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Keep It Together
SAP BusinessObjects and Teradata team up to provide an optimized BI solution.
Lori Janies
Increasingly, company leaders are realizing the enormous strategic and competitive edge they can gain by leveraging business intelligence (BI) tools with an enterprise data warehouse (EDW). These tools provide a 360-degree view of an organization through more accurate reporting, planning and strategic analysis. But a company that fails to select tools that are optimized to work together and with its EDW often finds a steady stream of integration issues, information time lags and disappointing setbacks.
For example, a large online retailer draws various types of data from internal and external sources. Data from enterprise resource planning (ERP), finance and customer relationship management (CRM), as well as from Information Resources Inc. and The Nielsen Company all reside on various database platforms like DB2, Oracle and SQL Server. The company employs numerous BI tools to consolidate the disparate data, transform it and move it into the EDW. It then leverages that data to send more than 500 customized reports per week to internal staff and external business partners.
If the third-party BI tools are not architected to function with one another or with the organization's EDW, a loss of valuable time and money can result. A routine upgrade from a third-party extract, transform and load (ETL) tool requires extensive manual research to determine how that upgrade would affect the system's data model and users' reports. In the end, custom programming may be necessary to accommodate the needed changes. The effort spent researching this problem clearly affects the timeliness of the company's many reports.
Multiply this scenario by the number of disparate BI tools used and all of the routine upgrades, additions or required changes. Ultimately, the company could realize a severe negative impact on both internal resources and data availability.
However, if the company installed a single BI stack for all of its BI needs-especially one that is fully integrated with its EDW-it would benefit from significant time and financial savings. In addition, it would gain the strategic advantage over a competitor whose data is less robust and not as timely.
A seamless partnership
Teradata and SAP® BusinessObjects™ have joined forces to offer a full-scale BI solution that includes components optimized to work seamlessly with one another and the Teradata system. Combining the capabilities of the leading BI company with the leading data warehouse company creates a solution that is even greater than the sum of its formidable parts.
The solution is designed to work with the entire Teradata Purpose-Built Platform Family: Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse, Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance, Teradata Data Mart Appliance and Teradata Extreme Data Appliance. Combining the single stack of BI products with a platform family member ensures any size and scope of problem can be solved
by leveraging the following components:
- Information discovery and delivery tools enable multiple functions, from operational reporting to ad hoc query and analysis. Additionally, an enterprise-wide platform allows the deployment of these reports and analytics in any organization, from the smallest business entity to the largest global enterprise.
- Data services and data quality tools provide smooth system integration.
- A performance optimization application contains tools for forecasting, budgeting, planning, horizontal-specific analytics for CRM, human resources, financial analysis and industry-specific applications. The application is optimized for Teradata systems to ensure the fastest access to the most current and reliable data.
Solution benefits, today and tomorrow
For the joint customer, implementing the solution offers myriad benefits:
- Total cost of ownership is reduced by instituting a single BI stack rather than assembling one from multiple vendors. Pre-built integration components can accelerate solution delivery and deployment and simplify service requirements. For example, the integration between SAP BusinessObjects reporting and ETL solutions with SAP R3 delivers pre-built content and starting points to accelerate and simplify deployments, further reducing overall costs.
- Ease of use is achieved with a single point of administration, single point of use, similar user interfaces and automated integration capabilities.
- High scalability accommodates organizations of all sizes.
- Seamless adaptability to SAP tools and technology (SAP certifications include Netweaver J2EE for Teradata Supply Chain Accelerator, Universal Data Connect for the Java Database Connectivity driver and OpenHub).
Moreover, customers are granted the additional advantage of an overseeing advisory group. This team of Teradata and SAP BusinessObjects users ensures ongoing optimization between the BI stack of products and Teradata systems. Feedback from the group provides customers with the best solution today and in the future.
Accurate data, timely access
Installing BI tools that have not been designed for integration can cause more problems than results for companies whose business depends on hundreds of employees and external contacts having access to accurate, timely data. Installing a single-source, integrated solution is the best option for ensuring everyone in the enterprise gets the BI they need, when they need it.
Lori Janies writes about business and technology for various publications.