). I also added a link to Google Finance for more information on the company and its standing in the market. (Just remember that a strong and stable BI company is also a consideration in choosing a long term BI tool.) Here are the BI market's key players:
- SAP - G-Finance Product: SAP NetWeaver BI
- Microsoft - G-Finance - Product: Proclarity (acquired April 2006)
- IBM - G-Finance - Product: IBM DB2 Alphablox
- Microstrategy - G-Finance - Product: Microstrategy 8
- Cognos - G-Finance - Product: Cognos 8
- BusinessObjects - G-Finance - Product: Business Objects XI
- Informatica - G-Finance - Product: Informatica PowerCenter Advance Edition
- Oracle - G-Finance - Product: Oracle BI Suite
- Hyperion - G-Finance - Product: Hyperion System 9 BI+
- DataMirror - G-Finance - Product: Data Mirror BI

Other Companies:
* ACE*COMM
* Actuate
* Alphablox
* Applix
* Business Objects
* Cognos
* Cyberscience
* DataHabitat
* Decision Technology
* Information Builders
* KCI Computing
* MaxQ Technologies
* Metrinomics - Metrivox
* MicroStrategy
* OutlookSoft
* Panorama
* QlikView
* Siebel Systems*acquired by Oracle
* SAS Institute
* Saksoft
* Synola Ltd
You can also visit Google Finance for the standing of the following companies.

Remember that there are also a strong Open Source Business Intelligence tools available in the market today. They are full blown BU Suite ready for implementation already like Pentaho, you can also view our own list of Open Source BI Suite.

Good luck on your search!

What is Pentaho UP to?

2006-03-30T16:08:00.000+08:00

Larry Austin made good points in saying that he is excited about the developments over at Pentaho. Here is what he thinks of Pentaho:

A well-known application that is traditionally big and expensive. This gives Pentaho a lot of aircover in setting pricing.

A large, neglected SMB market opportunity. BI couple be useful to many SMB businesses out there, but they can't afford the current solutions. This gives Pentaho a way to enter the market below the entrenched big boys.

A large enterprise market. Even though there's a broad SMB market, the Pentaho platform can scale up into the enterprise market, further increasing the market opportunity and putting continued pressuer on the incumbents.

Incumbents can't move down market. Companies like Business Objects, Hyperion, and Cognos can't offer entry level solutions to compete with Pentaho Open Source without breaking their business model.

Pentaho's really is doing all the right things to win SMB Business Intelligence market share.

I've been keeping tabs on what the guys in Pentaho are up to. And I'm pretty impress with the decisions and the direction that they are setting for this solution. Here

Nick Goodman (march 21) - an avid blogger, Oracle DW expert and Open Source supporter.

Dave Henry (Feb 23) VP of Alliances - formerly from Sagent Technologies

$5M Funding (dec 8) - by U.S.-based New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led the round in partnership with European-based Index Ventures.

Lance Walter as Vice President of Marketing (Dec 1) - formerly Business Objects, where he was Vice President of Product Marketing.

Larry Austin - Open Source Advocate (Nov 17)

It's NOT Goodluck for Pentaho Team... It will be GOOD WORK Pentaho Team! We expect great things from Pentaho.

Who is Alphablox before IBM acquired them

2006-03-29T17:06:00.000+08:00

I came to the BI market without much knowledge about Alphablox before IBM acquired them. So I did a little bit of digging using my best friendGoogle,

Founded in 1996, Alphablox is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has offices throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Alphablox is a recognized innovator and was selected by Computerworld Magazine as a "Top Emerging Company for 2002"; by Intelligent Enterprise Magazine as "A Company to Watch in 2002"; by Upside Magazine as "A Hot 100"; and by Technologic Partners as one of ten "Investors Choice for 2002" award winners.

Officers: CEO, Joseph Guglielmi (w/03); Technology, Bill Wagstaff (w/04); Sales/Marketing, Steve Guttman and Michael Nason, Original Alphablox Office: 516 Clyde Avenue Mountain View, CA 94043 (Source)

The strength of Alphablox lies in its architecture. It is the first 100% Web Based Custom Analytics tool. During its time, the BI Market leaders like Cognos and Microstrategy develop powerful client based BI Solutions. These are powerful and useful tools made available to different Fortune "rich" companies.

