Simba Technologies' CEO Corner

A Major Shift in the Data Warehouse Space...

I have been a fan of the Data Warehouse Appliance for some time.  The concepts, technologies, and price have real game changer qualities.  Doug Henschen, Editor-in-Chief at Intelligent Enterprise, has done some research on companies who have implemented Data Warehouse Appliances and in his article "Why Not Data Warehouse Appliances?" (http://www.intelligententerprise.com/blog/archives/2008/05/why_not_data_wa.html), Doug also makes the case that "we're on the cusp of a broad adoption phase".

IBM Cubing Services - MDX and ODBO - Excel Pivot Tables

In case you missed it, on May 6, IBM announced support for OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) in their Cubing Services product.  You can read the official notice at http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/3/897/ENUS208-113/ENUS208-113.PDF.  DB2 Warehouse edition is now called InfoSphere Warehouse.

In October 2007, IBM shipped MDX Query Language support in this product.  However, you had to access the MDX functionality via a proprietary interface.  At the Information OnDemand conference in October 2007, IBM had a demo of Business Objects Voyager working with Cubing Services.  Voyager is an OLAP reporting tool from Business Objects which connects to MDX data sources.  Voyager works with Microsoft Analysis Services, SAP BW, and some of the Business Objects Performance Management applications.  It was nice to see Voyager working with Cubing Services, albeit using a proprietary API.  Now Cubing Services supports ODBO so it is possible to connect any ODBO client to Cubing Services.  I have not yet played with this new version of Cubing Services.  I hope to soon.

One thing I am told is that Microsoft Excel works with Cubing Services via ODBO and MDX.  However, IBM's MDX Query Language implementation is what I call the MDX 1999 variant.  The MDX Language Specification is part of the OLE DB for OLAP Specification which Microsoft last published in 1999, therefore I call it MDX 1999.  Microsoft has of course added a lot of extensions to the MDX Query Language and the MDX supported by Microsoft Analysis Services 2005 is what I call MDX 2005.

Excel 2007 uses the MDX Query Language to connect to OLAP data sources.  Excel 2007 is an adaptive product - it will adapt to the MDX supported by the underlying data source.  Therefore, if you connect Excel 2007 to Microsoft Analysis Services 2005, it will function differently than if you connect it to Microsoft Analysis Services 2000.  Excel 2007 is able to determine what MDX Query Language features are supported by the underlying data source and expose functionality accordingly.

Since Cubing Services supports MDX and ODBO, you can connect Excel 2007 to Cubing Services.  However, only the MDX 1999 variant is supported and Excel 2007 on Cubing Services will function like Excel 2007 on Microsoft Analysis Services 2000.  So far, only SAP BW 7.0 and Microsoft Analysis Services 2005 support the MDX 2005 variant.  I am not sure of IBM's timeline for supporting MDX 2005.  Also, Cubing Services does not yet support XMLA.  I expect XMLA support to come relatively soon as this is technically easier to develop than ODBO and much easier to develop than MDX 2005 functionality.  If I was a betting man, I would expect IBM to announce XMLA at their next Information OnDemand conference.

Teradata and the Data Warehouse Appliance

Teradata has always been the big kahuna of the big database.  In the data warehouse appliance space, there are a lot of new kids on the block such as Netezza, Vertica, Kognitio, etc.  Teradata recently introduced some newer data warehouse appliance servers that target these newcomers.  Stephen Swoyer interviewed Randy Lea (Teradata VP Product and Services Marketing) and wrote the following article: http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8968.  Some good insight into how the newly independent (of NCR) Teradata is responding to today's competitive markeplace.

Database as a Service vs Cloud Databases

This week in Intelligent Enterprise, there is an article by Donald Feinberg of Gartner that talks about Database as a Service (DBaaS) vs Could Databases (Cloud DB).  http://www.intelligententerprise.com/channels/information_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208200257&cid=RSSfeed_IE_News  Definitely worth a quick read.  DBaaS and Cloud DB are very similar except that for DBaaS you know where the database sits and for a Cloud DB you don't know where the database sits.  For a developer, a Cloud DB can be very powerful because you quickly have access to a database system without having to worry about licensing and configuring.

