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Cognos Vs Business Objects

SAP AND IBM


SAP (Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing) company has been founded in 1972, in Germany. The enterprise expanded step-by-step achieving new sectors of computer software industry. The chain of significant successes brought a leadership to SAP that (2009) is the biggest European software enterprise what makes it fourth in the World. SAP became one of the leaders of the business intelligence market after acquiring Business Objects in 2007. The IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) history dates back to the last twenty years of nineteenth century. Founded in 1889, in New York, Big Blue (as people used to call the company) is thought to be one of the first computer software enterprises ever. Employing about 400,000 workers all over the world, IBM became the largest IT Company worldwide. Just to remember the IBM employees won a lot of awards, starting with five Nobel Prizes. Also in 2007, one month after SAP bought a French company Business Objects (for $6.8 billion), IBM took over Cognos, based in Canada for $4.9 Billion Although the list of both SAP and IBM companies' achievements seems astonishing, the fight between them still continues. Only the object of rivalry got changed currently, the business intelligence platforms sector seems to be the hottest.

SAP BO AND IBM COGNOS SOFTWARE EQUIVALENTS Both offered platforms are popular and widely-used; therefore it's hard to unambiguously choose the better one. All the solutions that have been applied have their advantages and disadvantages, strong and weak points. Even the objective summarization seems practically impossible, separate parts and aspects might be easily compared. There is no better way than to compare the both companys suite separate components.

The scheme illustrates the SAP BO tools responsible for tasks appropriate to their IBM Cognos equivalents

Cognos
Cognos strengths

Cognos is a complete performance management system built from the ground on a single, purpose-prepared SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) platform. The customers praise IBM business intelligence software for great access to all the data completely, quickly, and accurately. The common metadata used for the complexity from users optimizes the work.

Cognos simplifies consuming the once authored data. The solution offered by IBM enables easy transforming and publishing resources in different languages and formats (starting with HTML, PDF, XLS and other), and accessing them from several locations (portal, e-mail, mobile, search, office). The interface seems user-friendly and intuitive. All the elements may be completely selfserviced the involvement of developers is not a necessity. If required, the IT developers have an easy way to deploy and manage system.

IBM claims that Cognos' features are maturity, stability, and high-participation planning solution IBM offers a wide range of planning capabilities (advanced scenario modeling, plans, forecasts, budgets).

Cognos system function all over the world basing on only one solution the diversification of operating countries doesn't matter as the platform works for the whole enterprise on a global scale.

The analytic applications are fully compatible stored content might be quickly transformed. IBM provides Performance Management Framework, Innovation Center, BICC services, online communities, free trainings for business partners, a bunch of certifications which makes it interesting as a personal career focus.

Cognos weak points Cognos as every new upgrade gets released changes but some weak points still stay unimproved.

First of all, IBM does not support its own ETL and data quality software. Surely, they're available as separate platforms (Infosphere products) or provided by separate vendors. Some aspects of functionality hasn't been implemented while preparing Cognos 8 for offline reporting and analysis the customer is obligated to move back to previous versions.

Cognos is known for its performance, scalability, and caching that might have been worked-out much better. Up to Cognos 8 Release 2 IBM haven't offered a possibility of caching across users and reports. Nevertheless, the end-users' surveys show that they usually see the animated icon of hourglass very often...

Cognos software is divided into more parts than it's necessary. For example, three Report Studio, Query Studio, and Analysis Studio. Many experts say that three studios might be operated by one common tool (comparable functionality is offered by BO Web Intelligence application).

Query Studio and Report Studio seem not as well-rounded as possible due to the lack of power and inordinate complexity. Despite all the advantages, the reporting platform based on the ReportNet - still stays unproven in terms of huge implementations. Its scalability leaves much to be desired the loss of performance is significant while adding hardware and users in the same proportion. Next, the problem of visual analytics. Very often the pre-sales demos shown by IBM vendors contain the components from Series 7 or other Vendors not included in Cognos 8 suite. Surprisingly, the authors of the presentation forgot to remind that minor detail (we are talking about PowerPlay and Xcelsius here).

