Governed Data Discovery. with Pyramid Analytics. Navigating the business analytics disruption. Issue 1. Why Data Discovery is the new King?

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1 Issue 1 Governed Data Discovery with Pyramid Analytics Why Data Discovery is the New Kin... 1 The Missin Component in Data Discovery Tools... 2 Governed Data Discovery: A Key to Success... 2 Governed Data Discovery with Pyramid Analytics... 3 The Components of a Governed Data Discovery Solution...4 Selectin the Riht Governed Data Discovery Platform... 6 Lookin Ahead: Maic Quadrant Strateic Plannin Assumptions... 7 About Pyramid Analytics...10 Naviatin the business analytics disruption The drivin force behind the most recent developments in the BI market is the rowin need for rapid and actionable information delivery. The lobal economy and business environment are movin faster with data streams becomin larer and more complex. Businesses are operatin in a new reality where uncertainty is the norm. Gleanin meaninful and timely information for shrewd decision-makin is key to stayin ahead of the competition and as data volumes continue to row exponentially, users need more control for rapid, informed decision-makin. Mea-vendor traditional BI tools are usually complicated and one needs to be hihly techsavvy in order to deliver information at the pace the business needs. This inconvenience has accelerated alternative approaches for data discovery tools. These tools aim to empower business users with an intuitive and simple user interface with easier data access, data modelin, and instant answers. Accessible data discovery has become a necessity, drivin the entire industry towards Non-technical, business-user enabled analytics platforms. Why Data Discovery is the new Kin? Traditionally, business intellience was the domain of IT and a handful of tech-savvy users. The BI landscape was dominated by reportin and analytics platforms created by the meavendors. These platforms were powerful, scalable and secure with useful monitorin and manaement tools but also required hihly skilled IT professionals to be successful. The requirement for these skills resulted in a lare ap between the people who knew and understood the business problems and the people who could build the technoloy and content to solve them. This ap usually resulted in lon, tedious and multi-month or multi-year implementation endeavors and loner than desirable time-to-chane periods. Self-service data discovery tools started to appear in the market in response to these challenes and provided exceptional innovations in data discovery solution offerins capable of deliverin immediate, hih-value business impact in hours or days versus weeks or months with minimal investment. Featurin research from

2 These land-expand solutions are rowin quickly for the followin purposes: Intuitive self-serve tools enable business users to create and consume rapid, actionable information Simple connectivity and blendin for a plethora of data sources Automated data model creation and flexible model customization In-memory architecture allows faster-than-ever processin time Basic to sophisticated, yet intuitive data visualization and data model mappin Extensive libraries of custom functions for custom calculations presented in business lanuae Built-in statistic and predictive capabilities Visually attractive and feature-rich, compellin dashboards Mobile-friendly, desin once and consume anytime, anywhere reportin Website and application APIs for easy embeddin of visual analytics These platforms have become standard in most enterprises and have iven business users the ability to answer critical business questions and make informed decisions without barriers or delays. This success has even led some of the mea-vendors to offer their own self-service products and in 2013, several enterprises retired their BI systems and replaced them with self-service data discovery tools. The Missin Component in Data Discovery Tools As pointed out by Gartner in the recent Maic Quadrant report, Governed data discovery the ability to meet the dual demands of enterprise IT and business users remains a challene unmet by any one vendor. The attributes that enterprise BI tools delivered so well, such as security, stability, scalability, transparency, and overnance are often missin from the data discovery deployments. This is true especially when multiple departments or teams deploy separate, siloed, self-service solutions and models. Sometimes, this occurs even when they are usin the same toolset. These departmental scenarios are not a scalable option in a fastpaced, bi data world where there is an increased need for unified, reliable, trusted and secure data anytime, anywhere. Business analytics tools with data discovery may be easy to quickly set up for a limited scope of business data, however, over time the requirements expand to new content worlds and more complex reports, as well as data chanin in the backend. Then oranizations are faced with a fissure that can be expensive to resolve: Inconsistent, competin versions of the truth missin data quality processes Departmental data silos without transparency and searchability within the enterprise Inconsistent report and metric definitions across different departments Limitations in historical depth Duplication and disoranization of data across the enterprise, local, usually non-reusable data models, business loic and metrics Limited scalability, maintainability and security options The need for a more complete data discovery solution is reflected in this year s Maic Quadrant report as Gartner asserts, The most notable chane in this year s Maic Quadrant is that all the vendors in the Leaders quadrant have been moved to the left in terms of Completeness of Vision. This reflects the fact that no *Gartner, Maic Quadrant for Business Intellience and Analytics Platforms, Rita L. Sallam Joao Tapadinhas Josh Parenteau Daniel Yuen Bill Hostmann, 20 Feb Naviatin Business Analytics Disruption with Governed Data Discovery is published by Pyramid Analytics. Editorial content supplied by Pyramid Analytics is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is used with Gartner s permission, and was oriinally published as part of Gartner s syndicated research service available to all entitled Gartner clients Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rihts reserved. The use of Gartner research in this publication does not indicate Gartner s endorsement of Pyramid Analytics products and/or strateies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form without Gartner s prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. The opinions expressed herein are subject to chane without notice. Althouh Gartner research may include a discussion of related leal issues, Gartner does not provide leal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner s Board of Directors may include senior manaers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research oranization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their manaers. For further information on the independence and interity of Gartner research, see Guidin Principles on Independence and Objectivity on its website, 2