Pivot Tables in Google Spreadsheets - Panorama Did It!

I wrote a while back about Pivot Tables in Google Spreadsheets.  Well, I have seen it and it is true.  Panorama has been able to embed a portion of their NovaView application within Google Spreadsheets to have Pivot Table like functionality.  What they do is interesting because they source the data from the Google Spreadsheet and seem to build a cube out of it on the fly.  The data in the Google Spreadsheet needs to be in a particular format so right now things are very simplified.

I spoke to Oudi Antebi at Panorama and he said their plan is to eventually source data from Microsoft Analysis Services, SAP BW, and anything else that supports the MDX Query Language from a server point of view.  Nonetheless, a Pivot Table on Google Spreadsheet data is very interesting and powerful.  You can easily load data from whatever your data source into the Google Spreadsheet.  Panorama's interface to build the cube is quite straightforward.  The tool is quite slick.  The concept is very powerful.  Pivot Tables and BI are something that Microsoft is focusing on for future versions of Excel and the fact that Panorama is able to quickly adapt their NovaView product to help Google get ahead of Microsoft has the potential to be a real game changer.

Nigel Pendse at the OLAP Report wrote a commentary on Panorama and Google which is also worth a quick read... http://www.panorama.com/newsletter/2008/apr/olap-report-commentary.html.

SAP Sapphire and Patrick Lencioni - continued

I read Patrick's book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" on the flight home from Sapphire.  It was a very easy read yet very deep.  If you haven't read any of Patrick's books, the way he writes is to give you a little story (most of the book) which is an example of what he is trying to convey and then he has a short summary section of the key message.  You can get to Patrick's website at http://www.tablegroup.com and he has a special section for Sapphire/ASUG attendees at http://www.tablegroup.com/asug.  Worth going to.

SAP Business Intelligence Accelerator (BIA)

I am still amazed at the potential for the SAP BIA product.  There has been a lot of talk about BIA at Sapphire and I am still not sure about SAP's direction.  Or maybe this technology has so much potential that SAP will go forward in many different directions.  One direction is definitely an accelerator so BW and BOBJ Universes run much faster.  Another direction could be a database.  In his recent article on Datamation entitled "A Revolution Threatens the Relational Database", Joshua Greenbaum talks about how BIA could be an Oracle-killer.  Interesting idea and one that has lots of potential.  Joshua's article is definitely worth a quick read http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/entad/article.php/3746191.

Business Objects Polestar and SAP BIA

During the keynotes at Sapphire, there was a lot of discussion about the new Business Objects Application called Polestar.  Polestar was demoed against SAP's Business Intelligence Accelerator (BIA).  The keynote demo showed Polestar working against over a billion records in BIA and performing extremely well.

I went onto the show floor to get a closer look.  At the BOBJ pod, I met Nigel Stoodley from BOBJ who gave me a very good demo.  Even though the demo on the show floor was not Polestar against BIA, it was nonetheless very impressive.  Polestar allows you to do ad hoc analysis of your data.  The current Polestar product has a Google-like interface to start with where you enter your query.  It then goes against the Universe and finds potential matches for your query.  You select a match and then a very nice graphical user interface comes up showing details of your selection.  You can drill down in the data, you can compare data, and you can get different types of visualizations - bar charts, pie charts, etc.  It is a simple yet powerful GUI that allows a non-analyst user to navigate the data and get a better understanding.  It's a very nice product and worth trying out if you want something like this.

At the demo pod, I asked Nigel more about how Polestar goes against various data.  Nigel explained to me that Polestar is built to go against a Universe.  Therefore, any BOBJ customer that has a Universe (or multiple Universes) can get Polestar and immediately be able to use the product.  I then queried further to understand how Polestar worked with BIA.  Nigel explained that SAP/BOBJ built a Universe on top of the BIA.  Data was loaded into the BIA and the Universe allowed Polestar to access this data.

