December 21, 2016 | Author: sharath_seelam | Category: N/A
MicroStrategy 9 vs. Tableau 7 A Comparison White Paper by MicroStrategy
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[email protected] • http://www.microstrategy.com
MicroStrategy 9 vs. Tableau 7
I. Executive Summary............................................................................................................................. 4 II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Tableau 7 on the Key BI Capabilities..................................... 5 1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort - MicroStrategy Delivers the Lowest TCO............................... 7 2. All User Needs through a Single Platform...................................................................................... 11 3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface................................................................. 15 4. High Performance at Any Scale..................................................................................................... 18 5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer................................................ 22 6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence......................................................................... 26 7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics....................................................................................... 29 8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI................................................................... 31 III. MicroStrategy – A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology.............................................. 33
I. Executive Summary In the business intelligence (BI) marketplace, MicroStrategy competes with a number of vendors, including Tableau Software. At first glance, it would seem that companies can use either MicroStrategy 9 or Tableau 7 to support their visualization, reporting and analysis needs. However, throughout the implementation and maintenance of BI applications, companies are realizing significant differences in the BI capabilities between MicroStrategy and less robust BI technologies, such as Tableau. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategy’s unique strengths at the high-end of BI to extend the boundaries of performance, scalability, reliability, and maintainability of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings quick-to-deploy BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives through features such as multisource data access, In-memory ROLAP, Data Import, and Visual Insight. With MicroStrategy, business can enjoy the best of both the worlds, i.e. all the benefits of a robust BI platform, while providing exceptional flexibility and nimbleness to the business users for their self-service needs. Tableau, on the other hand, is a subject-oriented analysis tool and does not provide a robust, enterprise-grade BI platform. Its capabilities are limited to ad-hoc analysis and basic dashboard development from simple datasets. As user and business requirements have become more complex, IT budgets nonetheless have come under increasing pressure. Organizations need to deliver BI solutions in light of expanding user requirements, increasing amounts of data, and differing data sources with a minimal amount of IT resources. BI tools, like Tableau, face significant challenges in managing and maintaining a growing BI deployment as they lack object-oriented development, centralized metadata repository, robust administration, and centralized security management. Tableau’s lack of these capabilities results in redundant development and maintenance efforts and higher costs. In contrast, MicroStrategy’s object-oriented development paradigm, and robust BI platform capabilities enable easy development and maintenance of BI applications with minimum IT efforts and costs. For nearly 20 years, MicroStrategy customers have gained an edge over their competitors with fast, agile analysis using MicroStrategy’s sophisticated technology. Companies and industry analysts widely recognize MicroStrategy for its administration-friendly architecture, robust security, self-service zero-footprint Web interface, innovative mobile application platform, and proven user and data scalability. This document discusses in detail the key differences between MicroStrategy 9 and Tableau 7.