Other BI solution providers forgot that these 'rich' companies started doing OUTSOURCING. Their HR, Finance Dept, or Helpdesk Support might not be in a central data warehouse nor country/time zone. These 'rich' companies also started experimenting with co-locating part of their business in other countries. They also made experiments with the corporate structure and hierarchy, specially with empowering the decision makers. The right thing that Alphablox did that time, is that it did not compete with these great and successful companies, they develop a solution ahead of its time by being "100% web-based" (no need to install anything to access data), custom BI tool (made it robust and modular - use only the components that you need), flexible on how it will be deployed and extensible up to the level of interoperability with other industry tools.

With that strength in mind, they were acquired by IBM on July 2004 and was later repackaged to be part of the IBM DB2 Enterprise Edition.

Client Focus: Pfizer on 2001

From the maker's of Zyrtec®, Zoloft®, and Viagra® says they've tried multiple BI products that couldn't be customized, and they were forced to use proprietary infrastructure. The learning curve was high, yet the tools lacked important features and functions. Thye wanted to build applications customized to users, not force their users to customize themselves to some packaged tool.

"The technology worked right out of the box. Just drag and drop onto the templates, and you're up and running. And once the sales organization saw the prototypes, they got excited about what we were doing."

"The beauty of AlphaBlox is that you don't have to hire a bunch of expensive consultants for months just to implement it. Anyone with knowledge of HTML and JavaScript get can started building applications right away."

"We chose AlphaBlox because it gave us total control over the application look and feel, as well as the ability to easily integrate with other sources of information. All we have to do is set one attribute, and we can completely personalize the interface. "

"It's not about the database or the schema—it's about information delivery."

"If people can't access information and transform it into knowledge, then the technology is meaningless. AlphaBlox makes it easy to rapidly assemble powerful, easy-to-use analytical applications that address the full gamut of requirements."

Related Articles:
1. What is DB2 Alphablox
2. 10 technical things every DB2 Alphablox Developer should know
3. Blox Team Pics and Why we choose Alphablox

New Cognos 8.1.2 Features

2006-03-28T11:21:00.000+08:00

1. BI search : They call this the Cognos Go! Search Service. Haven't really seen it in action but this feature is a long overdue feature for majority of BI Tools. We all know that the primary users of BI tools are managers and decisions makers, and they need these automated reports and dashboards to make intelligent decisions. We'll it SHOULD follow that BI tools should be as easy and simple to use as 'GOOGLE'.

With these feature, you can now quickly find information and data presented in reports, analyses, dashboards, metric information, and events across the organization. I'm hoping this will get implemented properly in all the other BI tools as well.

2. Extended Cognos Office Connection :
Cognos is just right in time to have made this feature available before Microsoft releases the next Microsoft Office 2007 with extended BI Functionality. We all know that Excel is still the most widely used 'client-side' BI application used in Business. And Microsoft intends to use that leverage to improve on its BI Market.

3. Access to mySAP™ and Siebel™ reports

4. Certified SAP NetWeaver® Support

5. Additional Platform and Data Support : Cognos also offers updated support for HP Integrity servers running HP-UX 11i, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005, BEA WebLogic Server® 9, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0, Sybase® Adaptive Server® Enterprise (ASE) 15, Teradata® Warehouse 8.1, ORACLE® Database 10g v2, and Netezza Performance Server® system.

For more information, visit the companies website at Cognos.com

Open Source BI Review: Pentaho

2006-03-20T17:29:00.000+08:00

Target Market: Middle-size to IT-Oriented Enterprise
Technology Used: JAVA (all the components are listed below)
Open Source License: LGPL (What is LGPL?)
Supporting Company: Pentaho Corp. (Orlando, Florida USA)

Pentaho is one of the strong Open Source BI market player. The pentaho project was developed and conceptualized (launched in 2005) by BI veterans from Cognos, Hyperion, IBM, Lawson, Oracle and SAS. They believe in the open source concept and designed a complete BI stack with reporting, OLAP analysis, data mining, dashboards and workflow capabilities. They also believe that it is their duty to keep Microsoft from NOT attaining their 100% goal of the BI Market (InformationWeek has the complete article).

Since Pentaho is a complete BI Suite, they have various components with different liceses. As a developer, Pentaho is a strong candidate in case you want to evaluate a solution for your company. The components of this BI suite is integrated properly and contains a strong understanding in the point of view of Business Intelligence. The company also has plans to have a similar business model as Redhat, so expect that support and training for the product would not be a nightmare.