While Polestar is shipping, the ability to connect to BIA is not readily available.  Let's hope SAP brings this out soon.  In the keynote, my understanding is that they demoed the Polestar / BIA solution live and were connecting to a BIA server that was in Walldorf, Germany.  Apparently, they were connecting live all the way from Orlando to Walldorf.  What was not explained was what the hardware configuration of the BIA system was that was able to process over a billion records so fast.

I really enjoyed Hasso's keynote this year.  I thought he did a really good job.  Hasso is a good speaker and he had the audience engaged, interested and amused.  I really cracked up when he swore on stage.  Hasso seems to be a strong proponent of TREX and BIA.

SAP Sapphire - Patrick Lencioni

The first official day of Sapphire was very busy.  They main keynotes were Patrick Lencioni and Tom Brokaw.  I have to admit that other than the keynotes, I only attended 1 session (lots of networking and not enough time in the day).

The session that I attended was by Doug Merritt and Marge Breya.  Doug owns what is now called POA - performance optimization applications and Marge owns the IDD (Information Discovery and Delivery) piece from BOBJ.  This was a good session to attend after attending the session by Dan Kearnan et al yesterday.  Doug and Marge gave an overview of the general direction of the combined SAP and BOBJ in the BI space.  They have this new application called Polestar.  Very interesting UI and they demo Polestar sitting on top of BIA.  Quite slick.  I want to go find this on the show floor and actually play with it myself.  Will write more when I get the chance.

I also want to mention the keynote by Patrick Lencioni.  I have read his first two books (they were very good) and then didn't read any of his other material.  The session today reminded me that I should read his newer material.  Patrick spoke about "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team".  Patrick is a really good speaker and I quite enjoyed his talk.  If you get a chance to see him speak, do it.  After the keynote, I purchased the book and got it autographed.  I spent a few minutes talking to Patrick.  Very interesting person.  A summary of the five dysfunctions are:

1. Absence of Trust

2. Fear of Conflict

3. Lack of Commitment

4. Avoidance of Accountability

5. Inattention to Results

I especially like #2.  You can't just accept a non-committal yes.  You really need to get people to discuss and debate the issue so that you get their real input.  Now that I have the book, I have some good reading material for the flight back home on Wednesday.

SAP Sapphire - SAP and Business Objects

I am at Sapphire 2008 this week and yesterday I attended the Jumpstart session entitled "SAP and Business Objects: Understanding the new Business Intelligence Platform in Detail".  I think the attendance was more than they expected because the room was very full and they ran out of lunch boxes.  Having said that, it was a very good session and it was a positive that the attendance was high.  In the past, SAP and BOBJ have published their joint product roadmap but the session yesterday made many things clearer.  The main presenters were Dan Kearnan, Tanner Spalding, and Bobby Coates.  They also had Bryan Katis come in for about 45 minutes to talk about their Performance Management Roadmap - what they are now calling Performance Optimization Applications.

If you are at Sapphire, Dan will have a session today (Monday) at 3:45 that will give an overview of the Jumpstart session yesterday.

Dan gave a nice overview of the roadmap. A few things that I found interesting are that SAP customers will get a stripped down version of Cyrstal Reports called Crystal Light as part of the base SAP offering.  SAP and BOBJ are still trying to figure out what will be in Crystal Light and were quite open to hearing feedback from customers which is very good.  Of course, the customers that were in the room were all encouraging SAP to put as much into Crystal Light as possible because this will be a base offering and will not cost customers extra.

On the Performance Management front, it looks like the go forward platforms are the ones from Outlooksoft, Pilot and ALG.  While the offerings from INEA, Cartesis, and SRC are still supported, eventually the customers and any special functionality will migrate to the go forward platforms.  Of course, there is no overlap with SAP's GRC product so it too will continue forward.  Performance Management is any area of heavy overlap between SAP and BOBJ and this rationalization was expected.

On the BIA front, one thing I found interesting was SAP BOBJ is considering how to use BIA to enhance performance of BOBJ Universes.  There has been a lot of talk about a standalone BIA.  I had assumed that this meant a BIA that was database like.  Using BIA to enhance the performance of BOBJ Universes is a great idea and would indicate BIA is more of a database accelerator that plugs into any data source.  Interesting idea.  I am hoping to attend more sessions on BIA this week and hopefully learn more.