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II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Tableau 7 on the Key BI Capabilities Business intelligence has the power to provide performance feedback and visibility to all people in an organization, thus enabling businesses to make better decisions every day. However, not all BI technologies deliver on this promise, falling short on a number of key capabilities demanded of enterprise BI applications. A complete and efficient BI platform must provide organizations with the following key capabilities: Key BI Capabilities 1. D elivering More BI with Less IT Effort ....................................................................................................... pg.7 MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its reusable metadata is easier to maintain requiring less redundancy, because end users have more self-service capabilities that offload work from the IT staff, and because it provides a comprehensive suite of administrative tools requiring less IT administrators. Tableau provides limited metadata reusability across the entire BI platform. As a result, it requires redundant development and maintenance efforts. Tableau administrators have fewer administration tools that allow them efficiently manage the BI applications, thus requiring more administrators per number of end users. 2. A ll User Needs through a Single Platform.................................................................................................pg.11 MicroStrategy users can access any style of BI via a unified and home grown BI platform. MicroStrategy users get a single “version of the truth” through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces. Tableau users are limited in the breadth of BI styles (no enterprise reporting, limited alerting and proactive notification, limited predictive analysis capabilities, etc.) that they can accomplish. Tableau users typically must recreate metadata with each report, thus promoting “multiple versions of the truth." 3. S elf-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface.........................................................................pg.15 To enhance usability, the MicroStrategy Web interface adopts many familiar paradigms including, ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions. MicroStrategy’s next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business users. The MicroStrategy advanced self-service interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations, drag-and-drop manipulations, and instant results – thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions. Tableau provides limited capabilities through its Web interface. Tableau users can only perform basic filtering, sorting, and exporting through the Web and cannot create new visualizations or modify existing visualizations from the Web interface. As a result end users are limited in their abilities to self-serve. 4. H igh Performance at Any Scale................................................................................................................. pg.18 MicroStrategy’s high performance at any scale is possible given its In-memory ROLAP architecture, which leverages the database for much of its processing. Data joins and analytic calculations are processed in the database whenever possible. MicroStrategy’s unique multi-pass approach provides the flexibility to answer any analytical question in the most optimal manner. Tableau supports 64-bit for data loading but does not support 64-bit processing for data rendering. As a result, Tableau cannot take full advantage of 64-bit hardware, limiting its performance and scalability. Tableau does not offer scalable and high performing in-memory ROLAP architecture. As a result, Tableau deployments are typically departmental with low data volumes and limited number of users.
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5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer................................................................pg.22 MicroStrategy provides organizations a platform that is quick to implement and deploy as well as easy to maintain and administer. MicroStrategy’s single code base offers the unique advantage of reusable business logic across the entire platform. MicroStrategy’s single BI server provides efficient, centralized administration for IT and fewer moving parts which translate into less downtime. Tableau is quick to implement because it does not require creating a metadata layer. However, lack of a common reusable metadata layer creates a maintenance challenge as changes to common business logic are not automatically propagated to the entire BI deployment and Tableau developers are typically forced to continually and manually synchronize metric definitions across the entire deployment. Lack of a common semantic layer also promotes multiple “versions of the truth” and can lead to a “spreadmart” problem. 6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence.................................................................................pg.26 MicroStrategy Mobile extends BI capabilities on mobile devices well beyond traditional grid and graph reports and provides exceptional flexibility for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications. MicroStrategy Mobile apps are built using a metadata driven, point-and-click development paradigm, fully utilizing the MicroStrategy BI platform infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. As a result, mobile applications are faster and easier to create, easier to maintain, and provide the administration efficiencies needed to deploy to hundreds of thousands of users while providing the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Tableau does not follow an object-oriented development paradigm and provides minimum object reusability. As a result, development and maintenance of mobile applications becomes more challenging. Tableau Mobile provides little or no flexibility to create workflow driven apps and is used primarily for viewing the existing BI content on the iPad®. Functionality like delivering multiple forms of information through the app and transaction capability is not provided, limiting the ability of Tableau to create rich mobile applications for closed loop analysis. 7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics..................................................................................................pg.29 The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an extensive set of data manipulation and analytic options to allow the user to delve deeply into a report to identify and discover important trends and patterns in the data. MicroStrategy users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse for boundary-free investigative analysis. MicroStrategy report designers and analysts can view and embed predictive analytics in reports and then distribute them to all relevant decision makers and stakeholders. Tableau provides capabilities for performing basic statistical analysis but does not provide advanced predictive analysis capabilities. 8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI.......................................................................... pg.31 MicroStrategy’s metadata reusability and life cycle management tools, such as MicroStrategy Object Manager enable departments to incrementally migrate their business logic into a consolidated enterprise BI environment. Tableau does not have a tool equivalent to Object Manager to aid in consolidating and reconciling disparate departmental BI applications into an enterprise-wide BI application.
