Unfortunately, most BI solutions are not this agile. The enterprise BI tools are made to collect, scrub and aggregate the data, build a data warehouse, model the data, create meta-data layers, and develop pixel perfect reports that can be delivered in an infinite number of formats and variations. There is no question that this needs to be done in most organizations, but there is a growing need for lighter-weight BI implementations. Perhaps the data does not have to be as high of quality, the BI/DW infrastructure does not have to be built to last, but the results must be timely and the development cycle agile.

The emerging business intelligence vendors, such as Yellowfin BI, Widgenie (by LogiXML), and Panorama (among others) all recognize this evolution. BI is about allowing business users to rapidly combine data to get useful results that can be easily visualized and shared.

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You have questions, BI can give you answers

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My RSS Feed as an Image

• Compared to most enterprise software packages, the UI is sublime.
• 100% web based, with a zero footprint web browser client.
• It is built on open source technology with open standards.
• No hand coding of SQL is required.
• A rapid deployment is not only possible, but it can be expected.

In short, Yellowfin is simple, secure and scalable. All of this adds up to a faster path to business value.

Yellowfin is simple, secure and scalable.

What I see is the greatest advantage of Yellowfin is the shift from the traditional BI project thinking. Traditionally, this entails an attempt to build an all encompassing data warehouse, followed by countless hours of meta-data and report development. The pitfalls are plenty in this approach. Yellowfin BI is not a panacea, but the software lends itself to a more agile approach to BI development. While it is robust enough for an enterprise deployment, it is ideal for the SMB or an isolated division of a larger organization that is not well served by the central IT department.

Yellowfin has been successful in the Asia-Pacific region but the company is only beginning to make a splash (pun intended) in North America. It has been selling well as a front end for Sybase IQ, and Yellowfin is currently expanding the partnership with Sybase globally. Historically, the Sybase BI partner of choice has been Microstrategy, but I expect that it is only a matter of time before Yellowfin gains the upper hand here.

If you interested in learning more about Yellowfin, please contact me, especially if you are in Canada and you are searching for a simple, secure and scalable BI solution.

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Introducing Yellowfin Business Intelligence

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links for 2008-06-28

192.168.0.103:9300 5496 2008-06-19 15:16:24.390 -5 Initialization_SESS Initialization_REQ Thread-16 CM 888 1 Audit.cms.CM StartService Warning CM-CFG-5063 A Content Manager configuration error was detected while connecting to the content store. CM-SYS-5003 Content Manager is unable to access the content store. Verify your database connection parameters, and then contact your database administrator for assistance. Failed Logon:com.jnetdirect.jsql.JSQLException: TCP/IP connection failed to host:localhost java.net.Con nectException: Connection refused: connect url:jdbc:JSQLConnect://localhost:1433/cognos83

This is a generic error that states that the Cognos 8 application cannot connect to the content store database. However, with a few configuration tweaks, this can be resolved. By default, the SQL Server Express networking protocols are disabled, which means that it will not accept TCP/IP connections. This is why Cognos cannot make the connection and throws the error. To resolve the problem, we need to do two things with SQL Server Express: first, enable TCP/IP, and then second, specify a port number to listen on. Here are the steps:

1. Launch the SQL Server Configuration Manager.
2. In the left hand window tree view, expand SQL Server 2005 Network Configuration.
3. Select “Protocols for SQLEXPRESS”.
4. In the right hand window, right click on “TCP/IP” in the list of protocols and choose “Enable”.
5. Right click on TCP/IP again and select properties.
6. Click on the tab labelled “IP Addresses”
7. Scroll down to the bottom to view the section titled “IPALL”
8. Clear the value for “TCP Dynamic Ports” so that it is blank.
9. Enter TcpPort number to use when making remote connections, for example, “1433″.

Restart the SQL Server service. Now, when you start Cognos 8, the connection will be made and the content store tables will be created in the database. You can verify this by watching for xml files being created in the logs directory (with names like 001.CMCreateWSRPObjects_results.xml), or by refreshing the tables folder in the SQL Server. I saw 116 tables created, but I know that can vary, according to the version of Cognos 8.

Caveat emptor: Keep in mind that SQL Server Express is not supported by IBM Cognos for use as the content store database.

Thanks to the SQL Server Express Weblog for the pointers that helped me get this working.

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Using SQL Server Express as the Cognos 8 Content Store

1. Start small - Making changes, especially changes that impact people and their business processes, can be tough. By starting small and building on subsequent successes, everyone gains confidence in the new system, paving the way for bigger changes down the road.

2. Asses the existing DW/BI infrastructure - As BI moves into an operational role, existing problems will only get worse, and they gain a wider, less forgiving, audience. Make a plan to reduce bottlenecks and solve any delivery, infrastructure and data quality issues.

As BI projects go, introducing BI software into an operational role is particularly challenging. However, the payoffs can be huge for both the organization and the IT department. The organization wins with gains in productivity and efficiency in achieving business goals, while the IT department wins increased respect as a strategic part of the organization.

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How to Get Started with Operational Business Intelligence

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Custom Windows Control Panel

• The client interface is web based - End users are already familiar with the web browser, and increasingly, they are at ease with using web applications.
• The IT department’s role is simplified - There is no additional server infrastructure to maintain, and there are no desktop applications to roll out, troubleshoot and keep updated.

While there are other issues to address, I think the weight of these two arguments, which both reduce the overall cost of BI implementations, will continue to drive more BI software into a cloud computing model.

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Business Intelligence gets Cloudy

However, there are some upstart BI vendors attacking the weak analytics offerings in the existing BI solutions. NextAnalytics is one such company, founded by Ward Yaternick, a former Cognos employee.
In a recent blog post, he sums up the problem his software solves: “analytics are iterative and sequential.” This makes analytics very expensive to do and to maintain with the current BI tools. NextAnalytics also has a non-traditional licensing and pricing model, similar to other commercial open source products, which will be a breath of fresh air for those used to negotiating with the big BI software vendors.

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Are Analytics the future of BI?

1. Server resources (CPU, memory, disk space) can be reallocated on the fly.
2. Virtual servers are not bound to specific hardware resources, meaning that they can be moved easily.
3. The CPU and memory use can be maximized on each server. Less physical servers, less electricity and less rack space are used to do more work.

It all adds up saving money.

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Three Reasons to Use Virtual Servers