MicroStrategy 9 vs. IBM Cognos 10. A Comparison White Paper by MicroStrategy

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1 MicroStrategy 9 vs. IBM Cognos 10 A Comparison White Paper by MicroStrategy

2 This White Paper reflects the views, opinions and conclusions of MicroStrategy Incorporated ( MicroStrategy ) and other contributors to this White Paper. This White Paper is provided as is and without express or limited warranty of any kind by either MicroStrategy or anyone who has been involved in the creation, production or distribution of this White Paper (collectively, Contributors ), including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Neither MicroStrategy nor Contributors makes any warranty, express or implied, concerning the accuracy, correctness, completeness or adequacy of any information that is provided in this White Paper. The entire risk with respect to the use of, or reliance on, this White Paper is with you. Should this White Paper prove inaccurate or erroneous (in whole or in part), you (and not MicroStrategy or Contributors) assume the entire risk for all costs related to the use of this White Paper. 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One or more of the following patents may apply to the product sold herein: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,154,766, 6,173,310, 6,260,050, 6,263,051, 6,269,393, 6,279,033, 6,567,796, 6,587,547, 6,606,596, 6,658,093, 6,658,432, 6,662,195, 6,671,715, 6,691,100, 6,694,316, 6,697,808, 6,704,723, 6,741,980, 6,765,997, 6,768,788, 6,772,137, 6,788,768, 6,798,867, 6,801,910, 6,820,073, 6,829,334, 6,836,537, 6,850,603, 6,859,798, 6,873,693, 6,885,734, 6,940,953, 6,964,012, 6,977,992, 6,996,568, 6,996,569, 7,003,512, 7,010,518, 7,016,480, 7,020,251, 7,039,165, 7,082,422, 7,113,993, 7,127,403, 7,174,349, 7,181,417, 7,194,457, 7,197,461, 7,228,303, 7,260,577, 7,266,181, 7,272,212, 7,302,639, 7,324,942, 7,330,847, 7,340,040, 7,356,758, 7,356,840, 7,415,438, 7,428,302, 7,430,562, 7,440,898, 7,486,780, 7,509,671, 7,516,181, 7,559,048, 7,574,376, 7,617,201, 7,725,811, 7,801,967, 7,836,178, 7,861,161, 7,861,253, 7,881,443, 7,925,616 and 7,945,584. Other patent applications are pending. 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3 MicroStrategy 9 vs. IBM Cognos 10 I. Executive Summary... 4 II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Cognos 10 on the Key BI Capabilities Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort - MicroStrategy Delivers the Lowest TCO All User Needs through a Single Platform Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface High Performance at Any Scale Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence Deep Insight through Superior Analytics Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI III. MicroStrategy A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology Note: This document is a competitive analysis of MicroStrategy 9 Release 3.2 and IBM Cognos v10.1, the latest version of each application at the time of this analysis. From this point on, MicroStrategy 9 Release 3.2 will generally be referred to as simply MicroStrategy or MicroStrategy 9. IBM Cognos 10.1 will be interchangeably referred to as Cognos 10.1, Cognos 10, and Cognos.

4 I. Executive Summary In the business intelligence (BI) marketplace, MicroStrategy competes vigorously with vendors such as Cognos. At first glance, it would seem that companies can use either MicroStrategy or IBM Cognos to support their reporting and analysis needs. However, throughout the implementation and maintenance of BI applications, companies are realizing significant differences in the BI capabilities between MicroStrategy and the less robust and less integrated BI technologies, such as Cognos. MicroStrategy s organically grown architecture delivers superior performance, scalability, usability, efficiency, and reliability; all of which impact the total cost of ownership, user adoption, and ultimately the success of the BI project. As user and business requirements have become more complex, IT budgets nonetheless have come under increasing pressure. Organizations need to deliver BI solutions in light of expanding user requirements, increasing amounts of data, and differing data sources with a minimal amount of IT resources. Non-organic BI architectures, like Cognos, require higher amounts of IT effort because of the basic nature of integrating disparate BI technologies which leads to redundant and repetitive administration and the constant development of one-off workarounds. In contrast, organically-developed BI architectures like MicroStrategy require the minimum amount of IT effort needed to deploy and maintain BI applications and can empower business people to create their own reports without reliance on IT personnel. MicroStrategy 9 offers business users a redefined user interface for a fast and intuitive user experience where they can access consistent information through secure Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces. MicroStrategy s advanced analytical capabilities, such as predictive analytics and new in-memory analysis provide users with fast and deep insight. With MicroStrategy s scalable architecture and a single metadata, users can seamlessly navigate from scorecards and dashboards to reports and analysis without being required to open and close multiple BI tools and navigate dissimilar interfaces. MicroStrategy 9 is advanced technology that allows companies to support all types of BI applications with a single technology. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategy s unique strengths at the high-end of BI to extend the boundaries of performance, scalability, and efficiency of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings quick-to-deploy BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives through features such as multisource data access, in-memory ROLAP, and Visual Insight. Just as importantly, MicroStrategy 9 provides a smooth migration path for islands of departmental BI to merge into a cohesive and consistent enterprise-wide framework. With MicroStrategy 9, even as departmental BI applications are consolidated into the enterprise-wide framework, the departments can continue to retain significant autonomy and nimbleness that they enjoyed previously. For nearly 20 years, MicroStrategy customers have gained an edge over their competitors with fast, agile analysis using MicroStrategy s sophisticated technology. Companies and industry analysts widely recognize MicroStrategy for its administration-friendly architecture, robust security, self-service zero-footprint Web interface, innovative mobile application platform, and proven user and data scalability. This document discusses in detail the key differences between MicroStrategy 9 and Cognos 10. 4

5 II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Cognos 10 on the Key BI Capabilities Business intelligence has the power to provide performance feedback and visibility to all people in an organization, thus enabling businesses to make better decisions every day. However, not all BI technologies deliver on this promise, falling short on a number of key capabilities demanded of enterprise BI applications. A complete and efficient BI platform must provide organizations with the following key capabilities: Key BI Capabilities 1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort... pg.7 MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its reusable metadata is easier to maintain requiring less redundancy, because end users have more self-service capabilities that offload work from the IT staff, and because it provides a comprehensive suite of administrative tools requiring fewer IT administrators. Cognos report developers are forced to create redundant report metadata. Metadata they create cannot be reused across all reports, causing unnecessary maintenance. Cognos end users have limited self-service capabilities and are heavily dependent on IT, requiring more IT administrators and report developers. Cognos administrators have fewer tools that allow them to centrally monitor and manage the BI applications, thus requiring more administrators per number of end users. 2. All User Needs through a Single Platform...pg.11 MicroStrategy users can access any style of BI via a unified and home grown BI platform. MicroStrategy users get a single version of the truth through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces. Although slightly more streamlined in v10.1, Cognos users still must choose from stand alone Studios and platforms to access each style of BI, with disparate user interfaces and metadata that can lead to multiple versions of the truth. 3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface...pg.15 To enhance usability, the MicroStrategy Web interface adopts many familiar paradigms including, ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions. MicroStrategy s next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business users. The MicroStrategy advanced self-service interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations, drag-and-drop manipulations, and instant results thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions. Cognos v10.1 continues to force users to get acquainted with different end user interfaces or Studios, which lack consistency in functional paradigms. These inconsistencies in the user interface increase training requirements and decrease user adoption for BI applications that require a combination of reporting and analysis. Cognos does not provide the full extent of self-service that MicroStrategy does and Cognos users more often require IT assistance for report development. 4. High Performance at Any Scale... pg.18 MicroStrategy s high performance at any scale is possible given its In-memory ROLAP architecture, which leverages the database for much of its processing. Data joins and analytic calculations are processed in the database whenever possible. MicroStrategy s unique multi-pass approach provides the flexibility to answer any analytical question in the most optimal manner. The Cognos ROLAP engine does not provide the ability to run multi-pass SQL and therefore forces many calculations to be performed in the middle-tier server not leveraging the database to the fullest extent possible, thus resulting in unnecessary network and hardware resource utilization. 5

6 5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer...pg.22 MicroStrategy provides organizations a platform that is quick to implement and deploy as well as easy to maintain and administer. MicroStrategy s single code base offers the unique advantage of reusable business logic across the entire platform. MicroStrategy s single BI server provides efficient, centralized administration for IT and fewer moving parts which translate into less downtime. Cognos provides disparate sets of source code that have been amalgamated through internal web services. A number of Cognos acquisitions such as Celequest and Applix, represent stand-alone platforms without plans for tighter integration with Cognos BI, other than as external data sources. 6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence... pg.26 MicroStrategy Mobile extends BI capabilities on mobile devices well beyond traditional grid and graph reports and provides exceptional flexibility for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications. MicroStrategy Mobile apps are built using a metadata driven, point-and-click development paradigm, fully utilizing the MicroStrategy BI platform infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. As a result, mobile applications are faster and easier to create, easier to maintain, and provide the administration efficiencies needed to deploy to hundreds of thousands of users while providing the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Cognos does not have a well defined Mobile BI strategy and does not provide native applications for the iphone or ipad. Cognos Mobile is not a full mobile development platform, but merely another distribution channel for existing BI reports. Creating and deploying rich Mobile BI applications using Cognos requires extensive development efforts. 7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics... pg.30 The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an extensive set of data manipulation and analytic options to allow the user to delve deeply into a report to identify and discover important trends and patterns in the data. MicroStrategy users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse with no programming for boundary-free investigative analysis. MicroStrategy report designers and analysts can view and embed predictive analytics in reports and then distribute them to all relevant decision makers and stakeholders. Cognos does not have automatic drill anywhere capabilities across reports. All drill paths across cubes and reports must be manually defined by IT or report developers. And although IBM purchased SPSS a few years ago, they have only integrated a limited amount of its functionality into Cognos. Cognos 10 is still unable to perform most kinds of advanced analytics including data mining. 8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI...pg.32 MicroStrategy s metadata reusability and life cycle management tools, such as MicroStrategy Object Manager enable departments to incrementally migrate their business logic into a consolidated enterprise BI environment. Cognos does not have a tool equivalent to Object Manager to aid in consolidating and reconciling disparate departmental BI applications into an enterprise-wide BI. The following section of the white paper provides a side-by-side detailed evaluation of MicroStrategy 9 and IBM Cognos 10 along the key BI capabilities discussed above. 6