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1. DELIVERING MORE BI WITH LESS IT EFFORT - MICROSTRATEGY DELIVERS THE LOWEST TCO With IT budgets under increasing scrutiny and business requirements becoming more complex, today’s organizations need to critically examine BI costs. The costs of BI extend beyond the initial acquisition. An IDC study, Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives, concludes, “Because the single largest factor affecting TCO is staffing cost, IT initiatives that can reduce IT labor costs are likely to find greater acceptance among financial decision makers, and initiatives that enable IT consolidation or automation can significantly reduce TCO across the IT infrastructure.” Figure 1 shows that over three years, IT staffing constitutes between 60 and 71% of BI Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership is Dominated by IT Personnel Costs
Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership Breakdown
Software (7%)
Outsourced Costs (3%)
Server Hardware (7%) IT Staff Training (8%) Staffing (60%) Downtime – User Productivity (15%) Source: IDC 2007.
Figure 1: Staffing Costs Consume a Majority of Three-Year Software Lifecycle Costs
Customers and leading industry analysts alike recognize MicroStrategy’s ability to deliver BI to more users and a great amount of data with fewer IT staff than other BI vendors. Many MicroStrategy customers have expanded their BI deployments while saving millions of dollars a year in staffing costs by switching from non-MicroStrategy BI tools to MicroStrategy’s efficient and scalable self-service BI platform. To save costs and ensure successful BI solutions, decision makers must evaluate the key BI capabilities that reduce IT efforts and make the BI platform easier to implement, deploy, maintain, and administer.
IDC. “Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives.
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MicroStrategy Ranked Highest for Administration Efficiency
MicroStrategy Ranked #1 for Administration Efficiency arplan
1.18
Bissantz
0.39
Board
1.02
Cubeware
0.55 N/A
IBM Cognos Analysis IBM Cognos Reporting
1.72
IBM Cognos TM1
N/A
Information Builders
N/A
Infor PM
N/A
Jedox PALO
N/A
Microsoft SSAS
0.59
Microsoft SSRS
N/A
MicroStrategy
2.40
MIK
1.96
Oracle BIEE
N/A
Oracle Hyperion
N/A
Pentaho
N/A
QlikTech
0.71
SAP BO Webl
2.16
N/A
SAP BO Deskl SAP BW/ BEx Suite
1.96 N/A
SAS
1.51
TARGIT 0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2.0
2.2
2.4
Source: The BI Survey 9 (2010) – This chart provides a KPI score for the deployed seats per administrator head. The KPI is calculated so that higher administration costs lead to a lower KPI and vice versa. Figure 2: MicroStrategy Technology is Recognized for its Ability to Support Many More Users for Each IT Administrator
MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its metadata is inherently easier to maintain and because end users have more self-service capabilities that offload work from the IT staff.
“
We evaluated several leading BI products and, using a total cost of ownership model, determined that MicroStrategy had the best combination of ease-of-use, time-to-market, successful retail
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implementations, and robust analytical capabilities.
– IT Senior Coordinator of Purchasing, Private Label and Reporting, Whole Foods Market
The following table lists out key capabilities in which the MicroStrategy 9 platform helps organizations reduce costs when designing, deploying, administering and maintaining BI applications.
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KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY Dynamic Report Personalization
Minimizing Design Effort
Automatic Multi-source Drill Anywhere
Formatting over the Web
One Repository of Reusable Business Logic
Visual Analysis for Rapid Decision Making
Minimizing Deployment Effort
One Report Design Automatically Deploys to Any Interface
Browser Agnostic Zerofootprint Web
MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES
NO
• MicroStrategy has very robust Prompting engine. End users can dynamically author reports at run time by selecting attributes, metrics, metric levels, templates, filters, and even hierarchies. This greatly reduces report design dependency on IT and the number of reports for IT to maintain.
YES
YES
YES
YES
◗
• Tableau supports a zero footprint Web interface. However, the capabilities provided by the Tableau Web interface are very limited.
LIMITED
• Upgradable plug-ins instantly customize to corporate look and feel without coding effort.