3 one vendor is fully addressin the critical space in the market for overned data discovery in other words, platforms that address both business users requirements for ease of use and enterprises IT-driven requirements. This is a critical ap that needs to be filled for continued business analytic success. Governed Data Discovery: A Key to Success In the Maic Quadrant for Business Intellience and Analytics Platforms, Gartner writes, By 2015, enterprise buyers of BI platforms will predominantly purchase platforms that support both stron and broad business-user-accessible data discovery capabilities and IT-driven enterprise features for data reuse, overnance, security and scalability. And continues with By 2015, the shiftin tide of BI platform requirements, movin from reportin-centric to analysiscentric, will mean the majority of BI vendors will make overned data discovery capabilities an expansion of, and the prime competitive capability for, their BI platform offerins. * Governed data discovery has become a key component to scale modern data discovery tools to an enterprise scale, and as this realization trickles down, BI vendors are tryin to fiure out what Governed Data Discovery actually means. Governed Data Discovery with Pyramid Analytics The market ap in overned data discovery is a crucial component for the Pyramid Analytics BI platform. BI Office was desined from the round up to achieve the unique balance between simple and intuitive discovery for the business user and an enterprise-ready, overned platform for IT. BI Office features: Intuitive self-serve data discovery and analytical tools Secure and centralized manaement and monitorin Hihly scalable deployment with load balancin, failover, scale-up and scale out Pyramid Analytics BI Office is the only major self-service analytics platform desined to provide users with shared context and centralized manaement while deliverin ease-of-use and capability to leverae an existin data warehouse and BI investment. Pyramid Analytics unique approach to overned data discovery has proven to be successful in numerous deployments. BI Office customers enjoy a solid analytics platform that is maintainable and scalable while still bein easy and intuitive to use. In fact, it happens often that that small initial purchases of 25 or 100 licenses of Pyramid Analytics BI Office row to sinificantly hiher amounts once cost savins, data consistency, and ease-of-use across an enterprise are realized. Over time, we had replaced a variety of disparate systems that had evolved with a Governed Portal, providin a one stop for Executives and other users to access their data. We had a vision of an enterprise portal that would provide a consistent and comprehensive information source for all our decision makers, anytime, anywhere. We looked at the solutions available to help our users at the Conleton factory make the transition from their various spreadsheet solutions and decided that we wanted to deliver an interated capability combined with a fast method for analysin and visualizin business information. - Says Steve Waters, IT Manaer at Siemens Motion Control. Smarter access to more complex data sources reardless of location Intuitive, rich, and secure analytical data modelin Reusable content, business loic and advanced collaboration Mature development life-cycle processes 3