Here are the components used in the Pentaho BI Suite (updated March 20, 2006):
1. Apache Commons Logging - Logging - Apache
2. Apache HttpClient - Server-to-server HTTP communications - Apache
3. OpenSymphony Quartz - Scheduler - Apache - compatible
4. Apache log4j - Logging - Apache
5. Chiba - Server-side xForm to HTML conversion - Artistic
6. Eclipse Platform - Desktop workbench - Eclipse
7. Eclipse Modeling Framework - Workbench Modeling Framework - Eclipse
8. Eclipse Graphical Editor - Workbench Graphical Editor - Eclipse
9. Enhydra JaWE - Graphical workflow editor - GPL
10. Enhydra Octopus - Data Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) for enterprise application integration (EAI) - LGPL
11. Enhydra Shark - Workflow engine http://shark.objectweb.org/ - LGPL
12. Firebird - Relational database Used for sample deployments - Mozilla
13. JBoss AS - Application server Used for sample deployments - LGPL
14. JBoss Hibernate - Object persistence layer - LGPL
15. JBoss Portal - JSR168 compliant portal server Used for sample deployments - LGPL
16. JFree JFreeChart - Chart engine - LGPL
17. JOSSO - Single sign-on and LDAP integration - BSD
18. Metastuff dom4j - XML Parser - BSD
19. Mozilla Rhino - Javascript processor - Mozilla
20. Sun Java Mail - Email delivery - Sun
21. Sun JDBC - Database access - Sun
22. Sun JIMI - Image management - Sun

Last updated on: March 20, 2006

Open Source BI Review: BEE Project

2006-03-15T15:24:00.000+08:00

Target Market: Middle-size companies
Technology Used: ROLAP (relational on-line analytical processing), Code is written in Perl, DBD/DBI, SOAP::Lite, and MySQL
Open Source License: GPL (What is GPL?)
Supporting Company: Insight Strategy (Chzech)

BEE Project is an open source suite of Business Intelligence tools which combines ETL engine and a ROLAP server for mid-size businesses.

Here are the possible examples of outcome by using the BEE project. This Open Source BI Tool can change of a display style and form, drill directly to a specific graph and export the data in a other data formats.

You can also view a "Live Demo" at BEE Project's website.
You can also view our comprehensive list of Open Source Business Intelligence Tools, click here.

Last updated on: March 15, 2006

10 technical things every DB2 Alphablox Developer should know

2006-03-14T16:44:00.000+08:00

1. Know where to put your tag libs in a JSP
2. Know what to put into Scriptlets versus Taglibs
3. Understand bookmarks
4. Understand bloxAPI.call()
5. Understand the bloxname tag attribute
6. Beware of Framesets, IFrames, Portlets, etc....
7. Use the Javadocs
8. Use the support site
9. Use an IDE for development
10. Understand the difference between the Server Side and BloxModel Programming Models

Read more at IBM website

Related Articles:
1. Who is Alphablox before IBM acquired them
2. What is DB2 Alphablox
3. Blox Team Pics and Why we choose Alphablox

Six Reasons Why a Company or Business should consider Blogging

2006-03-08T14:03:00.000+08:00

I sent an email to one of my freelance clients regarding the advantages of having a blog site, and I thought it would be nice to share them with you.

Excerpt from my email to a freelance client:

I'm not here to convince or change your mind, but here are some reasons why your company should really consider blogging:

1. Blogs promote customer evangelism. Their personal nature helps humanize you and your organization. Microsoft even hired Scoble as a Technology Evangelist to blog.

2. They function as an instant-feedback mechanism. Most blogs allow readers to respond to your posts or link to them on their own blogs. These features provide almost real-time feedback on ideas and issues that strike a chord, or highlight new or existing problems. A blog can reveal a little problem before it grows into a bigger one.

3. They compel you to "Napsterize" more of your knowledge more often. A blog is about sharing what you know, think and believe; search engines index your ongoing knowledge sharing, making it easier for customers and prospects to find you. Attracting is always easier than hunting.

4. They facilitate the spread of buzz. Honest, informative or thought-provoking posts about issues important to customers and prospects tend to be spread more often.