◗
• Tableau provides limited integration with Microsoft Office productivity tools. Exporting interactive analysis to Flash is not supported.
LIMITED
• Eliminates client installation costs and ensures application is automatically updated. • Provides secure access for any browser without IT effort or reliance on ActiveX downloads or IE Active X dependence.
Easy to Customize and Upgrade
• Visual analysis can be performed but requires a thick client. End users using the Web interface for performing analysis are restricted to filtering, sorting, and exporting.
LIMITED
• The same report design is automatically optimized for interacting through all interfaces including Web browsers, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office; and formats including PDF, Flash, and HTML.
◗
• Tableau lacks a reusable semantic layer. The lack of object reusability makes the BI environment more difficult to maintain, and increases the risk of having “multiple versions of the truth.”
YES
• MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows business users to intuitively visualize, filter, and drill into their data. The drag-anddrop, WYSIWYG interface allows business users to make data driven decision quickly and without any IT involvement.
YES
• WYSIWYG design or modification is not supported over the Web. Only basic actions like filtering, sorting, and exporting can be performed from the Web interface.
LIMITED
• Report developers can reuse all existing business logic across the entire platform rather than spending time recreating business logic.
◗
• Tableau does not support automatic drillanywhere capabilities. Drilling is available automatically only on time dimensions.
NO
• Easy What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) formatting allows business users to format reports at runtime without IT support.
YES
• Prompting is not supported by Tableau. Only basic element list prompts can be simulated by means of filters. Object prompts (like column and filter prompting), hierarchy prompts, and metric level prompts are not supported. This results in creating and publishing more views of reports than necessary.
LIMITED
• Business users can automatically drill anywhere to any data source without IT hard coding.
YES
TABLEAU 7
◗
• Tableau provides very limited capabilities to perform customizations.
• Customizations are managed in a central location and can be upgraded with minimal IT effort. Automated Deployment
YES
NO
• Automated life cycle management tool synchronizes objects across development, test, and production environments thus greatly reducing manual work associated with BI deployments.
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• Tableau does not provide automated life cycle management tools.
Minimizing Deployment Effort
KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY Data Import from the Web Interface
Single Server
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
• MicroStrategy Data Import functionality is for business users and provides the ability to easily import data from local files or relational databases and quickly converts them into dashboards or visualizations without any IT involvement.
• Tableau does not provide Web-based data import functionality. As a result, Tableau end users will have to either depend on the IT for creating and uploading analysis to the Tableau server or install the Tableau desktop thick client for accessing data and creating analysis on their own.
YES
YES
NO
LIMITED
• A centralized server dramatically reduces administrative effort and complexity.
Minimizing Administration Effort
Single Point of Administration
Out-of-the-Box Systemwide Monitoring
YES
Automated Report and Data Integrity Checking
Highly Reusable Business Metadata
Scalable In-Memory ROLAP Architecture
Automatic Change Management
YES
YES
YES
YES
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• Tableau does not have an scalable inmemory ROLAP architecture.
NO
•M icroStrategy’s unified platform and objectoriented development method ensure that a change is propagated to all related objects, ensuring one “version of the truth” with minimal IT maintenance effort.
• Tableau provides very limited metadata reusability. This forces report developers to spend more time redundantly creating report objects.
NO
• MicroStrategy customers can instantly leverage multiple types of data assets without moving data.
• Tableau does not provide automated regression testing tools to detect report and data discrepancies. Tableau developers have to manually ensure report and data consistency.
NO
• IT staff have to maintain only one business metadata object in one place, and this one definition is reused across the entire platform to reduce IT maintenance efforts.
• Tableau does not provide a scripting interface to automate repetitive administration task. As a result, administration workload increases.
NO
• MicroStrategy administrators can uncover inconsistencies or errors before business users see them while reducing 98% of manual regression testing efforts.
◗
• Tableau provides the capabilities to log and monitor activity on the server. However, it does not provide prebuilt system performance dashboards and reports that allow the administrators to analyze system usage data down to the details and to easily optimize resources. • Automatic change management is not supported out-of-the-box.