4 FIGURE 1 Pyramid Analytics Data Discovery Visualizations Source: Pyramid Analytics The Components of a Governed Data Discovery Solution Secure and Centralized Manaement and Monitorin BI Office offers central security, manaement, and monitorin capabilities while bein easy to use. This provides IT with the confidence and reliability they need to scale up effectively and efficiently, while minimizin the manpower needed to support the BI deployments. In addition, the BI Office point-and-click wizards and code-free smart business loic can be both securely shared and reused across an oranization. These functionalities alin with proven enterprise information delivery best practices. Reusable Content, Business Loic and Advanced Collaboration Rapid chanes to reportin requirements are welcome and easy to manae in BI Office. Desined for full content reuse and sharin, BI Office allows for easy propaation of chanes that take place. With BI Office s shared content and business loic, objects are seamlessly connected, includin analytic views, dynamic dashboards, custom visualizations, and custom calculation while keepin the data accurate and consistent. When new insihts are found, users can take advantae of the automated report delivery system schedules or triered events to quickly and efficiently share insihts across the whole oranization. BI Office can also deliver this information across multiple desktop and mobile operatin systems without ANY reformattin or codin. Mature Development Life-Cycle Processes One of the unique features that Pyramid Analytics offers is the wizard for common enterprise BI development and deployment workflows, such as chanin data sources, approvin content for distribution and automatin content delivery. The inimitable Missin Data Wizard is a tool that is used to automatically correct reports with chaned data source dimensions, hierarchies, levels, members, named sets and custom MDX elements. Pyramid Analytics also offers backend development APIs for content manaement, event monitorin, alerts and system administration automation. Our Web Service API supports dynamic content embeddin scenarios, imports and exports, and mass distribution of dashboards and reports. The API framework is flexible, fully prorammable, extendable and well documented. Notably the business users were excited by the end-user driven custom calculations, dynamic sets and OLAP enabled eospatial heat-map capabilities provided by the Pyramid solution aainst MHS s existin SSAS cubes. These functionalities allowed business users to not only consume the existin data models but also self-drive reportin, analytics and dashboardin. - Memorial Health Services 4

5 FIGURE 2 Pyramid Analytics Technoloy Architecture provides an on premise, private or public cloud-based solution Source: Pyramid Analytics Pyramid Analytics critical, hihly available and hihly redundant architecture was desined with enterprise administration needs in mind. Hihly Scalable Deployment Pyramid Analytics BI Office can scale to serve thousands of users and billions of records with blazin-fast speed enabled by the ultra-fast, multiple-service app tier desin, across the web. The BI Office platform is built upon industry standard HTML5, web, security, data manaement and cloud-hostin technoloies. The platform unifies a number of stateof-the-art enineerin techniques in which lare data footprints and complexity are the norm. What sets BI Office apart is its multi-threaded, robust query enines and smart-load balancin capabilities. Pyramid Analytics enineers have applied cloud-scale, massively parallel computin architectural desin patterns to the BI Office Suite, deliverin the power of the cloud computin without the cloud requirements. Intuitive, Rich and Secure Analytical Data Modelin BI Office provides personalized reportin needs, data blendin and security. With BI Office, users can create sophisticated data models and apply local or enterprise-wide, role-based security (which may also synchronize with Microsoft s new best-in-class in-memory server, SSAS Tabular). Another unique wizard, the BI Office Mash-Pit, enables business users to input their own data for analysis. The Mash-Pit is a user-friendly, step-by-step wizard that allows anyone to combine their own data with overned enterprise data sources in an oranized and systematic manner. This uided process will help facilitate discovery for profound insihts into patterns and relationships. Without any codin complexity, Mash-Pit automates data model creation and applies industry best practice data modelin techniques. Our smart modelin alorithms include: heuristic loic to help users determine how to oranize their data, clear visualizations for data model desins with best-in-class dependency diarammin and built-in time intellience. This whole process can be completed by usin a client connected to a centrally manaed server so the data isn t downloaded to each desktop, reducin the risk of havin all of the private data on local machines. 5