5. They allow you to have more simultaneous conversations. It's more than you could ever do in person.

6. They help position you as a knowledgeable expert in your industry.

A company did a case study on how effective blog on bottom line sales. The result was 35% increase in sales in a month plus a larger market share and brand recognition. View Article

I'm open in assisting you in case you decide to put time and effort in establishing a voice for eNovAsia by using blogs.

Blox Team Pics and Why we choose Alphablox

2006-03-07T12:16:00.000+08:00

Our Blox Team is currently developing a solution that will use the flexibility and the power of both Open Standard solutions and most specially IBM DB2 Alphablox. As of now, we have decided to limit the amount of information that will be discussed regarding this project but I can tell you several reasons why we choose IBM DB2 Alphablox over other BI Tools.

10 Simple reasons why we choose IBM DB2 Alphablox:
1) It's component-based, we call it Blox. (lower's TCO for enterprise owners)
2) It has ready made analytic components. (ideal for rapid development)
3) It's positioned under the CUSTOM-BI tools. (robust! very important)
4) It's easy to rapidly assemble analytic applications using Java™ Server Pages.
5) It's based on the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture.
6) It's deployed on a Web application server. (accessible to bottom line users)
7) It's based on an Open Architecture.
8) It's integrated with Excel, PDF and other format commonly used.
9) It's a marriage between relational data and cube data in one package.
10) It's an IBM product. (Support is strong)

Here are some of our pics as we discussed our on-going plans:

Here are a few screenshots of what we're discussing at the messy whiteboard:

Next, we'll discuss the other BI Tools available in the market and our five cents regarding them.

DB2 Alphablox are Blocks

2006-02-27T17:58:00.001+08:00

Our group has been assigned to develop solutions for IBM DB2 Alphablox and We have enjoyed this tool and discovered it's unique advantages.

For business owners/managers and IT decision makers, I understand that Business Intelligence (BI) is almost a requirement nowadays. BI will allow you to make timely and efficient decisions based on appropriate facts.

Alphablox allows you to "INTEGRATE" a BI Solution without modifying your existing IT Infrastructure. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is definitely much cheaper and is highly portable in case any changes is deemed necessary by your company.

DB2 Alphablox and all DB2 Alphablox analytic-enabled solutions run as J2EE-compliant applications in the application server. In the reference figure above, your Alphablox component will sit comfortably inside the J2EE Application Server (Web-Application-Tier).

For more information, you can download the Technical WhitePaper of IBM DB2 Alphablox - click here.

Business Intelligence Links

2006-02-22T13:08:00.000+08:00

There are lots of blogs and websites that speaks their actual experiences with different BI Applications, Databases and Data Warehousing Tools. If you want an aggregated view, I suggest visiting BI BLOGS.

Here are a select few blogs from different BI application users in the market today:

1. Steve Nagoski - Business Objects Enterprise BI Platforms.
2. InfoCaptop - Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer.
3. Marco Russo - SQL Server Analysis Services 2005.
4. Patrick Husting - Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005
5. Ian Tien - Business Scorecard Manager 2005
6. Chris Webb - Microsoft BI

Open Source Solutions for your Business Intelligence, Database, Data Warehousing needs:

Open Source Database
1. Derby - relational DB done entirely in Java.
2. EnterpriseDB - RDBMS, PostgreSQL, compatible with Oracle apps.
3. Firebird - relational DB offering many ANSI SQL standard features.
4. Ingres - OS independent relational DB.
5. MySQL - the most popular open source database.
6. PostgreSQL - enterprise and secure relational database.
7. Sleepycat - a relational DB that has a library with a programatic API. (Acquired by Oracle on Feb 14, 2006)

Open Source ETL
1. Pequel ETL - Comprehensive & high performance data processing/transform system done in Perl/C.
2. Clover ETL - Java based ETL framework which can be used to transform structured data.
3. CpluSQL - distributed ETL tool extracts and transforms row based data from databases and flat files.
4. Enhydra Octopus - Java based ETL framework that connect to JDBC Sources and transforms them to XML file.
5. JetStream - Java Extraction Transformation Service for Transmitting Records & Exchanging Application Metadata: a Java-based ETL/EAI tool.
6. KETL on Bizgres - Kinetic ETL, created by KineticNetworks.
7. KETTLE - LGPL License ETL tool that utilizes XML and generates its own SQL queries.
8. openDigger - java based compiler for the xETL language.