7 1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort - MicroStrategy Delivers the Lowest TCO With IT budgets under increasing scrutiny and business requirements becoming more complex, today s organizations need to critically examine BI costs. The costs of BI extend beyond the initial acquisition. An IDC study, Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives, concludes, Because the single largest factor affecting TCO is staffing cost, IT initiatives that can reduce IT labor costs are likely to find greater acceptance among financial decision makers, and initiatives that enable IT consolidation or automation can significantly reduce TCO across the IT infrastructure. Figure 1 shows that over three years, IT staffing constitutes between 60 and 71% of BI Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 1 Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership is Dominated by IT Personnel Costs Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership Breakdown Server Hardware (7%) IT Staff Training (8%) Outsourced Costs (3%) Software (7%) Downtime User Productivity (15%) Staffing (60%) Source: IDC Figure 1: Staffing Costs Consume a Majority of Three-Year Software Lifecycle Costs Three-year total cost of ownership for BI systems is dominated by costs related to IT personnel: IT personnel costs account for 71% of total costs = Staffing (60%) + Outsourcing Costs (3%) + Staff Training (8%). Customers and leading industry analysts alike recognize MicroStrategy s ability to deliver BI to more users and a great amount of data with fewer IT staff than other BI vendors. Many MicroStrategy customers have expanded their BI deployments while saving millions of dollars a year in staffing costs by switching from non-microstrategy BI tools to MicroStrategy s efficient and scalable self-service BI platform. To save costs and ensure successful BI solutions, decision makers must evaluate the key BI capabilities that reduce IT efforts and make the BI platform easier to implement, deploy, maintain, and administer. 1 IDC. Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives. Three Year Server TCO. Based on more than 300 interviews conducted across numerous platforms, presented in composite form. 7

8 MicroStrategy Ranked #1 for Administration Efficiency arplan 1.18 Bissantz 0.39 Board 1.02 Cubeware 0.55 IBM Cognos Analysis N/A IBM Cognos Reporting 1.72 IBM Cognos TM1 Information Builders Infor PM Jedox PALO N/A N/A N/A N/A Microsoft SSAS 0.59 Microsoft SSRS N/A MicroStrategy 2.40 MIK 1.96 Oracle BIEE Oracle Hyperion Pentaho N/A N/A N/A QlikTech 0.71 SAP BO Webl 2.16 SAP BO Deskl SAP BW/ BEx Suite SAS TARGIT N/A N/A Source: The BI Survey 9 (2010) This chart provides a KPI score for the deployed seats per administrator head. The KPI is calculated so that higher administration costs lead to a lower KPI and vice versa. Figure 2: MicroStrategy Technology is Recognized for its Ability to Support Many More Users for Each IT Administrator MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its metadata is inherently easier to maintain requiring less redundancy, because end users have more self-service capabilities that offload work from IT staff, and because MicroStrategy provides a comprehensive set of administrative tools requiring fewer IT administrators. We evaluated several leading BI products and, using a total cost of ownership model, determined that MicroStrategy had the best combination of ease-of-use, time-to-market, successful retail implementations, and robust analytical capabilities. IT Senior Coordinator of Purchasing, Private Label and Reporting, Whole Foods Market The following table lists out key capabilities in which the MicroStrategy 9 platform helps organizations reduce costs when designing, deploying, administering and maintaining BI applications. 8

9 KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Congos 10 Dynamic Report Personalization MicroStrategy has a very robust prompting engine. End users can dynamically author reports at run time by selecting attributes, metrics, metric levels, templates, filters, and even hierarchies. This greatly reduces report design dependency on IT and the number of reports for IT to maintain. No object or column prompts such as selection of attributes, metrics, and filters on-the-fly. This causes an unnecessary number of reports to be created and maintained for end users. Minimizing Design Effort Automatic Multi-source Drill Anywhere Formatting over the Web One Repository of Reusable Business Logic Business users can automatically drill anywhere to any data source without IT hard coding. Easy What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) formatting allows business users to format reports at runtime without IT support. Report developers can reuse all existing business logic across the entire platform rather than spending time recreating business logic. No automatic drill anywhere and drilling across hierarchies requires IT hard coding per report. Cognos consumers get static reports only. Users cannot change formats, pivot, sort by, or edit reports on-the-fly. Cognos legacy of stand-alone products are still not fully integrated on a single repository of reusable business objects (e.g. Metric Studio, Cognos Real Time, and TM1 run on separate repositories or external data sources). Visual Analysis for Rapid Decision Making MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows business users to intuitively visualize, filter, and drill into their data. The drag-and-drop interface allows business users to make data driven decisions quickly and without any IT involvement. NO Cognos does not provide visual analysis capabilities. Minimizing Deployment Effort One Report Design Automatically Deploys to Any Interface Browser Agnostic Zero-footprint Web Easy to Customize and Upgrade The same report design is automatically optimized for interacting through all interfaces including Web browsers, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office; and formats including PDF, Flash, and HTML. Eliminates client installation costs and ensures application is automatically updated. Provides secure access for any browser without IT effort or reliance on ActiveX downloads or IE Active X dependence. Upgradable plug-ins easily customize to corporate look and feel without coding effort. Cognos does not have one format for a single report definition. Its Active Reports tool has a different interface and requires separate report definitions from Report Studio or Business Insight. Cognos now runs on all web browsers. NO Cognos does not have an Eclipse IDE plug-in to speed up customization and migration tasks. Customizations are managed in a central location and can be upgraded with minimal IT effort. 9

10 KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Congos 10 Automated Deployment Minimizing Deployment Effort Data Import from the Web Interface Automated life cycle management tool synchronizes objects across development, test, and production environments thus greatly reducing manual work associated with BI deployments. MicroStrategy Data Import functionality is for business users and provides the ability to easily import data from local files or relational databases and quickly convert them into dashboards or visualizations without any IT involvement. There are no file size constraints. Cognos does not offer a comprehensive tool like MicroStrategy Object Manager for automated life cycle management and consolidation and reconciliation of disparate departmental BI applications. IBM Cognos can import local files but only up to 2.5 MB, with a maximum of rows. Single Server A centralized server dramatically reduces administrative effort and complexity. Cognos uses a number of disparate servers (Cognos BI, Virtual View Manager, TM1, and Celequest). Minimizing Administration Effort Single Point of Administration Out-of-the-Box System-wide Monitoring Administrators need to create users and security settings once and these settings apply to the entire MicroStrategy platform without requiring duplicate IT efforts. Prebuilt system performance dashboards allow the administrator to immediately analyze system usage data down to the details and to easily optimize resources. Automatically logs object change history without requiring IT staff efforts, easing auditing process. NO Cognos multiple platforms and servers expose multiple administration points, increasing effort and complexity of enterprise deployments. Cognos provides very limited dashboards, reports, and KPIs to monitor the BI application from end to end, which is critical for enterprise BI deployments and therefore decreases the efficiency of the BI system. Automated Scripting Control Reduces repetitive and time consuming administrative tasks through automated command line scripts. Cognos does not provide a comprehensive command line administrative tool for highvolume tasks, making administration across several departmental BI applications more time consuming. Minimizing Maintenance Effort Automated Report and Data Integrity Checking Highly Reusable Business Metadata MicroStrategy administrators can uncover inconsistencies or errors before business users see them while reducing 98% of manual regression testing efforts. IT staff have to maintain only one set of business metadata objects in one place, and this one definition is reused across the entire platform to reduce IT maintenance efforts. Cognos provides a data integrity tool as well. However, the flexibility of the tool does not allow the automation of highly parameterized reports that examine different scenarios based on the prompt answers. Cognos report designers using Report Studio cannot create report objects (e.g. metrics, filters, prompts, and custom groups) and then reuse these objects across different reports. This forces them to redesign the same business logic in each report, increasing maintenance and change management time. 10

11 KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Congos 10 Minimizing Maintenance Effort Scalable In-Memory ROLAP Architecture Automatic Change Management MicroStrategy customers can instantly leverage multiple types of data assets with a powerful in memory technology. MicroStrategy s unified platform and object-oriented development method ensure that a change is propagated to all related objects, ensuring one version of the truth with minimal IT maintenance effort. Cognos does not use multi-pass SQL and in-memory temporary tables thus missing opportunities to improve performance. Cognos administrators can easily damage metadata integrity by erasing a filter or other metadata objects used inside a report as there is no automatic integrity check before removing an object. This leads to unnecessary maintenance and unavailability of reports. Because metadata created by report designers is not reusable across reports, change management time is greatly increased, also leading to "multiple versions of the truth." 2. All User Needs through a Single Platform The ideal architecture for business intelligence is the one that provides organizations with a single and cohesive model of the business that can be automatically displayed through any user interface. MicroStrategy users have the option to access a single version of the truth through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces. MicroStrategy 9 includes a newly re-engineered Web user interface that is designed to be faster, more powerful, and more personalized than ever before. The MicroStrategy 9 Web architecture boasts a wide range of performance-enhancing changes that make the user interface interactive and instantly responsive to user requests. Five Styles of Business Intelligence Through a Single Platform Scorecards & Dashboards Opera4onal Dashboards Dynamic Scorecards Metrics Management Enterprise Repor4ng Page perfect Opera4onal Repor4ng Pixel perfect Business Repor4ng Print perfect Statements & Invoices OLAP Analysis & Visual Explora4on Visual Explora4on Slice & Dice Inves4ga4ve Analysis Root Cause Determina4on Data Mining & Predic4ve Analysis Ad Hoc Analysis Predic4ve Analysis Data Mining Mobile Apps & Aler4ng Mobile Applica4ons Massive Informa4on Distribu4on ipad, iphone, BlackBerry, Excep4on based Alerts Figure 3: Users Can Seamlessly Traverse All Styles of BI from a Unified Platform and a Single Interface MicroStrategy s long history and devotion to producing world-class business intelligence technology provided 11