Further, the cooperation among users of different parts of the platform is hardened it's possible only using the scorecards of Metrics Studio. The documentation storing is difficult due to the lack of appropriate tool. The same problem applies to enterprise reporting Report Studio, tool responsible for noticing summarizations, has about half the power of its prototype. The other thing goes around the planning applications that are purpose-built. Remembering about their functionality, the usage is embarrassing as every tool requires learning it from the beginning.

The inseparable connections between Cognos 8 and Cognos Series 7 platforms cause strange and unpredictable consequences in their work.

Top Cognos Knockoffs 1. The Cognos Product line is not integrated. Lack of integration makes Cognos more expensive to own, and more difficult to learn. Each additional product means additional metadata and security to administer and another interface for end users to learn. In a full client deployment, a customer could end up with three different Cognos products? Impromptu, PowerPlay and NovaView? To achieve what can be done with BusinessObjects alone. In a web deployment, a customer could end up with 4 different Cognos products? Impromptu Web Reports, Cognos Query, PowerPlay Web, and NovaView Web Edition? to achieve what can be done with WebIntelligence. Also, because there is little integration between full and thin client products, customers are not able to easily migrate from one platform to another. Cognos has announced plans to offer common metadata (Architect) and common security (Access Manager). These products only work with the Impromptu and PowerPlay product lines, and do not cover NovaView, Scenario, or Visualizer. 2. Cognos product line limits workflow. Because Cognos supports OLAP in PowerPlay and Query and Reporting in Impromptu, the end user is limited in workflow. Cognos markets the concept of "Analyze then Query." This is the single workflow which they support? i.e., slice and dice data in PowerPlay, then "drill through" to Impromptu to get detail. Once an end user has the new information, there is no way for that user to get it into PowerPlay for further analysis. And once a user has done analysis in PowerPlay, there are weak mechanisms for formatting and distributing that analysis. Also, there is no way an end user can receive an Impromptu report and immediately start drilling. An end user cannot reverse the workflow. Moving from Impromptu to PowerPlay requires the Transformer tool and IT intervention. Adding Visualizer, the unidirectional workflow gets even worse. Business Objects supports "Analyze then Query" and "Query then analyze" and any other permutation on that slogan. Business Objects allows users to access, analyze, format and share data in a simple and flexible manner. Business Objects puts the user in control and s/he remains in the same product. The user is always in the right product.

3. The Cognos product line is difficult to deployable to the enterprise. Extend the deal beyond small departments to larger deployments wherever possible. Business Objects has more 1,000 and 10,000 user deals than any other BI vendor. Impromptu is not deployable, because its Catalog (semantic layer) is file based, which means it must be placed locally on a file server in each Local Area Network. Larger companies will usually have multiple LANs, which make maintenance and synchronization of Catalogs a difficult task. Cognos architect is repository based which may remove the file-based restriction. PowerPlay is not deployable because it prevents end users from accessing the data they need, when they need it. End users are dependent upon IS to build cubes for them. Therefore in an enterprise environment as the number of users increases, the number of cubes increases greatly and the IT effort increases tremendously. Cognos Product Line is not deployable, because it does not support seamless migration from full client to thin client deployments. 4. Impromptu is at best a mediocre query and reporting tool. Compete against Impromptu wherever possible. Limitations of Impromptu include: No multi SQL generation means no guarantee of correct results and cannot access multiple data sources No aggregate awareness Single result set per report Charting/graphing limited to highest level of detail only Summarizing all highs and lows, there's one conclusion that cannot be omitted. Although IBM Cognos 8 and 10 is a great business intelligence platform, it seems to be not as independent as it should. It looks like IBM released Cognos 8 BI a bit too early. So early that definitely too much of the Series 7 was left. The common work of both 8 and 10 platforms would be an unequalled combine, but the real goal is to pack the advantages of both suites into the only one perfect-working system.

SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS
It's the right time to make a slight move to SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform with 4.0 versions. Business Objects strengths With latest Business Object 4.0 it went much more smooth interaction with ECC and SAP BW layers (DSOs, Info Cubes, MultiProvider as well as Infoset). The producer claims platform to be the one to fulfill all the expectation of customers easy and quick access to all data placed in every part of system with simultaneous growth of productivity and performance. The found data is accurate and relevant regardless to questions' complexity consolidation and aggregation of data are done to improve the efficiency.

