The FULL PROMISE of business intelligence COGNOS 8 BUSINESS SIMPLE, COMPLETE, INTELLIGENCE AND PROVEN. While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate and complete, some typographical errors or technical inaccuracies may exist. Cognos does not accept responsibility for any kind of loss resulting from the use of information con- tained in this document. This page shows the publication date. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. This text contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. All rights are reserved. No part of this document may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, or translated into another language without the prior written consent of Cognos Incorporated. 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Table of Contents One product for business intelligence . 3 Modern architecture for business intelligence . 4 All business intelligence capabilities . 6 Reporting. 7 Analysis . 7 Scorecarding . 8 Dashboards . 8 Business event management . 9 Serving all users. 10 BI consumers . 10 Executives . 10 Business managers . 10 Professional authors . 11 IT administrators . 11 Value from all data. 12 Data consistency . 12 Timeliness of data . 12 Data access capabilities . 12 Foundation for Performance Management . 14 Conclusion . 15 Cognos . 15 The FULL PROMISE of business intelligence 1 One product for business intelligence In 2003 Cognos introduced new reporting software, ReportNet, Cognos has created an architecture that not Cognos ReportNet™, built on a Web services-based only delivers robust and scalable reporting solutions, but architecture. The open, modern architecture of ReportNet which can act as a future platform for the organization’s was its key innovation, and key to its value for both entire BI/CPM strategy.”1 business users and IT. ReportNet bridges the worlds of The promise of such a future platform was appealing. pixel-perfect production reporting and highly flexible With a unifying architecture for all business intelligence business reporting. It promises and delivers a single capabilities, an organization could choose one product to product for all reporting requirements, with simplified bring together its previously separate capabilities of deployment, maintenance, and integration; drag-and-drop reporting, analysis, dashboards, scorecarding, and more. ease of use; multilingual reporting; and many other This single BI product would not only provide more value innovations. for less resources, it would be an obvious choice for Cognos ReportNet is phenomenally successful; it business intelligence standardization. addresses the pent-up demand among customers looking Many technology companies claim this is what they for a single reporting product to meet all of their deliver. Typically, however, they are offering integrated reporting needs. Because of this, many organizations have components that may share some services, or a common selected Cognos ReportNet as their reporting standard. portal in front of disparate products, or basic-level Following the ReportNet launch, analyst firm Butler interoperability among a mix and match of quite separate Research commented: “It is our opinion that in products (often the result of various acquisitions). Cognos 8 Business Intelligence brings your people and systems together for simple, complete, and proven BI. All Data: Access all relevant information, from all your data sources, whether relational or multidimensional. All Users: BI and information that fits your job, whether you are an IT administrator, professional report author, business manager, senior executive, business user, or external supplier or customer. All BI: Work with information your way, seeing performance through reports, scorecards, dashboards, analysis, queries, and alerts. One product. One architecture. All data. All users. All BI capabilities. 1 Butler Group, Corporate Performance Management, A New Approach to Business Control and Planning, June 2004. The FULL PROMISE of business intelligence 3 In contrast, Cognos has fulfilled the promise. It is offering one product with all BI capabilities, on a single, modern Choice for standardization architecture. This is Cognos 8 Business Intelligence. “Organizations intending to standardize on a BI suite One product on a single, proven, should consider Cognos 8 BI as a foundation for that effort.”2 and modern architecture Ventana Research Cognos 8 Business Intelligence takes the strength of the ReportNet platform and delivers a single, Web services- based architecture for all business intelligence capabilities. The promise of business intelligence is all users readily accessing all of their data, in any way they want: to Cognos 8 Business Intelligence offers reporting, query, and understand what is happening, why, and determine what analysis; dashboards and scorecarding; business event actions they should take to help the organization succeed. management; and the unifying power of centralized metadata in one product, on a single, proven service This is the Cognos vision for business intelligence. This oriented architecture. Cognos 8 BI delivers all of these vision is made possible with Cognos 8 BI—simple, capabilities through a 100 percent Web browser interface complete, and proven business intelligence. for all users. Modern architecture for business intelligence Cognos 8 BI provides a single, modern Web services • A peer-to-peer, multi-threaded architecture provides a architecture that is built from the ground up to minimize distributed environment with automatic load development, deployment, and maintenance for lower cost balancing, no single point of failure, and server of ownership. This is key to why Cognos 8 BI simplifies independence. your IT environment while serving all of your user needs. • Becasue Cognos 8 BI is component-based, you have the flexibility to distribute components Purpose-built Web services architecture geographically, across servers, firewalls, etc. • Modern, multi-tier architecture is built using open, according to the needs of the business. modern Web standards such as XML, SOAP, and • Scalability to hundreds of thousands of users WSDL. supports a globally distributed organization. • A single application protocol interface lets • Business and production reports, dashboards, programmers customize, expose, or hide any BI analysis, scorecards, event management, and data capability using any programming language (e.g., management rules are written once and deployed Java, Visual Studio, .Net, C, C++). globally to reduce reporting backlog. 2 Ventana Research, Cognos Offers a Sneak Peak at Version 8, Eric Rogge, July 15, 2005. 4 Web-based development and deployment • A common zero-footprint browser-based Modern architecture: environment requires no desktop installs, plug-ins, or applets. simplicity for IT • Familiar point-and-click, task-based interface In addition to being the foundation for all BI accelerates user adoption, increases user self-reliance, capabilities, Cognos 8 BI’s open architecture extends and reduces user dependence on IT. to security, OLAP and relational data, application servers, Web applications, portals, networks, and • Administration can be centralized or distributed metadata. Zero-footprint Web deployment further closer to the point of impact. simplifies maintenance, upgrades, and use for IT and • Enable remote access to the system—log on from the business user. It does not require applets, anywhere—as well as powerful, remote Web-based downloads, or other client software installs, further administration and report authoring. simplifying the application of business intelligence in your company. • Single point of update lets you deploy changes to all users simultaneously. • Deploy one product on a single architecture for all business intelligence requirements. The standards- Integration with your existing infrastructure based architecture can snap into your existing IT environment. • Leverages your existing IT assets and infrastructure, • Add capabilities or modify them at any time to including security systems, RDBMS, application meet changing business conditions and user needs. servers, Web applications, networks, and metadata. • Provide everyone across your organization with a • Integrates easily with Web portals such as IBM single, trusted source for information. WebSphere, SAP Enterprise Portal, Plumtree, and WSRP-compliant portals. • Eliminate the management and maintenance of duplicate services such as security. • Supports Windows, Unix, and Linux operating systems in uniform and mixed platform deployments. • Centralized metadata model lets you apply consistent business rules, calculations,