Open Source Reporting Tools
1. Agata Report - cross-platform database reporting tool with graph generation and a query tool that allows you to get data from PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, DB2, MS-SQL, Informix, InterBase, Sybase, or Frontbase and export that data as PostScript, plain text, HTML, XML, PDF, or spreadsheet (CSV) formats through its GUI.
2. DataVision - written in Java, very similar to Crystal Reports that uses drag and drop functionality to get data from and data that uses JDBC and export that data as HTML, XML, PDF, LaTeX2e, DocBook, or tab- or comma-delimited text files.
3. Jasper - Java reporting tool that has the ability to deliver rich content onto the screen, to the printer or into PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV and XML files.
4. OpenReports - flexible web based reporting solution that uses JasperReports.
5. OpenRPT - a graphical report writer and rendering engine and the first fully cross-platform SQL report writer.

Open Source BI Suite
1. BEE Project - BI Suite of tools ideal for mid size companies that has 50GB or less of data. It has ETL and uses ROLAP and is under the GPL license.
2. Bizgres - a "distribution" of PostgreSQL with add-on tools, such as JDBC, the JavaLoader, autovacuum and the Configurator, and others for easy BI and DW use.
3. Greenplum - first open source powered database server that can scale to support multi-terabyte data warehousing demands.
4. MarvelIT - open source Business Intelligence solution based on the Apache Jetspeed Enterprise Portal and the popular OpenReports reporting application.
5. OpenI - simple web application that does out-of-box OLAP reporting
6. Pentaho - enterprise-class reporting, analysis, dashboard, data mining and workflow capabilities.
7. SpagoBI - complete suite for the development of Business Intelligence that covers data and metadata organization, static reporting and dimensional analysis, hidden information discovering by means of data mining techniques, the building of a structured and dynamic control suite with dashboard components.
8. Palo - GPL Licensed MOLAP reporting that easily integrates various MS Excel. Ideal if your company is working heavily on Microsoft Excel.

Open Source BI Suite
1. Eclipse BIRT - open source, Eclipse-based reporting system that integrates with your application to produce compelling reports for both web and PDF.
2. EFEU -
3. JpGraph -
4. PostgreSQL MDDB -

Open Source Data Modeling
dbwrench

The Blox Team

2006-02-22T13:06:00.000+08:00

This blog is maintained by four DB2 Alphablox developer, each taking a focus on the different aspect of the technology.

We love the product and we were group together to develop solutions about IBM DB2 Alphablox for Enterprise.

We are also a strong believer of the Open Source Community and we intend to understand, discover, share and contribute with the endeavors of the community.

DB2 Alphablox

2006-02-22T11:28:00.000+08:00

DB2 Alphablox in LAYMAN TERMS
DB2 Alphablox is a CUSTOM Business Intelligence (BI) and 100% web-based tool.

If you are a fan of LEGO BLOCKS, you'll understand that you can construct/create 'almost' limitless amount of designs from a certain number of blocks.

With IBM DB2 Alphablox, you can custom made your companies own BI Tool using BLOX much the same way as LEGO does. It's good because you are not automatically tied to a specific technology or brand. It's good also because you and your consultants can ALWAYS find a way to integrate these new tool to your business process.

TECHNICAL BRIEF OF ALPHABLOX:
DB2 Alphablox provides a set of analytic components and supporting services to make it easy to rapidly assemble analytic applications using Java™ Server Pages (JSP) tags. These components, known as "Blox" (as in "building blocks"), are based on the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture and are deployed on a Web application server. Visual Blox include highly interactive graphs, charts, and reports. These visual Blox work with data Blox to support analysis of both relational and multidimensional data.

DB2 Alphablox developers use Blox to connect to databases, retrieve information, and tailor the presentation to suit users' needs. Administrators deploy DB2 Alphablox applications into Web application servers, such as IBM's WebSphere® Application Server, BEA's® Weblogic, or the Apache Jakarta Project's Tomcat servlet engine.

Each of the major Blox enables users to interactively explore and analyze data. For example, users can export data to Adobe PDF files or Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets, hide columns in a report, create traffic-light style reports based on specified column values, alter the format of a displayed chart, and so on. The services Blox can be used to provide guided analysis, personalization, customization, and collaboration facilities. Blox users can customize these capabilities and services through JSP tags to provide the right function to a wide range of business users and analysts.

