Composite Software, Inc., a leading provider of data virtualization software, and Motio, Inc., a leading provider of advanced sofware development lifecycle tools for IBM-Cognos business intelligence deployments, have begun shipping the new Composite BI Accelerator Appliance. Jointly developed by Composite and Motio, the BI Accelerator Appliance automates currently cumbersome tasks in the BI lifecycle. The initial release, a self-contained appliance, has been optimized for IBM-Cognos environments. The end-to-end solution automates steps throughout the BI process including upfront data discovery and ongoing maintenance of IBM-Cognos reporting environments.
Composite was motivated to work with Motio to develop the new Composite BI Accelerator because of the staggering statistic that BI users spend an industry average ratio of 6:1 on their cost of consulting services for software deployment versus their cost of software licensing. Composite wanted to take consulting time and cost out of the BI process, reduce manual efforts, and use technology to attack the people and process costs associated with BI deployments and maintenance. Additionally, Motio was aware that Cognos' users are challenged to overcome their data complexity on the front end and achieve operational excellence on the back end. They felt that by combining Composite's data discovery capabilities with their own enhanced BI operational performance functionality, they could deliver a new product that would help Cognos users meet both of those challenges.
Robert Eve, executive vice president of marketing at Composite Software, tells 5 Minute Briefing that "the software which Composite brings to the partnership enables upfront data discovery, modeling, and data relationship definitions. A user can input search terms about the source data and receive back specific data tables and information about their relationships. A workspace of rows and columns is then opened up which enables the user to narrow down the desired information to a smaller data set, which is like a mini-model of the data. This data set can then be passed to Cognos Framework Manager, which is the Cognos data development layer, for report development. Additionally, Motio provides the software development lifecycle tools for Cognos including capabilities such as version control and performance testing."
The first release of Composite BI Accelerator delivers features that have been optimized specifically for IBM-Cognos BI. The features and associated benefits include data and data relationship discovery that overcome data complexity, auto-generation of data models, iterative requirements validation that ensure reports will meet end-user requirements, version control models and reports to provide collaboration and control over time, and data lineage tracking to provide greater data visibility and meet compliance mandates.
To find out more about the Composite BI Accelerator Appliance, go here.