6 FIGURE 3 Pyramid s Data Modeler with Pyramid Analytics Hihly Intuitive Data Mash-up Wizard Source: Pyramid Analytics Smarter Access to Complex Data Sources Data security is a top concern in any enterprise reportin application. BI Office implements smart loic that keeps the data secure while not limitin end user access or insihts. With content bein delivered throuh multiple authentication models and full support of SSL, there is no need to worry about data security breaches or exposure when facilitatin access to both internal and external users from multiple domains. Pyramid Analytics BI Office also delivers secure mobile and cloudready solutions. Customers experience lihtspeed solution time to value while also enjoyin the industry s lowest total cost of ownership without sacrificin or compromisin data security. Selectin the Riht Governed Data Discovery Platform Selectin a BI tool is always challenin, as solutions appear to have near-identical offerins. On the surface, stunnin dashboards look alike, information delivery approaches are similar and commodity analytics slice, dice, and drill to detail, amon other interactive features that are comparable. Unfortunately, critical features that make the most difference to the success of the deployment are often the ones that do not dazzle an audience in demonstrations and often are skimmed over in the buyin process. To speak to the crux of the issue, the behind-the-scenes development experience and depth of capabilities for enterprise manaement, overnance and scale truly differentiate the BI tools from one another. Business decision-makers purchasin data discovery systems should plan for the future rowth and scalin-up requirements, and include overned data discovery features in their checklist. Reiteratin Gartner, Data discovery capabilities are dominatin new purchasin requirements, even for larer deployments, as alternatives to traditional BI tools. But overned data discovery the ability to meet the dual demands of enterprise IT and business users remains a challene unmet by any one vendor. * *Gartner, Maic Quadrant for Business Intellience and Analytics Platforms, Rita L. Sallam Joao Tapadinhas Josh Parenteau Daniel Yuen Bill Hostmann, 20 Feb

7 Lookin Ahead Maic Quadrant Strateic Plannin Assumptions Business intellience analytics need to provide compellin, hih business value across many processes today, anytime and anywhere. It is clear that the next eneration of business intellience will evolve further in advanced analytics; predictive and prescriptive as well as bi data, cloud and mobile capabilities. In addition, the BI platform user experience paradims will continue to shift to become more sophisticated while still enablin mainstream business users to effortlessly access and lean powerful analytic insihts, such as clusters, sements, predictions, outliers and anomalies from their data. Pyramid Analytics is committed to investin in R&D, innovatin, and enhancin BI Office to remain a market leader in overned data discovery and business analytics. The BI Office platform includes the point-and-click descriptive modelin, prescriptive what-if analysis, and predictive linear reression with outlier detection for the smart reportin that business users need. As you evaluate future overned data discovery applications, confirm that the software meets the key attributes and detailed needs. Make sure that the software makes it simple for users to conduct analyses while havin IT play a key role in overnin the data and you will benefit reatly in the years to come. Additional Information and Resources Visit us at FIGURE 4 Pyramid Analytics Predictive Analysis with What-If and Outlier analysis Built-in Source: Pyramid Analytics 7

8 Best Practices Checklist for Governed Data Discovery Enclosed is the Pyramid Analytics checklist for business decision-makers who would like to ensure they acquire the riht overned data discovery system. Centralized Manaement and Administration Is there a common, centralized location to manae the platform components; content, data models, semantic models, metadata templates, schedules, alerts and users? Unified Development Environment Is there a shared, seamlessly interated, common development environment? Unified User Interface Are there shared commands, menu items and toolbars for all BI platform functions? Common Security Definitions Do all tools leverae a common security definition? Common Query Enine Do all BI tools share the same query optimization and construction enine? Server Architecture Can all platform components be installed in scale-up and scale-out models? Scalability Are there scalability mechanisms (cachin, clusterin, workload balancin, hih availability, etc.) across BI platform components? Shared Semantic Model Can data models be shared via a central repository for reuse? Shared Metadata Can metadata objects (e.., dimensions, measures, calculations, parameters) be shared via a central repository for reuse? Data Loadin How easy is it to add a new data source? Data Modelin How is data modeled in the product? What skill level is required? Is scriptin required? Time Intellience Does the solution support time intellience and custom calendars? How is this created? Slowly Chanin Dimensions Does the support accurate reportin over time even if chanes to dimension attributes or hierarchies occur? Does the solution only support reportin on current state of a dimesion or hierarchy? Custom Calculations Can the business user create calculated columns? Develop Lifecycle Support Data Lineae Impact Analysis Search Data Sources Standards-Based Connectivity Can the tool promote development chanes made in the metadata repository to all other reports and applications that make use of the metadata objects? Is data lineae supported to determine which source systems contributed to the report reardless of which extraction, transformation and loadin (ETL) tool is used? Is the Impact Analysis [delete is] supported... and then add a question mark to the end of the sentence. Is there a facility to search a metadata repository to find the appropriate report, and does this enable drill-throuh without predefined drill paths? What data sources are supported, includin Multidimensional Expressions (MDX), XML, RSS feeds, Hadoop, Microsoft SharePoint list, flat file, amon other? Does the solution support Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)? API Is there an API to embed or automate all aspects of the BI tools/platform? Multiple Developer Is there check in/check out versionin within the development environment? Versionin Does the solution support versionin of reports, dashboards and analysis? (continued) 8