For an example of how DB2 Alphablox work in a real world scenario, you may refer to this articles in IBM DeveloperWorks:
Build Web-based analytic applications with DB2 Alphablox and DB2 Information Integrator

BUSINESS BRIEF OF ALPHABLOX:

DB2 Alphablox for Unix and Windows adds new capabilities to the IBM business intelligence portfolio, a key foundation for our on demand capabilities.

Optimized for rapid application delivery and deployment, DB2 Alphablox provides a component-based, comprehensive framework for integrating analytics into existing business processes and systems. By implementing solutions that include DB2 Alphablox capabilities, leading enterprises maximize the value of their information assets by delivering business insight to the right people at the point-of-decision.

Leading enterprises in financial services, manufacturing, technology, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, retail, and energy, are successfully leveraging DB2 Alphablox technology inside a wide variety of integrated analytic solutions. DB2 Alphablox enables organizations to integrate analytics across all functions and lines of business, and enable powerful analytic solutions to business users at the front lines for improved decision making. It enables customers and partners to optimize various aspects of their business solutions, including:
- Self-service reporting and analysis applications
- Operational analysis applications
- Financial reporting and analysis applications
- Planning applications
- Business Performance and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Dashboards

DB2 Alphablox's open architecture and component approach to application development provide for a high degree of customization when delivering analytic solutions, and offer numerous options for application front-end interfaces to meet the requirements of the casual to the power user.

Related Articles:
1. Who is Alphablox before IBM acquired them
2. 10 technical things every DB2 Alphablox Developer should know
3. Blox Team Pics and Why we choose Alphablox

Designing and implementing a business intelligence programme

2006-02-21T17:43:00.001+08:00

When implementing a BI programme one might like to pose a number of questions and take a number of resultant decisions, such as:

* Goal Alignment queries: The first step determines the short and medium-term purposes of the programme. What strategic goal(s) of the organization will the programme address? What organizational mission/vision does it relate to? A crafted hypothesis needs to detail how this initiative will eventually improve results / performance (i.e. a strategy map).

* Baseline queries: Current information-gathering competency needs assessing. Does the organization have the capability of monitoring important sources of information? What data does the organization collect and how does it store that data? What are the statistical parameters of this data, e.g. how much random variation does it contain? Does the organization measure this?

* Cost and risk queries: The financial consequences of a new BI initiative should be estimated. It is necessary to assess the cost of the present operations and the increase in costs associated with the BI initiative? What is the risk that the initiative will fail? This risk assessment should be converted into a financial metric and included in the planning?

* Customer and Stakeholder queries: Determine who will benefit from the initiative and who will pay. Who has a stake in the current procedure? What kinds of customers/stakeholders will benefit directly from this initiative? Who will benefit indirectly? What are the quantitative / qualitative benefits? Is the specified initiative the best way to increase satisfaction for all kinds of customers, or is there a better way? How will customers' benefits be monitored? What about employees,... shareholders,... distribution channel members?

* Metrics-related queries: These information requirements must be operationalized into clearly defined metrics. One must decide what metrics to use for each piece of information being gathered. Are these the best metrics? How do we know that? How many metrics need to be tracked? If this is a large number (it usually is), what kind of system can be used to track them? Are the metrics standardized, so they can be benchmarked against performance in other organizations? What are the industry standard metrics available?

* Measurement Methodology-related queries: One should establish a methodology or a procedure to determine the best (or acceptable) way of measuring the required metrics. What methods will be used, and how frequently will the organization collect data? Do industry standards exist for this? Is this the best way to do the measurements? How do we know that?

* Results-related queries: Someone should monitor the BI programme to ensure that objectives are being met. Adjustments in the programme may be necessary. The programme should be tested for accuracy, reliability, and validity. How can one demonstrate that the BI initiative (rather than other factors) contributed to a change in results? How much of the change was probably random?.

BI: Key Performance Indicators

2006-02-21T17:43:00.000+08:00

BI often uses Key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the present state of business and to prescribe a course of action. More and more organizations have started to make data available more promptly. In the past, data only became available after a month or two, which did not help managers to adjust activities in time to hit Wall Street targets. Recently, banks have tried to make data available at shorter intervals and have reduced delays. The KPI methodology was further expanded with the Chief Performance Officer methodology which incorporated KPIs and root cause analysis into a single methodology.
[edit]

KPI example

For example, for businesses which have higher operational/credit risk loading (for example, credit cards and "wealth management"), A large multi-national bank makes KPI-related data available weekly, and sometimes offers a daily analysis of numbers. This means data usually becomes available within 24 hours, necessitating automation and the use of IT systems.