12 us with extreme confidence that we are making the right decision for our casino partners. MicroStrategy s interactive dashboards with advanced data visualizations will allow our clients to view complex data in an easily understood and graphically appealing manner to improve decision-making. In addition, we look forward to implementing MicroStrategy s Mobile BI on the BlackBerry, iphone, and ipad, which will give our customers far greater flexibility in business intelligence than is currently available today. President, Aristocrat Technologies. KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards Dashboards integrated with industrial-strength BI platform Fast WYSIWYG Pixel Perfect design Single design environment Automatically drill anywhere in any data source from the dashboard Native parallel Flash and DHTML visualizations Multiple layers of analysis Multi-layout dashboards Automatic multi-panel filtering Dashboard templates reduce design time Dashboard output caching in HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash for instantaneous response Actionable dashboards Dashboards are created using reports and objects from MicroStrategy s single metadata. Intelligence Server provides its sophisticated processing, security, caching, and analytical capabilities. Users design dashboards from MicroStrategy s single Web interface using an already familiar design paradigm. Dashboards are created in a Pixel Perfect, zero-footprint Web interface, WYSIWYG and freeform layout. MicroStrategy dashboards provide high interactivity via selector controls that allow users to dynamically apply filters to all dashboard components and to synchronize data across multiple analytical layers of information. Users can automatically drill throughout the full depth and breadth of the data warehouse to obtain more detailed information or view related information. MicroStrategy dashboards provide multipanel and multi-tab layers for various views of data. Multiple dashboards can also be assembled into a single dashboard book. MicroStrategy 9 dashboard templates provide reusable starting points with sophisticated formatting that can make any business user a dashboard designer. Pre-calculated dashboards are cached for instant viewing in HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash. MicroStrategy provides the ability to implement, and embed transactional capabilities into the dashboards. Using MicroStrategy Dashboards, business users can not only monitor key business metrics, but also initiate appropriate actions from within the dashboard. Cognos 10.1 released a new dashboarding tool called Business Insight. This new tool still provides much less dashboarding functionality than MicroStrategy. Depth of analysis and interactivity are limited and there is no support for Flash. Dashboard components offer limited options to change their content automatically via selectors, controls, OLAP enabled grids, and graphs. They also provide limited support for multiple layers of analysis, automatic multi-panel filtering, and advanced visualizations. Cognos BI dashboards do not support pixel perfect positioning. Users cannot edit dashboards while viewing the information in a WYSISWYG way. No drilling in Cognos is automatic. Hierarchy drilling must be enabled for each Cognos report. Any cross hierarchy drilling must be hard coded by IT. 12

13 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Rapid Comprehension of Data Through Advanced Visualizations Out-of-the-box library of advanced visualizations Automatic drilling from visualizations Easy to create and deploy customized widgets Flexible properties support different types of data comparisons Extensible library of visualizations and widgets created by 3rd parties Customizable advanced visualizations and widgets Robust Enterprise Reporting Pixel Perfect absolute positioning OLAP-enabled grids and graphs Horizontal and vertical display of data Desktop publishing formatting Advanced Export to Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or PDF High quality printing Templates for rapid design MicroStrategy 9 provides an out-of-thebox library of advanced visualizations and widgets that enhance the understanding of complex data and highlight patterns and trends. MicroStrategy provides a library of advanced visualizations, including Bullet Graphs, Micro Charts, Interactive Heat Maps, Interactive Bubble Charts, Grid of Graphs, Bubbles Grid, RSS, Fish Eye, Media, Cloud, Time Slider, and Stack Area Charts. All visualizations have drilling capabilities and enable users to select data elements that filter out other areas of the dashboard. Each MicroStrategy widget has flexible capabilities and properties that enable users to immediately identify or further investigate trends or anomalies in the data. For example, the Heat Map widget incorporates OLAP technology that enables users to filter data based on numeric values. MicroStrategy customers can extend the advanced visualizations library by importing 3rd party visualizations. Advanced dashboard designers can edit or create their own visualizations or widgets. The widgets are built using the power of Adobe Flash and are part of MicroStrategy s single platform. MicroStrategy offers comprehensive report styles for banded reports. These documents are highly interactive, providing in-place OLAP analysis through pivoting, drilling, and Excel-like formatting toolbars. Highly formatted documents are built using common desktop publishing paradigms such as rulers and Pixel Perfect positioning, all in a zero-footprint Web Interface. MicroStrategy s export to PDF capabilities support advanced PDF features such as table of contents and watermarks. Export to Excel supports export of multiple document layouts to multiple Excel worksheets. Print-perfect reports can be printed exactly as-seen to any network printer. MicroStrategy documents can be printed horizontally or vertically. Users can dynamically change the page layout, apply fit-to-page functionality, and customize headers and footers for any report. MicroStrategy provides out-of-the-box templates and the ability to create custom templates in order to decrease design time. These templates can be saved and shared across multiple projects. NO Cognos' much more limited visualization capabilities hamper its ability to provide the impactful presentation of important trends and the identification of outliers in large volumes of data. Cognos does not support Adobe Flash, which means it lacks the rich, impactful and interactive visualization library of the web s leading animation and visual technology. Cognos offers significantly less reporting functionality and flexibility. Cognos Report Studio does not offer report designers a way to edit and format the report layout while viewing it with a real-time WYSIWYG view of their changes. This increases the design time due to unnecessary iterations and design frustration. Cognos users cannot continue analyzing a report in Analysis Studio once it has been formatted in Cognos Report Studio. They are limited to exporting the information to Microsoft Excel for further analysis, promoting silos of information throughout the enterprise and multiple versions of the truth. Cognos Report Studio is not optimized for operational, hierarchical, or banded reporting. 13

14 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Information Delivery and Proactive Notification Ability to self-subscribe and subscribe others to report deliveries Alerting and thresholds Wide range of output types: Web, , print, fax, wireless, and file server Report bursting Portal integration, with support for portal servers including: Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere Flexible and Powerful OLAP Interactivity Drill anywhere fosters investigative analysis Derived elements and derived metrics for on-the-fly calculations and groupings View filters for quick data filtering On the fly creation of derived elements, custom groups, subtotals, etc. Built-in financial and statistical functions Seamless Microsoft Office Integration All Office products supported (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook) Leverage all BI reports and reporting objects Full new report creation Ability to save logic created in Excel back to enterprise metadata Persistent and interchangeable formatting across Office and Web Server based configuration for client settings, user, host, and IP address settings Users can subscribe themselves and other users to personalized reports and alerts. Report deliveries can be triggered by dynamic events, exception thresholds, or time schedules. Personalized content can be delivered via portal, print, , wireless, or file servers. MicroStrategy s platform leverages highly scalable technology that slices a single report and dynamically bursts personalized information to the right users. Reusing a single report across hundreds of users saves processing resources. Portal integration is available out- of-thebox, with support for portal servers such as Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere. Portlet-to-portlet communication is also available out-of-the-box, making it easier to inject BI into a portal. The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an extensive set of data manipulation options to allow the user to delve deeply into a report to identify and discover important trends and patterns in the data. Users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse for boundary-free investigative analysis. New derived metrics, derived attribute element groups, filters, and subtotals can be created on- the-fly using existing metrics and attributes in the report. This functionality makes it possible for users to perform new calculations, custom groupings, and filtering directly on the report at the speed of thought. MicroStrategy s analytical engine provides hundreds of built-in financial, statistical, and mathematical functions. Cognos Event Studio is a standalone interface for Alerts and Event management that forces users to define alerts in a separate environment, therefore limiting its adoption. Although IBM claims Cognos Event Studio has been better integrated into the platform in Cognos 10.1, the interface remains separate, ensuring further discontinuity. Cognos has very limited dynamic distribution list capabilities. Therefore, Administrators have to define fixed distribution lists and cannot use conditions to dynamically conform the recipient list. MicroStrategy delivers the complete reporting and analysis environment to Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook users. MicroStrategy Office applications are linked to MicroStrategy security and administration, ensuring 100% data consistency across the enterprise. Users are able to access existing reports or create new ones from within Microsoft Office applications. Changes made through Microsoft Office are immediately reflected across MicroStrategy Office and Web interfaces and can be saved to the enterprise business logic metadata layer. Microsoft Office formatting changes are preserved after automatic data updates. The Web administrator can set client side settings and security. Users can change their passwords through the familiar Microsoft Office interface. Cognos does not have automatic drill anywhere capabilities across reports. All drill paths across cubes and across reports have to be manually defined by IT or report developers. Unlike MicroStrategy, Cognos requires two different products to perform similar ad hoc and OLAP tasks: Query Studio and Analysis Studio. Cognos acquisition of TM1, an OLAP database, also overlaps with its long time Power Play offering, which has experienced drastic declines in market share adoption vs. other OLAP vendors. Cognos SQL engine lacks automatic aggregate awareness, hurting data scalability. Cognos recommends using MOLAP sources instead. There are no formatting options in Analysis Studio and users must move their reports to a different product called Report Studio to do formatting. There is no parameterized (prompted) reporting within Analysis Studio. Cognos Microsoft Office plug-ins offer limited prompting functionality. For example, Cognos Microsoft Office plug-in does not support the ability to prompt on the set of metrics and attributes to incorporate in the report, also referred to as column prompts. Cognos Office plug-in does not offer dynamic dashboard technology (Flash) that could provide embedded visualizations and a more interactive experience. 14