NO
• Reduces repetitive and time consuming administrative tasks through automated command line scripts.
YES
• Security has to be defined redundantly for each Tableau workbook and there is no way to centrally apply security across the entire Tableau deployment, resulting in redundant administration efforts.
LIMITED
• Prebuilt system performance dashboards allow the administrator to immediately analyze system usage data down to the details and to easily optimize resources.
◗
• Tableau’s server supports only creating analysis and visualizations. Tableau does not support all styles of BI through its server.
NO
• Administrators need to create users and security settings once and these settings apply to the entire MicroStrategy platform without requiring duplicate IT efforts.
• Automatically logs object change history without requiring IT staff efforts, easing auditing process.
Automated Scripting Control
Minimizing Maintenance Effort
YES
• Tableau’s lack of a common reusable metadata layer creates a maintenance challenge as changes to common business logic are not automatically propagated to the entire BI deployment. Tableau developers are typically forced to continually and manually synchronize metric definitions across the entire deployment.
2. ALL USER NEEDS THROUGH A SINGLE PLATFORM The ideal architecture for business intelligence is the one that provides organizations with a single and cohesive model of the business that can be automatically displayed through any user interface. MicroStrategy users have the option to access a single “version of the truth” through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces. MicroStrategy 9 includes a newly re-engineered Web user interface that is designed to be faster, more powerful, and more personalized than ever before. The MicroStrategy 9 Web architecture boasts a wide range of performance-enhancing changes that make the user interface interactive and instantly responsive to user requests.
Five Styles of Business Intelligence Through a Single Platform
Scorecards & Dashboards
Enterprise Repor4ng
• Opera4onal Dashboards • Dynamic Scorecards • Metrics Management
• Page‐perfect Opera4onal Repor4ng • Pixel‐perfect Business Repor4ng • Print‐perfect Statements & Invoices
OLAP Analysis & Visual Explora4on
• Visual Explora4on • Slice & Dice Inves4ga4ve Analysis • Root Cause Determina4on
Data Mining & Predic4ve Analysis
• Ad Hoc Analysis • Predic4ve Analysis • Data Mining
Mobile Apps & Aler4ng
• • • •
Mobile Applica4ons Massive Informa4on Distribu4on iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, email Excep4on‐based Alerts
Figure 3: Users Can Seamlessly Traverse All Styles of BI from a Unified Platform and a Single Interface
“
MicroStrategy’s long history and devotion to producing world-class business intelligence technology provided us with extreme confidence that we are making the right decision for our casino partners. MicroStrategy’s interactive dashboards with advanced data visualizations will allow our clients to view complex data in an easily understood and graphically appealing manner to improve decision-making. In addition, we look forward to implementing MicroStrategy’s Mobile BI on the BlackBerry®, iPhone®, and iPad®, which will give
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our customers far greater flexibility in business intelligence than is currently available today.
– President, Aristocrat Technologies
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KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards
YES
• Dashboards integrated with industrial-strength BI platform
Dashboards are created using reports and objects from MicroStrategy’s single metadata. Intelligence Server provides its sophisticated processing, security, caching, and analytical capabilities.
Tableau dashboards cannot be created over the Web and requires a thick client for development. Dashboards do not support Pixel Perfect positioning. This creates a development challenge and leads to suboptimal utilization of screen real estate.
