Re: Reporting tools

Dear Glen,

When it comes to Reporting Tools (off from a System21 database), it is a
jungle out there.

Here are some tips based on my own experience from both sides of the fence
(as ex-Geac and as an end user)

a. BusinessObjects, Cognos et. al are great tools, provided the data can be
extracted from the AS400.  I have heard Geac too has its own home grown BI
tool.

b. To successfully extract the data using these tools, you need metadata
(lot of people call it by lot of names: knowledge base, data dictionary,
repository etc.).  This is very simple in concept where all the definitions
for table structures and how they are related to each other are kept.

c. For BusinessObjects Geac did not have meta data.  Geac developed them
for Cognos, MyEureka & CorVu in the past and if you decide to buy any of
these tools then you will have to buy the corresponding meta data package
from Geac. You need to take into account this cost element in your budget.

d. If you think you will not buy this meta data and develop it yourself,
think again: you will be at the mercy of the ODBC driver to extract the
data.  For simple straight querying/downloads, the ODBC driver works fine
but it does not stand up to heavy duty querying.  I am speaking from my
experience here.

e. The way out of this is to use an ETL (extract, transform & load) tool.
Sounds like rocket science but yet again it is a simple concept.  Usually
this is a simple query tool that most probably would sit on the AS400.  You
use the tool to fetch the data from the AS400 tables (no ODBC related
headaches) and FTP them to a server (in WINTEL domain) as simple csv text
format.  Client portion of the ETL tool will then convert it to Access, SQL
Server, Oracle, Excel etc. formats.  All the BI tools are happy to read and
work natively with these popular formats.  After testing some tools, I
found RouteOne to be an easy to use tool.  It was developed by an
independent UK based software company called Utilities 400 but just now
when I tried to find their web address for you I found out that Geac has
taken over that company!!

f. The down side of this method is that there will be a time lag between
the data on the AS400 and the data being analysed in the WINTEL server.  BI
tools are all about finding trends and deviations from the trends.  Can a
single day's data - however big the number of transactions - buck the trend
for a business?

Hope these points help you to find the right choice.

Regards,

S. Ram,
IT Manager,
PT. Sungin Tex,
Indonesia