15 3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive User Experience MicroStrategy 9 provides capabilities for business personnel to create their own ad hoc report designs easily from their Web browser. Using drag-and-drop actions through the MicroStrategy 9 Web interface, any business person can assemble virtually any report by adding attributes and metrics to a simple report template without the need to know any technical details about the data or the underlying databases. With MicroStrategy 9, business users also have the ability to interactively build analysis with dozens of visualization options. To enhance usability, the MicroStrategy 9 Web user interface adopts many familiar Microsoft paradigms, including ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions. MicroStrategy Provides End Users with a Fast and Intuitive User Experience Add/Remove A*ributes Metrics Easily Filter data Many Views Drop Zones for mulcdimensional analysis Visually Analyze Data or use OLAP enabled Grids Figure 4: Design and Format a MicroStrategy Report Using a Fast and Intuitive User Interface MicroStrategy s next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business users. Business users can easily import their personal or corporate data directly from the MicroStrategy Web interface and quickly convert the raw data into insightful visual analyses, reports, or dashboards. The MicroStrategy Visual Insight interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations, drag-and-drop manipulations, and instant results thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions. 15

16 We were impressed with MicroStrategy s self-service architecture, ease-of-use, highly visual dashboards, and mobile reporting that allows us to put the analytics and reporting in the hands of the business user. MicroStrategy s history in the business intelligence sphere also gave us confidence that we had chosen the right technology IT Specialist at Silverstar Casinos partner. KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 User-Friendly Interface Drag-and-drop actions One-click access Familiar Microsoft paradigms Tree view navigation Ribbon toolbars and menus Accordion controls Personalized interface User collaboration capabilities Context-sensitive online help Sophisticated formatting for final report presentation Self-Service Web Interface Fully interactive interface with controls for data formatting, manipulation, and analysis Real-time changes without a publishing process Creation of report objects, such as prompts and filters, over the Web What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) design and editing of any report type over the Web Zero-footprint Web interface from any browser The MicroStrategy Web interface leverages many familiar, user-friendly paradigms, including folder-tree navigation, ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, control-click multi-select capabilities, and contextsensitive right-click actions. MicroStrategy 9 enables collaboration via comments that can be added to reports to provide instructions to other users and to share information. Every report can maintain and display a set of notes with details on who left the note and when. MicroStrategy provides users comprehensive, context-sensitive help throughout the interface. MicroStrategy Web allows users to format reports and save custom format styles. These include row-level headers, row-level values, column-level headers, columnlevel values, metric headers, metric values, subtotal headers, subtotal values, custom groups, consolidation, and reports. MicroStrategy puts wide-ranging control in the hands of business users, minimizing the need for IT personnel to perform the same functions. Business users are able to rapidly create, manipulate, format, and analyze any report themselves, all through a single Web interface. Report objects such as prompts, filters, derived metrics, thresholds, and totals can also be created over the Web. Individual columns and rows on a grid can be selected quickly and users can easily format, drill, pivot, and perform other tasks on-the-fly. Changes are available right away without any need to publish or export information to other environments. Business users create highly formatted reports using any metadata object using a zero-footprint, WYSIWYG design paradigm that drastically shortens report development time. MicroStrategy Web is zero-footprint, and does not rely on Java or ActiveX. As a result, report designers and business users can use any browser to design and interact with reports. Although Cognos claims to have created a more unified interface for v10.1, they still have 7 studios and modes users must get acquainted with, which lack consistency in functional paradigms. "Studio jumping" will continue with Cognos These inconsistencies in the user interface increase training requirements and decrease user adoption for BI applications that require a combination of reporting and analysis. Cognos does not offer casual users or consumers with intuitive Excel-like interaction with reports over the Web, such as enabling users to resize and lock column and row headers, and perform simple custom formatting on the data. Cognos reports, once generated, are much more static for the common user. Cognos end users, with consumer and recipient roles, get a static view of reports. Interaction with the report is limited to a few actions (e.g., end users cannot sort by a column, change the format of the report, or pivot the columns and rows). Cognos Report Studio provides limited pixel-level positioning of report objects over the report layout. Pixel-level positioning is necessary for designer productivity and to obtain boardroom quality reports. Cognos Report Studio does not provide report designers with the ability to edit reports during run-time and immediately see formatting changes reflected in the report with live data. This limitation requires more round trips between design and run-time mode and therefore increases the time it takes to create a report. 16

17 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Advanced Self-Service Functionality Data Import Visual Insight Instant Response to User Actions Extreme AJAX Web interface High degree of client-side processing while maintaining a zero-footprint Web client Dynamic Report Personalization Comprehensive parameter and question prompting (column, filter, search based, value, hierarchical) Personal answers saved for reuse across different reports Security profiles personalize report content for individual users The Data Import and Visual Insight functionality is designed to give more control to business users. Business users can convert raw data into decisions in minutes and without assistance from the IT department. Using Data Import functionality, business users can easily import personal or corporate data from local files, Excel files, or relational databases through the MicroStrategy Web interface. The imported data can be easily converted into interactive reports or dashboards without any IT assistance. MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows business users to visually identify patterns, trends, and anomalies in data. Business users can intuitively query, visualize, filter, and drill into their data. A drag-and-drop, WYSI- WYG interface enables business users to visualize the changes as they are made. MicroStrategy Visual Insight provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, detailed visualizations, and instant query results thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions. The MicroStrategy Web architecture adheres to an Extreme AJAX model, shifting processing from the Web server to the Web browser for any browser type. By spreading the processing workload, the user is given a much more responsive and interactive Web experience while still preserving a true zero-footprint Web interface. In MicroStrategy, a single report can span hundreds of possible data combinations tailored to different user needs. MicroStrategy prompts provide report input parameters that control most aspects of a report, and give the user significant ad hoc reporting capabilities. Prompts enable the personalization of reports from a single report definition, reducing the number of objects stored in the metadata repository. Advanced report parameters, like object (column) and hierarchy prompts, allow users to select the business attributes and KPIs to include in the report at run-time. MicroStrategy Web displays prompt values and report contents that are permitted by the user's security profile. For example, when running a prompted report, dashboard, or document, the user can only select prompt answers that he has permission to see. In a similar way, when running a report, only the metrics and attributes that the user has permission to see will be displayed to the user. Cognos does support local file imports, but there are significant constraints on the file size. The maximum file size is 2.5 MB, or 20,000 rows. Cognos does not provide visual analysis capabilities. Cognos report consumers get static reports only. End users cannot change the format of the report, pivot columns and rows, sort by a column, or edit reports on-the-fly. Cognos offers limited options for parameterized reports. Object or column prompts such as selection of attributes, metrics, and filters on-the-fly are not supported. This causes an unnecessary number of reports to be created and maintained. Report personalization is accomplished in Cognos by bringing all possible data to the report and hiding columns with extensive formatting logic on each report. 17

18 4. High Performance at Any Scale MicroStrategy technology has long been the performance leader at high user counts and data scale. MicroStrategy 9 continues and extends that leadership with adaptive caching technology called In-memory ROLAP and SQL generation optimizations that can deliver the highest query performance, even when accessing hundreds of terabytes of data. In-memory ROLAP takes advantage of the huge addressable memory space now available on 64- bit computers to provide high performance middle-tier databases that can respond directly to data requests from reports, dashboards, and OLAP analyses. We look forward to using MicroStrategy 9 In-memory ROLAP technology to help us improve our user experience with faster response times and to take unnecessary pressure off our Teradata system. Manager of BI Architecture, ebay In-memory BI Fills a Void in the Performance Curve of a BI System BEFORE IN-MEMORY BI AFTER IN-MEMORY BI Database Query Slower Response Time Database Query Output Caching Report Caching Data Set Caching Faster Response Time Output Caching Report Caching In-memory Query Data Set Caching In-memory On-Disk In-memory On-Disk Caching Query Caching Query Figure 5: MicroStrategy In-Memory BI Provides the Combination of Fast Response Time from Multidimensional Caching and the Flexibility of Ad Hoc Query BI ROLAP is unique among BI architectures in that it can model whole relational databases as if they were a single multi-dimensional cube. In this case, the cube is virtual since relational databases often contain terabytes of data that could not fit within any physical cube technology. MicroStrategy s virtual cube provides MicroStrategy users with the ability to perform OLAP interactions with the data and drill freely throughout the vast virtual cube without the severe size limitations of MOLAP architectures. MicroStrategy s new In-memory ROLAP option is game changing. Unlike other in-memory approaches on the market today, it is fully integrated with an enterprise BI environment and provides high performance transparently to business users. The way in which large amounts of data are stored and accessed in-memory is so seamless that I was skeptical until I saw the actual SQL generated and witnessed the performance. Cindi Howson, Founder of BIScorecard 18