BI History

2006-02-21T17:41:00.000+08:00

An early reference to non-business intelligence occurs in Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Sun Tzu claims that to succeed in war, one should have full knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses and full knowledge of one's enemy's strengths and weaknesses. Lack of either one might result in defeat. A certain school of thought draws parallels between the challenges in business and those of war, specifically:

* collecting data
* discerning patterns and meaning in the data (generating information)
* responding to the resultant information

Prior to the start of the Information Age in the late 20th century, businesses sometimes took the trouble to struggle to collect data from non-automated sources. Businesses then lacked the computing resources to properly analyze the data, and often made commercial decisions primarily on the basis of intuition.

As businesses started automating more and more systems, more and more data became available. However, collection remained a challenge due to a lack of infrastructure for data exchange or to incompatibilities between systems. Reports on the data gathered sometimes took months to generate. Such reports allowed informed long-term strategic decision-making. However, short-term tactical decision-making continued to rely on intuition.

In modern businesses, increasing standards, automation, and technologies have led to vast amounts of data becoming available. Data warehouse technologies have set up repositories to store this data. Improved ETL and even recently Enterprise Application Integration tools have increased the speedy collecting of data. OLAP reporting technologies have allowed faster generation of new reports which analyze the data. Business intelligence has now become the art of sieving through large amounts of data, extracting information and turning that information into actionable knowledge.

In 1989 Howard Dresner, a Research Fellow at Gartner Group popularized "BI" as a umbrella term to describe a set of concepts and methods to improve business decision-making by using fact-based support systems. Dresner left Gartner in 2005 and joined Hyperion Solutions as its Chief Strategy Officer.

Bi Software Types

2006-02-21T17:40:00.000+08:00

People working in business intelligence have developed tools that ease the work, especially when the intelligence task involves gathering and analyzing large quantities of unstructured data.

Tool categories commonly used for business intelligence include:

* AQL - Associative Query Logic
* Scorecarding, Dashboarding and Information visualization
* Business Performance Management
* DM - Data mining
* Data warehouses
* DSS - Decision Support Systems
* Document warehouses
* EIS - Executive Information Systems
* MIS - Management Information Systems
* GIS - Geographic Information Systems
* OLAP - (Online Analytical Processing) sometimes simply called "Analytics" (based on dimensional analysis and the so-called "hypercube" or "cube")
* Text mining

BI Technology

2006-02-21T17:11:00.000+08:00

Some observers regard BI as the process of enhancing data into information and then into knowledge. Persons involved in business intelligence processes may use application software and other technologies to gather, store, analyze, and provide access to data (also known as business intelligence). The software aims to help people make "better" business decisions by making accurate, current, and relevant information available to them when they need it.

Some people use the term "BI" interchangeably with "briefing books" or with "executive information systems". One can regard a business intelligence system as a decision-support system (DSS).

Business performance management offers software-oriented business intelligence systems that some see as a new generation of business intelligence, though most people in the field use the terms interchangeably.

BI Business Processes

2006-02-21T17:10:00.000+08:00

Organizations typically gather information in order to assess the business environment, and cover fields such as marketing research, industry or market research, and competitor analysis. Competitive organizations accumulate business intelligence in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage, and may regard such intelligence as a valuable core competence in some instances.

Generally, BI-collectors glean their primary information from internal business sources. Such sources help decision-makers understand how well they have performed. Secondary sources of information include customer needs, customer decision-making processes, the competition and competitive pressures, conditions in relevant industries, and general economic, technological, and cultural trends. Industrial espionage may also provide business intelligence by using covert techniques. A gray area exists between "normal" business intelligence and industrial espionage.

Each business-intelligence system has a specific goal, which derives from an organizational goal or from a vision statement. Both short-term goals (such as quarterly numbers to Wall Street) and long term goals (such as shareholder value, target industry share / size, etc) exist.

The BI Landscape

2006-02-17T15:05:00.000+08:00

The phrase business intelligence (BI) may refer to: (1) a set of business processes for collecting and analyzing business information. (2) the technology used in these processes, and (3) the information obtained from these processes.

Source: Wikipedia (open original source)