appliance called Lava that included
Cognos offers BI ETL, streaming OLAP (online analyti-
cal processing) analytics, self-service
visual dashboards and a built-in rules
engine for event-driven analysis.
On the hardware side, Lava took
for the masses advantage of multicore processes for
the standard edition. The higher-end
enterprise edition included two multi-
core CPUs, up to 16GB of memory and
hard disk drives and was prewired for
APPLIANCE FAMILY STEMS FROM CELEQUEST ACQUISITION network infrastructures.
Cognos has tweaked Lava to include
B Cy Renee Boucher Ferguson memory installed. The enterprise edi- newer Web 2.0 concepts such as
ognos bought dashboard tion also supports integration with Google Maps. The appliance also is
appliance maker Celequest in other applications, such as SAP’s ERP interoperable with Cognos 8 Business
January in large part to speed (enterprise resource planning) trans- Intelligence, which provides a more
up development of its own busi- actional software. comprehensive BI platform.
ness intelligence capabilities. In addition, Cognos will offer dif- Like Lava before it, Cognos Now is
Four months later, Cognos is unveiling ferent variations of the appliance. The available as an appliance or through
the first fruits of the acquisition. first, available now, is Cognos Now for the SAAS model. In both cases, it
At its annual user conference in Salesforce, geared toward customers represents a less expensive, albeit
Orlando, Fla., May 14, the c ompany that need to monitor performance scaled-down, BI tool for some users.
announced Cognos Now, a family of against their Salesforce.com data. However, some critics warn that a
appliance-based performance manage- Appliance-based BI is designed to preconfigured appliance can be used
ment and BI software built in part on enable companies or divisions with- only for its intended purpose; it can’t
technology acquired via the run any other applications
Celequest deal. in the same box.
The appliance consists of Cognos is not alone in
operational BI—a general- its pursuit of appliances
ized rollout of BI and ana- that preconfigure software
lytic capabilities designed for and hardware for a specific
the everyday user. Users can Cognos Now need. SAP announced its
create self-service dashboards, BI Accelerator last year, and
analyze data and write reports Cognos’ new BI product, which offers capabilities gained
via the Celequest acquisition, includes: it’s widely anticipated that
with minimal-to-no IT input. SAP’s new A1S midmarket
The software also includes The first in a new family of BI and performance manage- suite, in the works now, will
in-memory 64-bit computing ment products be available on demand,
capabilities, culled from Cele- Self-service dashboards, and integrated data, analysis and with some functionality
quest’s patent stable, and data reports as an appliance or hosted service preconfigured and bundled
integration or ETL (extraction, Cognos Now for Salesforce for customers to monitor on an appliance.
transformation and loading) performance against Salesforce data Earlier in May, Micro-
functionality. Interoperability with Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Strategy and SAS Institute
On the hardware side of the Source: Cognos confirmed separately that
Cognos Now appliance, the their BI software prod-
company has bundled a rack-mounted out a lot of IT support to create their ucts are being tailored for Hewlett-
server with a J2EE (Java 2 Platform, own dashboards, modifications and Packard’s NewView appliance. In
Enterprise Edition) open-source appli- alerts without having to involve IT March, Business Objects unveiled its
cation server and a metadata reposi- staff, according to Jim Hare, vice Open Appliance Initiative involving
tory. president of product marketing and partnerships with data warehouse
Cognos will offer three configura- business development for Cognos On vendors IBM, Netezza, DatAllegro,
tions: one for the lower end of the Demand. Greenplum, HP, RPath, Teradata and
market, a standard edition and an Both the appliance and SAAS (soft- VMware. The vendors will preinstall
enterprise edition. What varies among ware as a service) capabilities are based Business Objects’ BI software on their
the three editions is the amount of almost entirely on Celequest technol- hardware to create appliances geared
CPUs utilized and the amount of ogy. Celequest had developed a BI at the midmarket. ´