19 MicroStrategy 9 Multi-source ROLAP Allows Data Environments to be Optimized for Performance and Cost Supporting Hub and Spoke Data Architectures Balance the Workload Across Databases MicroStrategy Virtual Cube MicroStrategy Virtual Cube MySQL DB2 Netezza SQL Server Sybase IQ SQL Server Teradata Marketing Data Mart Mfg Data Mart Enterprise Data Whse Financial Data Mart Sales Data Mart Lookups, Aggregates, Summary Data Enterprise Data Warehouse Figure 6: MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP Helps Decrease Time to Value by incorporating Hub and Spoke Architectures and Decrease Cost by Switching Database Processing from the Enterprise Data Warehouse to Alternative Lower Cost Databases. Successful BI systems often experience dramatic growth in user populations. It is increasingly common for a single MicroStrategy BI installation to support thousands and even tens of thousands of business users. The technical challenge in these circumstances is to be able to efficiently accommodate thousands of concurrent user sessions while providing high performance and easy administration. MicroStrategy 9 supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. The dramatically expanded memory available in 64- bit JVMs supports many more concurrent user sessions, and allows users to display and interact with larger reports and dashboards. The most critical factor for our organization is the speed with which we can react to the needs of the business. MicroStrategy enables our executives and other business users to run reports and analyses within seconds, which in turn, allows our employees to make timely decisions that dramatically impact the business. Also, our high performance BI environment encourages the use of BI across the company, providing greater visibility into the business for more employees. Chief Information Officer, FAMIQ 19

20 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Quick Response Time In-memory ROLAP Dynamic sourcing Dynamic multi-level caching MicroStrategy s In-memory ROLAP capabilities leverage 64-bit operating systems to improve the overall performance of the BI system. In-memory ROLAP cubes improve the performance of the most time-consuming and frequentlyused queries, while still allowing users to seamlessly navigate the entire data warehouse. When building a report, the report developer never has to explicitly reference an In-memory ROLAP cube. Dynamic sourcing capabilities automatically direct queries to In-memory ROLAP cubes whenever possible. Administrators can be assured that the In-memory ROLAP cubes they create will automatically and immediately improve overall query performance. MicroStrategy provides automatic caching at multiple levels, including element list, metadata object, report dataset, XML definition, document output, and database connection caching. Caching makes the entire BI system efficient by reducing redundant computations and network traffic. Cognos does not provide an in-memory ROLAP engine that could leverage 64-bit operating systems natively. Even though IBM Cognos externally acquired TM1 server, provides inmemory capabilities, it is a standalone multidimensional database and cannot be leveraged in conjunction with their Cognos ROLAP engine to provide dynamic sourcing capabilities. This disparate architecture results in unwanted tradeoffs and increased maintenance. Although Cognos claims to make greater use of native 64-bit processing in v10.1, this is limited as they do not offer end-toend native 64-bit processing. Thus, Cognos is unable to take full advantage of the high in-memory optimizations and ultimately faster response times for end users that are provided by 64-bit memory spaces. Cognos provides very limited support for inter-user report caching, inter-report dataset caching, and element list caching. Reports are often re-run unnecessarily when users perform drill-through actions. This increases CPU utilization, network traffic, and database processing, thus weakening the performance of the BI application and elevating the cost of ownership. 20

21 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 High Performance ROLAP Engine Push-down joins Push-down analytics Multi-pass SQL Support for all implementations of multi-pass SQL, including the use of temp tables, derived tables, and common table expressions Minimize network traffic Automatic aggregate awareness Database-specific SQL generation and optimization through VLDB drivers SQL query optimization algorithms Market Proven Enterprise Scalability and Performance Native 64-bit BI processing 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) support Server Clustering for failover recovery and load balancing Customer references for large user and data scale production deployments MicroStrategy s ROLAP architecture uses the database for much of its processing. Data joins and analytic calculations are processed in the database whenever possible. MicroStrategy s multi-pass approach provides the flexibility to answer analytical questions in an optimal manner. Any technical advances in the database are seamlessly accessible to the MicroStrategy platform. By leveraging the database to its fullest extent possible, large volumes of transaction level data are processed efficiently and network traffic is minimized. Automatic and intelligent support for common data warehouse optimization techniques like aggregate tables and table partitioning ensures that the MicroStrategy SQL engine maximizes database usage for every analysis. VLDB properties allow for further fine-tuning of the SQL engine on both a global and report-by-report basis. Through VLDB drivers, MicroStrategy can optimize table join sequences, databases parallel execution capabilities, query optimization hints, and other database-specific tuning parameters. Global SQL query optimization algorithms optimize complex queries to reduce the number of SQL passes, providing further performance improvement to queries. The MicroStrategy platform is designed for enterprise scalability. Native 64-bit processing allows MicroStrategy to support large numbers of users and data volumes while improving performance. MicroStrategy supports native 64-bit processing for all major operating systems, and across the entire BI platform. MicroStrategy also fully supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. The expanded memory available in 64-bit JVMs allows for optimal Web performance across the enterprise. One server can maintain more concurrent user sessions and run much larger reports, reducing overall hardware costs. A cluster-capable server provides load balancing and automatic failover capabilities, so system resources are allocated efficiently and system uptime is maximized. MicroStrategy clustered servers support asymmetric configurations, so each cluster node can support different applications. All cluster nodes share caches and in-memory cubes and all changes made to the metadata objects and security settings take effect immediately. MicroStrategy has many customer references for deployments to thousands of users who are reporting and analyzing tens of terabytes of data. Cognos' ROLAP engine does not provide the ability to run multi-pass SQL and therefore forces many calculations to be performed in the middle tier server and is unable to leverage the database to its fullest extent possible, resulting in unnecessary network and hardware resource utilization. Cognos' ROLAP engine does not support automatic aggregate awareness and is unable to map a single attribute to many fact tables and select the most efficient table to obtain the data during run-time. Cognos does not support temporary tables and is therefore unable to perform pushdown joins in the most optimal database, which often requires moving some data from one database to another in order to efficiently perform the join. NO The Cognos BI offering today represents an assemblage from multiple origins with different architectures and code bases that have been joined together through a services-oriented backbone. This servicesoriented backbone necessitates the use of multiple inefficient layers of Web services for internal processing tasks that ultimately impact the performance and scalability of BI applications, thus forcing their customers to use far more software and hardware resources than MicroStrategy. Cognos incomplete SQL engine lacks automatic aggregate awareness, which reduces data scalability. Cognos cannot fully leverage 64-bit hardware investments so more money must be spent on hardware boxes to support the equivalent number of users and data volumes as MicroStrategy. Inferior performance and scalability are the main reasons why MicroStrategy has replaced Cognos in many accounts. 21

22 5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer MicroStrategy 9 can deliver BI solutions quickly with little or no IT support. MicroStrategy s unified BI architecture offers many IT timesaving features including object reuse and optimized administration. MicroStrategy 9 allows organizations to create a single shared business logic layer, the metadata, which presents a single cohesive model of the business. Object reuse across the entire platform facilitates faster application development. Object reuse across the entire platform also minimizes IT maintenance effort, since IT only needs to maintain one object instead of several (or several hundred) object copies. Object reuse ensures a single version of the truth that persists across all reports, dashboards, and analyses, regardless of who creates them. MicroStrategy Allows Report Designers to Create Reusable Metadata Components Range of Metadata Elements Used in Reports REPORT DESIGN Layout Format Calculations MicroStrategy Report- Specific Components Other BI Technologies REPORT COMPONENTS Parameterization Templates Filters Autostyles BUSINESS ABSTRACTION Metrics Hierarchies Custom Groupings Transformations Reusable Metadata Components Report- Specific Components DATA ABSTRACTION Attributes Facts Tables Aliases Reusable Metadata Components Figure 7: The More Comprehensive the Reusable Metadata, the More an Enterprise can Ensure Fast and Managed Development MicroStrategy designed its architecture to minimize administration overhead through capabilities such as a single administration point, reusable and automated cell level data security, and automatic internationalization features. A central point of control across the entire platform reduces overhead. MicroStrategy s universally-applied reusable security system protects the privacy of the data and dynamically filters out data from any report based on the security profile of each business user. MicroStrategy 9 offers the ability to automatically present every report, dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business user viewing the information without requiring any additional design work by report authors. MicroStrategy capabilities, such as centralization and automation, allow administrators to deliver secure BI to any user base, whether to a department or to thousands of users, with minimal IT effort. The new BI system has reduced the time we spend on monthly reporting by more than 50%. There is now more time to spend on operations and IT Specialist, Silverstar Casino innovation. 22

