Tagetik Extends Customer Value with SQL Server 2012 Author: Dave Kasabian Contributors: Marco Pierallini, Luca Pieretti Published: February 2012 Summary: As the 2011 Microsoft ISV Line of Business partner of the year, Tagetik has proven to be at the forefront of leveraging Microsoft technology to empower business users. This innovative use of Microsoft technology is continuing with the launch of SQL Server 2012. Tagetik business users will benefit from improvements in query and reporting performance, advancements in self-service analysis and visualization to have greater and faster access to the valuable financial and operational information developed and stored in Tagetik 4.0. These advancements will provide even greater insight and decision-making capabilities to our more than 500 customers across the globe. Page 1
Table of Contents Executive Summary... 3 Query Performance and Availability... 3 Analysis of Large Volumes of Data in Tagetik Datamart... 3 Easier Business User Self-Service Reporting and Analysis... 4 Interactive Web-Based Drag and Drop Visualization... 4 Cloud Deployment... 5 Tagetik 4.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Deliver the Best of Both Worlds... 5 Page 2
Executive Summary Tagetik 4.0 customers will soon have the ability to take advantage of new performance, reporting, and visualization improvements simply by upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2012. Tagetik has been working with Microsoft during the development and testing phases of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 in order to allow Tagetik 4.0 customers to take full advantage of the improvements and enhancements as soon as the product is launched. The significant benefits this release delivers highlights the value our technology partnership with Microsoft brings to our customers. Tagetik customers can expect improvements in: Query performance and availability Analysis of large volumes of data in real-time Expanded business user self-service reporting and analysis Interactive web-based drag and drop visualization Cloud deployment Query Performance and Availability Microsoft SQL Server 2012 introduces a column store technology that improves query performance by as much as 100x. Combined with the query improvement times introduced in Tagetik 4.0, customers will find queries on large sets of data greatly improved. Business users expect fast response time regardless of the complexity of their query or the volume of data that needs to be processed. These improvements in query time will keep Tagetik 4.0 performance at the high levels our customers expect even as the amount of data stored and analyzed in Tagetik expands. In SQL 2012, Microsoft introduces AlwaysOn to address the need for a highly available SQL Server infrastructure giving both business users and IT confidence that Tagetik 4.0 will always be available when they need it. Analysis of Large Volumes of Data in Tagetik Datamart In-memory processing capabilities in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 will enable Tagetik 4.0 business users to analyze large amounts of financial and operational data in real-time. These users will be able to perform in-depth ad-hoc analysis and take action to improve business performance. This new in-memory capability will enable business users to use Tagetik 4.0 as an analytic data mart without having to load the information into an enterprise data warehouse. This provides business users the independence to do their own analysis, when they need it, without adding additional burden to IT. Page 3
Easier Business User Self-Service Reporting and Analysis Improvements to PowerPivot and Excel 2010 greatly improve the ability for business users to easily create their own queries, reports and analyzes. Whether in Excel or over the web, users can independently create their own interactive reports that meet their specific requirements without dependence on IT or consultants. Our users will now have even greater access to the valuable information in Tagetik 4.0 and will be able to access this information in virtually any format they prefer including their usual preference for Excel and its inherent functionality. All of this can be accessed through SharePoint and Tagetik web parts to create a very interactive and collaborative experience for our users. Interactive Web-Based Drag and Drop Visualization Dashboards are a natural starting point for analysis and action. Finance, business users, and senior management often prefer a personalized dashboard as the starting point of their performance management activities. But many solutions require sophisticated integration to allow these users to transition from dashboards to actually taking action. When using Microsoft SQL Server 2012 as the underlying database, Tagetik 4.0 customers can take full advantage of the new PowerView capabilities that enable self-service and interactive dashboards that directly access system of record financial information managed in Tagetik 4.0. For those who use SharePoint this becomes even more powerful with Tagetik s pre-built SharePoint web parts. The result is state of the art visualization and collaboration, built-in financial controls and intelligence across multiple performance management processes all in a single unified solution. Page 4
Cloud Deployment Microsoft SQL Server 2012 allows for the deployment of Tagetik as an on premise solution or via private or public cloud. Microsoft Azure provides Tagetik 4.0 customers the option to deploy our robust and scalable solution on their terms. Through Microsoft Azure Tagetik can support our customers desire to have the best of both worlds, deep functionality AND the option of on premise or cloud deployment. Tagetik 4.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Deliver the Best of Both Worlds Tagetik delivers the deep finance domain expertise, functionality, and built-in financial intelligence that the finance organization needs to do their job effectively and improve corporate performance. Microsoft provides the technology we need to make this possible. Our customers get the depth of functionality and unified financial processes without having to worry about multiple products, technologies and integration. Microsoft technology enables the fast performance and scalability, strong visualization, self-service financial analytics and collaboration capabilities that our customers demand. With our partnership with Microsoft we can focus our efforts on what we do best, understanding and addressing the needs of finance, and let Microsoft focus on what they do best, providing high-performance technology on premise and in the cloud. The result is a battle-tested and scalable solution that provides the performance and confidence finance requires on a technology that IT trusts with a much lower TCO than competitive products. Page 5