Furthermore, the structure of information is flexible, offering good scalability more receivers and more forwarded data do not slow down the transfer, therefore the decision making might be accelerated.

SAP HANA with BO 4.0 is gives the best result from performance point if you are analyzing millions of records on day to day basis. Users can create most of the ad hoc reporting out of Business object 4.0 solutions. Next, all the information is unified what simplifies the access to all resources independently on their format or location diversification. SAP claims that Business Objects is fully integrated with SAP BW from SAP BO 4.0 SP 3 onwards and it is only one step to connect directly with SAP BW Query or cube. But still it's not everything. 'SAP BO' platform is praised for the interface all the dashboards are designed to increase the familiarity and service-intuitivism. Next, the software was created as a single intelligence platform to maximally reduce the effort necessary for cooperation of different users.

Finally, the clear and transparent structure of the platform enables an insight into the whole operations every process within every stage on every level might be easily checked out (and modified if it's required).

The timely delivered information helps making right decision due to the shortened time of reaction needed that leads to a significant increase of performance. Last but not the least, easy deployment increases security and functionality of SAP BO platform that is currently accessible for everyone.

Business Objects weak points On the other side, 'SAP BusinessObjects XI' (Current Version is SAP BO 4.0) has a few significant disadvantages that should be mentioned.

Multiple locations options work well but their enabling was inconsistent. Separate parts of the suite differ in the development requirements similar to . Further, the breadth is stunning but modifying the content requires complicated and laborconsuming IT lifting. The company not always realizes their promises there is a risk of lateness or even reject of foretold integration. The focus on performance management has been weak. SAP promises to head this direction in the near future.

As it's clearly visible, SAP BusinessObjects software, providing effective solutions, is on a best way to the success, but the half-baked details worsen the general feeling.

Cognos Series 7 and IBM Cognos 8 BI products comparison

Cognos series 7

IBM Cognos 10.1 BI

Business Objects Enterprise 4.0

MS SQL Server BI

Comments

SQL Server Analysis Cognos PowerPlay PowerPlay (BI Mobile Analysis) Desktop Intelligence / OLAP Intelligence Services (SSAS) SQL Server Management Studio Desktop query and analysis tool

Cognos PowerPlay Web

Web-based Analysis Studio Web Intelligence ? multidimensional analysis

IBM Cognos 8 BI PowerPlay Excel Analysis for Microsoft Excel

Live office Xcelsius

Microsoft Excel

Spredsheet integration

ReportNet (Report Impromptu Studio + Query Studio)

Crystal Reports WebIntelligence

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

Reporting

Cognos WebPortal

Cognos Connection

InfoView

Performance Point Server

Web Portal

Visualizer

GO! Dashboard Report Studio

Performance manager XCelsius

Business Intelligence Development Studio

Visual dashboards

Dashboard builder

DecisionStream

Data Manager

Data integrator (BODI)

SQL Server Integration ETL and data integraion Services (SSIS) tool

PowerPlay Transformer Impromptu Administrator Framework Manager Designer Business Intelligence Development Studio Modeling application

Metrics Manager

Metrics Studio

Performance manager Dashboard manager

Business Intelligence Development Studio

Scorecarding

Notice cast

Event Studio

BusinessObjects Enterprise XI

Business activity monitoring

Planning Controller

Planning Controller

Business Planning and Consolidation

Planning application

COGNOS VS BO CONCLUSION
Both platforms IBM Cognos Series 10.1 and SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 have specific advantages and disadvantages. Some of them are major, some only minor. But all of them influence on the usage. The answer which one is better to choose will remain depends on the existing Landscape/system and the Data base size. New versions, additional applications, plenty of upgrades, tons of instructions and white papers all those are the details. But those are the details that really matter.

Nevertheless, when choosing the right business intelligence platform for your organization it might be a good idea to precisely define your needs, then talk to the technical sales people from both SAP

and IBM and try to get a trial version of both platforms and test it in your business environment. This will say which platform suits the end-users best.

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