9 Workflow Does the solution support development workflow approvals without codin? Wizard Development Are easy to use step-by-step wizards available for common development tasks? WYSIWIG Can users see live data in WYSIWIG format? Dra and Drop Can users develop reports and dashboards with simple mouse clicks - they can dra and drop? Subscriptions Can users subscribe to have reports automatically delivered? Conditional Alert Display Is there a delivery of alerts to users based on definin thresholds in a report where you would want to be notified if a specific condition exists? What personalization features are available for this? Visual Alerts Is there a visual display of exception values throuh color codin or other means? Event-Driven/Dynamic Alerts Are there event-based alerts? User-Defined Thresholds Can end users set their own thresholds? In-Memory, 64-Bit and Lare Data Sets Third-Party Authentication Are the tools avialable in 64 bit? Is in-memory technoloy supported? How does the system handle bi data sets that are larer than available memory? Does the solution support interation with third-party security architecture such as Active Directory (AD) and Lihtweiht Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) roups for user authentication (via Kerberos tickets/ad certificates) and authorization? How is that manaed? Column Security Does the solution support column (object)-level security? Row Security Does the solution support row-level security? Cell Security Does the solution support cell-level security? Role-Based Does the solution support role-based security? Extranet Does the solution support secured extranet access to BI information? Sinle Sin-On Does the solution support universal sinle sin-on at the individual level for all capabilities (e.., reports, dashboards, OLAP)? Security Events Loin Does the solution support loin defined security events? Audit Trail Does the platform have audit trail capabilities with reard to user transactions, failed loon attempts, and protection of the los aainst modification and unauthorized use, and any other business over-ride or events? Encryption Does the solution support encryptin data in transfer and storae? Security Monitorin Does the solution support audit tracin, security los and monitorin? Performance Optimization Does the solution support multilevel cachin? Does it provide in-memory and or columnar data store utilization? Workload Balancin Does the tool divide calculations across all available processors and cores? Performance Monitorin What capabilities or interation does the solution provide for performance monitorin? Backup and Recovery Does the solution support backup and recovery for the system and for specific reports/ dashboards? Hih Availability Does your architecture support hih availability and failover? How? Source: Pyramid Analytics 9

10 About Pyramid Analytics Pyramid Analytics delivers a self-service Governed Data Discovery platform that brides the ap between the business user and the IT department in the enterprise world. Founded in 2010, BI Office is a web-based platform desined to deliver one complete solution for advanced analytics, dashboards, and reports with any data source in a hihly intuitive and easy-to-use interface accessible from your browser or throuh dedicated apps on any device. BI Office, which is now in its 5th uprade as of 2014, supports companies of varyin sizes by providin full cross oranization access to data, enablin fast and smart decision makin. The latest version of BI Office includes the ability for business users to interate more data sources (Hadoop Hive, Windows Azure Hive and IBM DB2) as well as provide IT improved data access security for mobile and desktop devices. Recently reconized as a Bi Data 100 winner from CIOReview as well as bein added to the Gartner BI Maic Quadrant for the first time in 2014, BI Office is leadin the industry as a Governed Data Discovery platform that business users love and IT approves of anytime, anywhere. 53