23 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Unified BI Architecture Single interface provides seamless integration of analytics and reporting for root cause analysis Single metadata reduces IT effort Single Server Single code base across platforms Single, zero-footprint Web interface Reusable and Rich Metadata Layer Robust abstraction layer where all physical constructs can be modeled logically and hidden from the business user Highly reusable metadata Automatic change management Object-oriented metadata MicroStrategy s single code base offers reusable business logic across the entire platform. For example, MicroStrategy s dashboards can be made from existing reports and objects, speeding development and ensuring consistency of report logic across reports and dashboards. MicroStrategy s single BI server provides efficient, centralized administration for the IT administrator. A single server with fewer moving parts and processes translates into less downtime. MicroStrategy s object-oriented metadata defines an enterprise s business layer in a single repository. Metadata objects can be nested as building blocks to create more complex objects. If a metadata object changes, every other metadata object dependent on it automatically changes. This ensures consistency across business definitions and minimizes the number of objects to create and maintain. MicroStrategy assembles all metadata objects necessary for a report and dynamically builds the report SQL at run-time. Complex queries, such as set qualifications, dimensional calculations, and custom groupings, are created easily without requiring manual SQL coding. Cognos has been attempting to integrate all legacy stand-alone products onto the same metadata. Products like Metrics Studio still maintain a separate metrics repository and Cognos PowerPlay cubes still require their own definition of metrics through Transformer. Cognos relatively recent acquisitions, Celequest and Applix, represent standalone platforms without plans for tighter integration with Cognos BI other than as external data sources. Cognos BI has a combination of 7 different authoring environments called "studios" and "modes". These "studios" and "modes" contain overlapping functionality requiring users to learn different paradigms. This lowers user adoption rates and increases IT support costs. It also creates "Studio jumping", which decreases efficiency and makes work in the application much less streamlined. In Cognos, report designers using Report Studio cannot create report objects (e.g., metrics, filters, prompts, custom groups) and then reuse these objects across different reports. Cognos metadata maps one-to-one to the physical database on what is called a Cognos Query Item. Report developers select Query Items to include in a report. If an attribute like Region happens to be in two database tables, report developers are forced to choose between two Region Query Items, potentially resulting in multiple versions of the truth." 23

24 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Enterprise-Caliber Administration Single management console Self-tuning scalable server for maximum performance Impact analysis Usage monitoring / auditing Controlled environment for usage analysis Object management / migration Change journaling Automated regression testing Optimization of In-Memory ROLAP environment MicroStrategy s centralized administration provides a single console for real-time user and system management. Administrators can view and perform tasks on many system-wide activities, including executing jobs, user management, and scheduled services. MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager provides out-of-the box platform monitoring with hundreds of KPIs and corresponding dashboards to perform impact analysis, auditing and tuning of the BI application. MicroStrategy Object Manager facilitates metadata life cycle management, metadata dependencies, and project management. MicroStrategy s change journaling system captures and logs all changes to the metadata. Change tracking is critical for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Persistent commenting allows distributed development teams to communicate with one another about their changes. MicroStrategy Integrity Manager automates the report comparison process and verifies the consistency of reports. This tool can detect, compare, and present inconsistencies in reports and data caused by changes in the BI ecosystem. Discrepancies in data values, SQL, and graph display are highlighted. Cube Advisor recommends and automatically creates an optimal set of In-Memory Cubes to reduce database processing and improve response times. Cognos offers limited auditing capabilities and tools to aid in usage and metadata management. Cognos provides very limited out-ofthe-box dashboards, reports and KPIs to perform impact analysis, auditing, and tuning of the BI application. Cognos does not provide an advisor tool that would recommend in-memory ROLAP cubes to reduce database processing and response time for BI applications. 24

25 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Industrial-Strength Multi-level Security One, reusable setup for platform-wide cell level data security Same report yields different views of the information based on user profiles User profile determines appropriate level of functionality Truly zero-footprint Web interface. No use or download of ActiveX and other plug-ins Automatic secure extranet ready with 128-bit encryption Integrate with any security infrastructure with single sign-on Easy to Maintain Global Deployments Native support for multilingual deployments Configurable translations for multiple content categories, including the interface, error messages, date/number formatting, metadata objects, and report data Integrated interfaces and wizards to input translations or import translation strings Support for partially translated metadata Flexible support for multiple data warehouse translation methods Internationalization-aware data precalculations MicroStrategy provides centralized security administration across the entire platform. Reusable user profiles and privileges automatically ensure users only access the appropriate information and functionality down to the data cell level. MicroStrategy automatically provides 128-bit end-to-end encryption with a zero-footprint Web client, making it a secure platform behind the firewall. MicroStrategy automatically integrates with existing security authentication infrastructure such as LDAP, NT, Windows Active Directory, Tivoli, CA SiteMinder, and database security. MicroStrategy offers the ability to dynamically present every report, dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business user viewing the information. Translation wizards and interfaces make it easy for end users to input or import translation strings into the metadata. Translations can be performed incrementally; fallback language settings allow for partially translated metadata. Multiple methods of data warehouse translations are supported, including translations at the column-level, rowlevel, table-level, and database-level. A single In-memory ROLAP Cube supports multiple languages so that resources are used efficiently. Cognos offers administrators very limited granularity for setting group and user privileges. This limits the control administrators have and forces them to place users under full Studio access profiles. Cognos does not have 128-bit end-toend encryption out-of-the-box. This is particularly important for any extranet deployment. In order to get stronger encryption, an expensive additional thirdparty component must be integrated into the Cognos application. Cognos forces administrators to configure security settings on each individual Studio, therefore increasing opportunities for manual errors and causing unnecessary maintenance overhead. Cognos' security is manually configured in several distinct technologies (e.g., Transformer, Metric Studio Administration, Framework Manager and Cognos Administration). This requirement to manage security in multiple places increases the chances of human error and maintenance efforts. Cognos provides the ability to dynamically present reports in the local language with data and user interface translations. However, Cognos cannot scale across global BI application deployments as their report caching layer, which only exists for document output, cannot be reused across different languages and users. 25

26 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Easy to Customize and Migrate Seamlessly Single development environment for entire platform Easy to create and upgrade customizations via Web Customization editor Eclipse Integrated Development Environment(IDE) integration Flex Builder support Extensive API documentation The MicroStrategy SDK is a comprehensive development environment primarily used for integrating MicroStrategy functionality into other existing systems, especially enterprise portals, and customizing and extending the functionality of MicroStrategy Web. The MicroStrategy Web Customization Editor integrates into the Eclipse IDE. Developers can easily perform MicroStrategy Web customization and migration tasks by eliminating the need to manually modify configuration files. MicroStrategy provides Flex Builder 3.0 support for creating powerful Internet applications embedded with robust business intelligence. The MicroStrategy Developer Zone offers developers access to documentation via advanced search functionality such as sorting results by relevance or by date, wild card and exact phrase searching, word highlighting, spelling suggestions, and exclusion searches. MicroStrategy provides developers with an online collaborative community, documentation, and customization code samples. Cognos provides an SDK for its BI Server but only provides limited options for customizing the Web layer for deployments that require major redesign of the user interface. Cognos does not provide a flexible Eclipse IDE plug-in to facilitate developers with customization and migration tasks. Cognos does not offer comprehensive support for Flex Builder. 6. HIGHLY INTERACTIVE AND flexible MOBILE INTELIGENCE The use of the Internet on smartphones and other mobile devices has changed the way people communicate and consume information, creating an exponential rise in the acceptance, adoption, and usage of data. With the ability to access information at any time, in any location, on a hand-held device, consumers can now make more decisions quickly and easily. MicroStrategy offers a very robust and innovative mobile App development platform that can be used either for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications, or for directly displaying existing Reports and Dashboards on mobile devices without the need of re-authoring. MicroStrategy Mobile Apps: Are faster and simpler to develop (no coding) Created by metadata driven, point-and-click paradigms and fully utilizing MicroStrategy s BI infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. Are easier to maintain Changes to the centralized BI platform metadata are instantaneously propagated to all user interfaces, including mobile devices. Changes are made once and only in one place in the metadata, ensuring a single version of the truth and hassle-free maintenance. 26

27 Consolidated Balance: $ 6, Next Payment Due: $ 1, Due Date: April 15, 2010 See card details 1 card close to limit Large Charges 7 charges in this period Spend by expense category Rewards Information Special offers just for you $1,500,000 $1,250,000 $1,000,000 $750,000 $500,000 $250,000 $ Q1 Inventory Turns vs Profit Trend 2009 Q Q Q Q Q Q Q4 Inventory Turns Gross Profit 1,500 1,250 1, Are enterprise grade Delivers the full benefits of MicroStrategy s BI infrastructure: administration, security, scalability, and performance. Provide intuitive and powerful visualizations Fully leverages MicroStrategy s vast library of advanced visualizations. Provide exceptional flexibility The MicroStrategy app platform provides exceptional flexibility to create a wide range of mobile apps that go above and beyond the boundaries of traditional BI, without writing a single line of code. Most other BI companies are still trying to establish their mobile strategies and are primarily focused on providing traditional BI through mobile devices. These companies do not offer an Apps development platform that is specifically designed for building rich mobile applications, while fully leveraging the underlying BI platform infrastructure. Information at Your Fingertips Using MicroStrategy s Workflow-Driven Mobile BI ipad 1:55 PM 100% Card Home Welcome Joyce L. Fowler Summary as of April 1, 2010 Pay Bill Gross Profit (USD) Inventory Turns App-Centric Purpose-built, workflow-driven Apps that quickly and easily guide users through their data to discovery, analysis, or decision. Apps fully leverage mobile device capabilities, including the multi-touch interface, sensors (GPS, camera, etc.), communications (voice, , text), and more. Enterprise Grade Designed to deliver the higher levels of performance and scalability demanded by mobile Apps. MicroStrategy delivers in-memory, multi-level caching, ROLAP analytics, robust security, easy extensibility, and comprehensive administration features designed for enterprise deployments. Fast to App Fast, code-free app development via MicroStrategy s metadata-driven, point-andclick paradigm. Build rich, interactive BI apps in just days. Speed deployment by building once and deploying across platform to iphone, ipad, BlackBerry, browsers, Microsoft Office, or portals. Figure 8: MicroStrategy Mobile Intelligence Provide Exceptional Flexibility to Create a Wide Range of Mobile Apps. We were wowed by MicroStrategy s technology and the ability to build our application in one week leveraging our existing infrastructure. Our clients are very excited about our new iphone app and the capabilities it provides to help them enhance efficiency and improve business performance. We see tremendous potential for iphone and ipad apps, which will enable our clients to access important information whenever they need it. CTO at Alloso Technologies 27

