We are in the process of trying to find a strategic reporting solution
for our company. To that end, I'd like to get some opinions on the
strengths and weaknesses of various product, and how they stack up
against MS RS. In addition to extending our existing solution and/or
using MS RS, some of the solutions we're considering are: Actuate,
Business Objects, Cognos ReportNet, dynaSight, Hyperion SQR,
MicroStrategy Report Services, Report Portal, etc.

Here is our situation. We have a fairly large (400GB) database. We
need to be able to generate reports from our data. The reports will
be a mixture of pre-developed ("canned") reports and more ad-hoc,
user-definable reports. The primary distribution mechanism will be
the internet. At present we do not expect much of a distribution
process - simply clients bringing up reports in their browsers.

To date we have hand-coded most of our reports with a combination of
ASP.NET/VB.NET and Crystal Reports. However, our reporting
requirements are beginning to explode, and we need more of a strategic
solution. In particular, we would like to start looking at empowering
our end clients (at least some of the more technically sophisticated
ones :-) to be able to create and run ad-hoc reports for themselves,
without requiring a developer to code each new report. The ad-hoc
reports could include anything from simple list reports to complicated
reports containing pivot tables, graphs, etc.

We are a small company with some large clients. The large clients
will be viewing reports, but they in turn have smaller clients that
may also need to have access to the reports. As a result, one of the
things that will be quite important in our final solution is good
data-partitioning. Whereas this may be something we need to push down
to the database layer, it would be a "very nice to have" if the
reporting solution included something to facilitate this as well.

In addition to the data partitioning, we will need some kind of
hierarchical security system, with role-based security. Again, this
is something that we might be able to push out to Active Directory,
but we will be more inclined to have a custom, database-driven
solution using Forms Authentication.

We would like the solution to continue to run in the context of IIS,
rather than requiring a separate application server. We would like it
to fit into our .NET environment (i.e. not be a J2EE solution).

Given all of these constraints, today's version of MS RS may fit our
environment best, but comes up a little short on the list. It's
possible that when SQL2k5, together with ActiveViews, comes out, it
will be a closer match. However, whereas we might be able to wait
that long for a solution, it is still unclear whether even that will
sufficiently meet our needs. In the mean time, we also need to do due
diligence and look at the alternatives.

If you've read all the way to here, congratulations! Now I wouldn't
mind if you'd share your opinions with me. Please try to keep them as
objective as possible. :-)

Brad.

If you want a repeatable process for creating and getting reports to
the Web, you will want to take a look at an Object Oriented tool and
they only one I know of is Actuate

"Jörg Narr" <n_o-sp_amJoerg_Narr (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

You may also wish to take a look at Information Builders WebFOCUS
(http://www.informationbuilders.com). Both Gartner and Forrester
place Information Builders, BO and Cognos as the Leaders in the
Business Intelligence space.

khachey (AT) mindspring (DOT) com (Kyle) wrote in message news:<3044aa15.0409030629.40de51f1 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com>...
Brad,

One of the changes that your organization will probably make is that
'reporting' will become old school. They won't want to be running
reports(at least some of them, it's hard to get the bean counters away
from reports) Once they get a taste of drilling into data and
analyzing the data on their own, it opens up a whole new realm. It's
an amzaing change.

Also, (A disclaimer here since this isn't objective), Check out
www.salient.com. They have a product called UXT Margin Minder. It
handles all of the requirements that you've set above (in one way or
another, but simply in all cases), including the multiple security
levels, ability to handle extrememly large databases, Client access
over IE (a true browser interface that supports Max, Linux and Windows
environments), Plus a UI that is completely programmed to display the
data in a meaninful manor as you have instructed when you put the data
in the server. This basically means there is no programming required.
Get the data into the system and the UI adjusts itself to match the
data (as per some setup intstructions on the server)

Install the system, load the data, do some admin tasks such as setting
up your security levels, and don't worry about asp, .net or any other
programming again. Much simpler maintenance and there isn't bunches
of defects every week from in house programming errors.

Some highlights: Huge database capacities. Margin Minder has one
specific client that makes comparative &/or trend requests that covers
12 months of this year vs 12 months of last year, with 1 Billion (yes,
that's a B) records per year with any request of this set being
answered in less than 15 seconds. (and that's by adding up all of the
records per request, it doesn't summarize any data, it stores it in
the format that was passed in.

The system support caching, as well as a unique distributed database
environment that allows for massively parallel systems.

The system supports a simple, yet powerful bookmark feature (and
super-bookmark feature) which allows corporate views of specific
analysis (this could be equated to basic reports), Bookmarks are used
as a starting point for analization. It's rare for someone to look at
a report and be completly satisfied with the information. Instead,
they always ask "why?", such as why is this number high, or low, etc.
Going to a bookmark allows people to see a high level view, then for
people to start searching through any good/bad anamolies.

Besides the corporate global bookmarks, a user can have their own
personal ones as well.

Ever want to see some of your data with a 'dashboard' type approach
that sees more than a little speedometer? Salient has views of data
that functions just like the tree map on SmartMoney.com (from the home
page, click on one of the Maps links on the menu bar). It shows a lot
of information, very quickly.

Ever think about taking your data on the road? Salient has a Load &
Go application that allows a salesperson to download a slice of data
(at their choosing) onto their laptop and take it right to the client
site and work disconnected, so the salesperson can show the client how
they are doing, right on the desktop, or as a presentation.

There are a lot of people that have the list like you mention above,
and end up with Salient's solution because it's just better,
admittedly less known, but it's better all the way around.

Bill