SAS – BI / DW Insider

BI Market: Data Mining & Predictive Analytics (Vendors and Products) – 2011

July 22, 2011/1 Comment/in Business Intelligence, Posts /by Adam Getz

Data Mining & Predictive Analytic solutions provide the capabilities of analyzing large data sets in order to find patterns that can help to isolate key variables to build predictive models for management decision making. In addition, data mining applications help discover hidden patterns and relationships in data in order to effectively project and predict future results. In order to accomplish this goal, data mining application utilize statistics, algorithms, advanced mathematical techniques, and sophisticated data search capabilities. Moreover, these sophisticated tools provide answers to questions that may never have been asked and they are effectively able to determine relative amounts of correlation between data elements. Further, the predictive features of these data mining tools enable organizations to exploit useful patterns in data that may have otherwise been difficult to determine.

In 2011, the market leading vendors for data mining systems include: IBM SPSS, SAS, SAP Business Objects, Oracle, MicroStrategy, ThinkAnalytics, Pentaho, & Angoss.

BI Market: OLAP (Vendors and Products) – 2011

July 20, 2011/3 Comments/in Business Intelligence, Posts /by Adam Getz

On-line analytical processing (OLAP) solutions provide advanced techniques for rapidly visualizing and analyzing business metrics across different points of view. OLAP is a term used to generically refer to software and applications that provide users with the ability to store and access data in OLAP cubes (also called a ‘multidimensional cube’ or a hypercube) with this “cube” being made up of numeric facts, called measures, and text values, called dimensions.

Moreover, OLAP systems provide users with insight into past performance and they enable a deep understanding of the reasons behind why previous events have occurred. Fundamentally, OLAP systems allow users to rapidly view and analyze data from many perspectives or dimensions and allows the users to conduct sophisticated “What-If” analysis.

In 2011, the market leading vendors for OLAP systems include: SAP Business Objects, Oracle, IBM Cognos, MicroStrategy, Microsoft, SAS, Pentaho, & Jaspersoft.

BI Market: Dashboard Management (Vendors and Products) – 2011

July 20, 2011/0 Comments/in Business Intelligence, Posts /by Adam Getz

Dashboard management systems are intended to facilitate and support the information and decision-making needs of management by providing easy access to key business information in a highly graphical and intuitive format. Fundamentally, a dashboard is a graphical business tool that displays a set of KPIs (key performance indicators), metrics, and any other relevant information to a business user, manager, or key decision-maker in a single consolidated view and allows for organizational performance to be easily measured and monitored. Dashboard data is often displayed as aggregate information and contains data that consolidated from multiple data sources scattered throughout an organization. Dashboards are commonly interactive and provide users users the ability to drill into particular aspects of the display and/or rapidly switch between views of the data.

In 2011, the market leading vendors for dashboard management systems include: SAP Business Objects, Oracle, IBM Cognos, MicroStrategy, Microsoft, SAS, QlikTech, LogiXML, Corda, Dundas, iDashboards, Pentaho, & Jaspersoft.

BI Market: Ad-Hoc Query & Analysis (Vendors and Products) – 2011

July 19, 2011/0 Comments/in Business Intelligence, Posts /by Adam Getz

Query and analysis solutions enable business users and analysts to rapidly generate business queries and reports from enterprise data based upon business question of the data. Also known as “ad-hoc” querying, these tools typically provide intuitive, graphical interfaces that shields users from technical complexities and allows users to leverage business terminology instead of the more technical database names. The business focus of these tools allows nontechnical professionals to be comfortable with their data and allows them to quickly and efficiently satisfy their own information needsin real time with minimal assistance from system developers. Commonly, query and analysis environments include a middleware layer that converts database conventions into business nomenclature that is more intuitive and understanding to end-users. Moreover, query & analysis environments give users the capability to access and analyze data in a unique and personal manner. Utilized primarily by business users, query and analysis solutions provide an environment that enables interactive methods to query data, present data in an ad-hoc manner, and find information on an as-needed basis.

In 2011, the market leading vendors for ad-hoc query and analysis include: SAP Business Objects, Oracle, IBM Cognos, MicroStrategy, Microsoft, Information Builders (IBI), Pentaho, Jaspersoft, & SAS.