28 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Enterprise Grade Mobile Application Single version of the truth Minimum development efforts Minimum maintenance efforts Superior performance and scalability Minimum administration efforts MicroStrategy Mobile accesses the same reports and dashboards used by all other MicroStrategy user interfaces, ensuring a single version of the truth. Because reports and dashboards in the BI application do not have to be re-authored for mobile device, minimal additional IT investment is required for mobile deployment. New reports for mobile devices are created by a metadata driven, pointand-click paradigm fully utilizing MicroStrategy s BI infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. As a result, reports for mobile devices can be created rapidly and easily, in a codefree environment. MicroStrategy s object-oriented development paradigm results in reduced maintenance. Changes to metadata are instantaneously propagated to all user interfaces. Changes are made once and only in one location, ensuring hassle-free maintenance. MicroStrategy Mobile leverages the MicroStrategy platform s superior performance and scalability functionality and provides rapid answers to tens of thousands of users through their mobile devices. Performance is further enhanced by efficiently caching reports and dashboards locally on the mobile devices. MicroStrategy's acclaimed administration tools provide the administration efficiencies needed to deploy mobile applications to hundreds of thousands of users, while providing the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. As Cognos Mobile uses existing reports, new development will be minimal, however, as long as unique reports are created for Mobile with objects, filters or prompts specific to those reports additional development efforts may be required and result in multiple versions of the truth. Maintenance is less than optimal as Cognos lacks the tools to automate most of the maintenance. The use of fewer reusable objects will also entail further maintenance efforts. As the overall Cognos platform has performance and scalability issues so will it s Mobile BI since it uses the same architecture and server technology. Correspondingly, since Cognos lacks a full set of advanced administrative tools to automate a large portion of administrative tasks, the administration is primarily manual, requiring significant effort. 28

29 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Security of Mobile BI Multi-level BI platform security extended to mobile devices Data protection on the mobile device Data transmission security Integration with enterprise-wide security infrastructure (single sign-on) Highly Interactive and Intuitive User Experience Native mobile applications Device-specific actions o Multi-touch o App integration o Sensor based query o Mobile Info capture BI-specific features perfectly designed to work with device specific capabilities o Drill anywhere o Swipe to page-by o Integrated mapping o Rich visualizations o Alerts through push notifications o Prompting o Subscriptions Offline analysis MicroStrategy Mobile utilizes the same sophisticated user authorization management framework available in the MicroStrategy BI platform. Authorization refers to the three-dimensional process by which the application determines: Application functionality privileges Object access permissions Data access security MicroStrategy provides a Web-based mobile configuration interface that enables administrative control of password policies for the MicroStrategy BI platform. It also allows administrators to set a variety of local data caching options. Administrators can specify maximum cache size on the device, automatically wipe all locally cached data every time the app is closed, and set options for automatically rebuilding new caches for user subscriptions once the application is re-loaded. This ensures security of data that is stored locally on the device. MicroStrategy s BI platform provides an option to encrypt communications between its server components, such as between the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and MicroStrategy Mobile Server, using an AES 128-bit algorithm. MicroStrategy provides native apps for mobile devices. The native apps are designed to fully leverage mobile device capabilities including the multi-touch interface, sensors (GPS, camera, etc.), communications (voice, , text), and more. MicroStrategy Mobile apps provide a vast range of BI-specific functionality designed to leverage and work seamlessly with device capabilities. BI functionality includes integrated Google maps, out-ofthe-box drill-anywhere, a vast library of advanced visualizations, and devicespecific actions to perform tasks such as swiping (horizontally or vertically). Users can page-by, set alerts for report refresh or data changes through push notifications, use intelligent prompting, metric swapping, and much more. With MicroStrategy Mobile, reports are cached directly on the mobile devices for fast, offline viewing. Reports are fully interactive; data can be sliced and sorted; and columns can be locked, resized, and reordered for effective comparisons of metrics. Users can subscribe to reports directly from their mobile devices and do not have to wait for IT to create subscriptions for them. Since Cognos Mobile inherits the security capabilities of the Cognos BI platform, it comes with the same limits or constraints of the overall platform. This means to 128 bit encryption, no capability to set privileges (only less granular permissions), and security administration is less efficient and more redundant as it must be maintained per studio. Cognos Mobile has the same limited caching and caching control as in their main platform. Cognos Mobile does not utilize true native applications. For ios devices, they use a hybrid model of a browser embedded in a native application. This approach does not deliver the full device functionality of a truly native application. It does not take advantage of the unique and optimized functionality of each device it is used with - such as full multitouch capabilities, application integration, full mobile capture and sensor based queries. Cognos Mobile does not have BI specific functionality. It cannot automatically drill anywhere, it does not have fully integrated mapping, lacks rich visualizations, and has limited prompting capabilities. Reports on Cognos Mobile lack the same functionality that Cognos reports lack overall such as sorting, pivoting, and column re-ordering and resizing. 29

30 ipad 1:55 PM 100% KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 App Development Platform Flexibility to create any information workflow Ability to deliver multiple forms of information through the mobile app Actionable mobile apps The MicroStrategy app platform provides exceptional flexibility to create Mobile apps that can be used to create a very wide range of mobile applications that go above and beyond the boundaries of traditional BI without writing a single line of code. MicroStrategy extends the boundaries of the mobile BI App by delivering multiple forms of information to users within the same app. Unstructured information like images, text, desktop publishing design, web content (web pages, videos), and more can also be included. In addition, MicroStrategy Mobile also provides an in-app PDF reader, , browser, HTML containers, and optimized epub handling. MicroStrategy provides the ability to implement, and embed transactional capabilities into the information driven mobile apps. Using MicroStrategy Mobile, business users can not only monitor key business metrics, but also initiate appropriate actions from within the mobile apps. NO Cognos Mobile is solely another channel for viewing Cognos reports. It is not a mobile application development platform and does not provide any capabilities to create mobile applications. Cognos Mobile delivers BI reports and although it can deliver some other external content as contained in original BI reports, it is very limited in the forms of information it can deliver. It is not optimized to bring in content outside of traditional BI boundaries. Cognos Mobile does not have any transaction capabilities. 7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics MicroStrategy 9 allows users to freely investigate data and surf through the data warehouse without having to design a new report for each new combination of data that a user wants to see. Users can create analytic metrics leveraging a wide range of data mining algorithms, statistical, predictive, and OLAP functions, as well as capabilities for metric grouping on-the-fly. Users can import complex statistical models from specialized third party data mining applications. MicroStrategy s unified platform ensures that all these analytic capabilities are available on any type of report in the entire BI environment. World-class analytics are important and MicroStrategy is a cost efficient way to address our expanding BI Chief Executive Officer, eharmony requirement. MicroStrategy Delivers Comprehensive Analytics that are Easy to Consume Web Web Browser Browser Web Browser Apple Apple ipad ipad ipad Trend Analysis Segmentation Analysis Statistical Analysis Figure 9: Advanced Analytics can be Easily Incorporated into and Consumed through Reports, Dashboards and Scorecards. 30

31 MicroStrategy s ability to generate multi-pass SQL is a key element in providing analytically sophisticated business intelligence applications. Multi-pass SQL is required to answer analytical questions that require several steps and cannot be answered with a single SQL query block. MicroStrategy generates SQL that performs these multi-pass queries as efficiently as possible for each particular database. Iterative analysis is the dynamic mechanism that represents the continuous interaction and advanced analytical techniques between the BI server and the database. MicroStrategy uses this approach when complex questions cannot be answered using only the database. Not only does MicroStrategy automatically invoke iterative analysis when required, it also dynamically decides the most optimal location to perform the calculations, based on its own strengths and the database strengths, while minimizing data transfer. MicroStrategy s powerful analytics help us analyze sales performance across locations and model lines for enhanced sales targeting and inventory Manager, IT Systems, Porsche Cars North management America, Inc. KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Efficiently Answer Complex Questions Multi-pass SQL Collaborative processing between analytical engine and RDBMS-based processing Reusable analysis objects (e.g., custom groups, consolidations, transformations, conditional metrics, sets) Support for complex definitions of analysis objects (e.g., conditional metrics with set conditions, custom groups defined with a mix of metric qualifications and attributes at different levels, set analysis with multi-attribute comparisons) All analytical capabilities available across all styles of BI MicroStrategy s ability to generate multipass SQL allows MicroStrategy to answer analytical questions that require several steps and cannot be answered with a single SQL query block. MicroStrategy automatically uses collaborative processing between the BI server and the database when complex questions cannot be answered using only the database. MicroStrategy also dynamically decides the most optimal location to perform the calculations, based on its own strengths and the database strengths, while minimizing data transfer. The MicroStrategy metadata supports a rich set of reusable analysis objects. In addition to attributes, metrics, and filters, complex objects such as custom groups and transformations can be created and reused in any report. The reusability of these analysis objects allows business users to answer sophisticated questions without requiring IT coding and promotes more efficient application development. MicroStrategy s analysis objects can be defined with a high degree of complexity. For example, a custom group can be based on a mix of metric qualifications and multiple attributes at different levels. MicroStrategy s analytical capabilities are provided by the BI platform instead of standalone capabilities in the frontend interface. As a result, all analytical capabilities are available across all styles of BI, and users can have any question answered in any type of report. Cognos does not generate multi-pass SQL query blocks. Therefore, it cannot answer complex questions in an efficient way by leveraging the database and analytical engine in the middle tier when appropriate and in an iterative way. For example, during competitive sale cycles, Cognos has been unable to generate reports that contain many distinct layers of custom groups or grouping bands dictated by comprehensive formulas. Cognos metadata does not support the rich set of reusable analysis objects that MicroStrategy supports. This makes it more difficult for report designers and business analysts to create and maintain reports with sophisticated analytics without requiring major IT coding in Cognos Framework Manager. Cognos provides inconsistent analytical capabilities throughout their different Studios. Cognos Analysis Studio makes it difficult for report designers to embed interactive analysis into other Studios, such as inside dashboards and scorecards. 31

32 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Sophisticated Predictive Analytics Single unified platform provides data mining scoring capabilities Open platform and cross-vendor interoperability via PMML Seamless integration of predictive analytics with casual reporting Support for popular predictive analytic algorithms (e.g., Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Tree-Regression, Clustering, Decision Tree, Association Rules, Time Series) Support for complex algorithms (e.g., Neural Network, Rule Set, Support Vector Machine, Ensembles of Models) Member of the Data Mining Group, a data mining standards-setting organization The MicroStrategy BI platform delivers data mining and predictive analytics to all users through a fully unified and integrated enterprise-caliber BI system. MicroStrategy Data Mining Services enables organizations to maximize their investment in data mining products by importing their Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) and seamlessly encapsulating the model as a predictive metric for use with any report or document. Report designers and analysts can view and build predictive reports using MicroStrategy and then distribute these reports to all relevant decision makers and stakeholders. Business analysts can perform further analysis slicing-anddicing data, creating ad hoc reports, drilling, pivoting, and sorting on predictive reports. All users continue to inherit all the object reuse, security, administrative, and manageability benefits of the MicroStrategy BI platform. MicroStrategy data mining scoring capabilities support cross-vendor interoperability. MicroStrategy supports PMML from SPSS, KXEN, SAS, Salford Systems, Oracle, ANGOSS, FairIsaac, StatSoft and R. MicroStrategy is an active member of the Data Mining Group, providing guidance and leadership to set the PMML standards for the data mining industry. Although version 10.1 has integrated basic statistical functionality from SPSS, Cognos still offers very limited predictive analytic capabilities (only up to regressions) though no data mining. Cognos BI is unable to import PMML models from other data mining vendors for the purpose of creating predictive analytics to combine them with other metrics and reuse them across reports. 8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI Increasingly, departments want their own islands of departmental BI because they need the flexibility and speed offered by smaller systems that are unencumbered by inter-departmental coordination, budgeting allocations, and project prioritization. On the other hand, CFOs and CIOs want enterprise BI systems because they offer a single version of the truth and the lowest cost of ownership. With MicroStrategy 9, companies can have both. MicroStrategy s flexible BI platform provides multi-source data access, rapid application development, and seamless migration from departmental to enterprise BI. 32

33 MicroStrategy 9 Supports a Gradual and Incremental Migration from Islands of BI into a Consolidated Enterprise BI System Stage 1 Disparate Islands of BI All Running on MicroStrategy BI Stage 2 Merging Islands of BI Using MicroStrategy Multi-source Stage 3 Consolidating Data Re-pointing Metadata to the EDW Enterprise Enterprise HR Sales Enterprise HR Sales Enterprise DW Enterprise DW Enterprise DW Fin HR Sales Fin Fin Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept Figure 10: MicroStrategy Technology Provides a Seamless Migration Path from Departmental BI to Enterprise BI Organizations need to gradually and incrementally consolidate their departmental and workgroup islands of BI into a cohesive enterprise framework that ensures a single version of the truth and low cost of operation. MicroStrategy is directly addressing this challenge with MicroStrategy 9, which contains an In-memory BI and Multi-source BI capability that will make MicroStrategy s enterprise-caliber technology equally suitable for workgroup BI and departmental BI. MicroStrategy s new platform includes capabilities that allow consolidation and transformation of departmental and workgroup islands of BI without having to redo reports or dashboards as consolidation takes Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President Research, place. Ventana Research KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Seamless Migration From Departmental to Enterprise BI Metadata compatibility enables consolidation of islands of information Metadata abstraction layer enables seamless re-pointing of the data source without affecting the business model Advanced migration and environment management tools MicroStrategy s metadata compatibility enables departments to incrementally migrate their business logic into a consolidated BI environment. MicroStrategy s metadata abstraction layer allows companies to re-point the metadata to automatically access new data locations without disrupting reports or requiring redesign. MicroStrategy Object Manager can automatically consolidate disparate departmental BI applications while reconciling all overlaps or conflicts that may arise. NO Cognos metadata is defined through projects which are deployed as packages. Changes in the project cause packages to re-deploy, potentially affecting reports and rendering them inoperable. Changes in metadata objects do not automatically check for dependencies and delegate to the modeler or administrator the task of running a dependency report. This lack of automated dependency checking causes the integrity of the metadata to break, rendering reports unusable and causing unnecessary disruptions to users of BI application users. Cognos does not have a tool equivalent to MicroStrategy Object Manager to manage metadata deployments and to consolidate and reconcile disparate departmental BI applications. 33

34 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 High Performing Multi-source Data Access Unified multi-dimensional business model across multiple data sources Optimized retrieval of multi-source data Smart Push-Down architecture Automatic multi-source drill anywhere Support for distributed workload database architectures Direct access to multi-dimensional data sources including SAP BW InfoCubes and QueryCubes, Hyperion Essbase, and Microsoft Analysis Services. Direct reporting from salesforce.com Rapid Departmental BI Application Development No need for a data warehouse or ETL tool Graphical and intuitive design interface to minimize IT effort Automatic detection wizard for creation of business logic and table mappings Pre-created templates for quick project and dashboard development Command line administrative tool for high volume tasks Comprehensive data model support MicroStrategy s unified multi-dimensional business model allows companies to create a single logical view spanning multiple data sources, making it easy to add new data sources. Users are able to seamlessly drill across multiple data sources. MicroStrategy optimizes the retrieval of data from heterogeneous data sources. MicroStrategy dynamically selects the most efficient data source to query. The MicroStrategy SQL engine automatically creates queries optimized for each data source for fast performance without IT tuning efforts. MicroStrategy s Smart Push-Down architecture performs joins at the database layer thereby minimizing network traffic and leveraging the power of modern database engines. MicroStrategy further minimizes network traffic by moving the least amount of data to the most optimal database. MicroStrategy 9 provides easy access to multiple data sources without requiring a data warehouse. MicroStrategy can instantiate In-memory ROLAP cubes by pulling information from multiple sources, obviating the need of an ETL tool or a data warehouse. MicroStrategy s graphical design interface makes it fast and easy to add new data sources and define business logic. A set of pre-created templates speed dashboard development. MicroStrategy automatically detects data types from data sources and creates the entire business logic layer, speeding development. MicroStrategy provides a scripting interface that allows project developers to schedule massive and repetitive tasks in a matter of seconds. Cognos provided heterogeneous access to relational and MOLAP sources. However, after failing at several production implementations due to performance and scalability issues, Cognos recently acquired the code from Composite Software and now calls it Cognos Virtual View Manager. Now Cognos forces administrators to maintain a separate repository in an IBM Informix database as Cognos Virtual View Manager is not integrated with the Cognos BI server. Cognos does not provide a comprehensive command line administrative tool for high volume tasks, making administration across several departmental BI applications more time consuming. Cognos does not provide an in-memory ROLAP cube capability that would eliminate the need for an ETL tool by accessing multiple sources of data and creating in-memory cubes for departmental application access. 34

35 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 IBM Cognos 10 Centralized and De-Centralized Administration Web-based administration for business managers Allows distribution of administrative tasks, including object promotion, data integrity checking, and user management Update Packages allow distributed development MicroStrategy 9 allows user and application administration responsibilities to be distributed to business people within individual departments using a Web interface. This offloads administrative tasks from centralized IT personnel and gives departments the ability to have their own databases, their own BI applications, and their own metadata within the same infrastructure as the enterprise BI environment. MicroStrategy 9 Update Packages can automatically consolidate disparate development teams updates and changes. Cognos offers limited options for automatically consolidating updates to packages from disparate development teams. In addition, administrators can easily break metadata integrity by erasing a filter or other metadata objects used inside reports, as there is no automatic integrity check that is performed before removing an object. III. MicroStrategy A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology MicroStrategy 9 is an advanced technology that allows companies to support all types of BI applications with one technology. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategy s heritage of high-end BI and further extends the boundaries of performance, scalability, and efficiency of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings that same enterprise caliber BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives. Just as importantly, MicroStrategy 9 provides a smooth migration path for islands of departmental BI to merge into a cohesive and consistent enterprise wide framework. With MicroStrategy 9, even as departmental BI applications are consolidated into the enterprise-wide framework, the departments can continue to retain significant autonomy and nimbleness that they enjoyed previously. Today, organizations need a business intelligence solution that can support user self-sufficiency and can respond more quickly and effectively to local business needs. MicroStrategy 9 provides end users with more control over the analysis and reports they create and helps them to be more self-sufficient, require far less IT support, and quickly adapt to changing business Wayne Eckerson, Director requirements. of TDWI Research at The Data Warehousing Institute Unlike BI suites offered by other vendors, MicroStrategy offers the only organically grown BI architecture. All of the MicroStrategy 9 components were expressly built to work within a unified architecture and not as separate standalone products or acquired technologies that were subsequently joined together. This caliber of BI technology is now being sought after by companies, not solely for their most demanding BI applications, but for the purpose of hosting all of their BI applications. Today, companies can standardize all BI into a single, highly-functional, efficient architecture and reap significant economies of scale and enterprise-wide consistency. 35

36 COLL MicroStrategy Incorporated 1850 Towers Crescent Plaza Tysons Corner, VA