• Fast WYSIWYG Pixel Perfect™ design • Single design environment • Automatically drill anywhere in any data source from the dashboard • Native parallel Flash and DHTML visualizations • Multiple layers of analysis • Multi-layout dashboards • Automatic multi-panel filtering • Dashboard templates reduce design time • Dashboard output caching in HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash for instantaneous response
Rapid Comprehension of Data Through Advanced Visualizations • Out-of-the-box library of advanced visualizations • Automatic drilling from visualizations • Easy to create and deploy customized widgets • Flexible properties support different types of data comparisons • Extensible library of visualizations and widgets created by 3rd parties • Customizable advanced visualizations and widgets
LIMITED
Users design dashboards from MicroStrategy’s single Web interface using already familiar design paradigm. Dashboards are created in a Pixel Perfect, zero-footprint Web interface, WYSIWYG and freeform layout. MicroStrategy dashboards provide high interactivity via selector controls that allow users to dynamically apply filters to all dashboard components and to synchronize data across multiple analytical layers of information. Users can automatically drill throughout the full depth and breadth of the data warehouse to obtain more detailed information or view related information. MicroStrategy dashboards provide multipanel and multi-tab layers for various views of data. Multiple dashboards can also be assembled into a single dashboard book. MicroStrategy 9 dashboard templates provide reusable starting points with sophisticated formatting that can make any business user a dashboard designer. Pre-calculated dashboards are cached for instant viewing in HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash.
YES
Tableau desktop lets users automatically drill up and down within the time dimension. However, drill hierarchies have to be pre-defined for other dimensions. Drilling can only be performed up or down within the same hierarchy. It is not possible to drill from one hierarchy to another. Exporting Tableau dashboard to Flash for interactive offline analysis is not possible. In order to view a dashboard user will either require the desktop client or will have to log into the Tableau Web. Sending interactive dashboards as an email attachment is also not supported. Tableau dashboards support multiple tabs. However, multiple layers of analysis within the same tab is not supported, resulting in suboptimal utilization of dashboard real estate. Dashboard templates are not present to reduce dashboard development time and efforts.
LIMITED
MicroStrategy 9 provides an out-of-thebox library of advanced visualizations and widgets that enhance the understanding of complex data and highlight patterns and trends. MicroStrategy provides a library of advanced visualizations, including Bullet Graphs, Micro Charts, Interactive Heat Maps, Interactive Bubble Charts, Grid of Graphs, Bubbles Grid, RSS, Fish Eye, Media, Cloud, Time Slider, and Stack Area Charts. All visualizations have drilling capabilities and enable users to select data elements that filter out other areas of the dashboard. Each MicroStrategy widget has flexible capabilities and properties that enable users to immediately identify or further investigate trends or anomalies in the data. For example, the Heat Map widget incorporates OLAP technology that enables users to filter data based on numeric values. MicroStrategy customers can extend the advanced visualizations library by importing 3rd party visualizations. Advanced dashboard designers can edit or create their own visualizations or widgets. The widgets are built using the power of Adobe® Flash® and are part of MicroStrategy’s single platform.
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◗
◗
Tableau provide limited out-of-the-box library of advanced visualizations. Tableau does not provide Gauges, Waterfall widgets, Funnel Graphs, RSS Readers, Media, Data Clouds, Time Series Sliders (they have very basic time series visualization), Interactive Stacked Graphs, and Weighted List Viewers. Tableau provides limited selector controls. Also, nesting of selectors is not supported. Tableau lacks Fish Eye Selector, Date Selectors, Radio Buttons, Button Bars, and Link Bars. Tableau does not allow extending or importing visualizations.
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
Robust Enterprise Reporting
YES
• Pixel Perfect absolute positioning
MicroStrategy offers comprehensive report styles for banded reports. These documents are highly interactive, providing in-place OLAP analysis through pivoting, drilling, and Excel-like formatting toolbars.
Tableau does not provide Enterprise Reporting capabilities and is limited to only ad-hoc visual analysis of data and basic dashboard development. Creating highly formatted, pixel perfect reports, is not supported.
• OLAP-enabled grids and graphs • Horizontal and vertical display of data • Desktop publishing formatting • Advanced Export to Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or PDF • High quality printing • Templates for rapid design
NO
Highly formatted documents are built using common desktop publishing paradigms such as rulers and Pixel Perfect positioning, all in a zero-footprint Web.
MicroStrategy’s export to PDF capabilities support advanced PDF features such as table of contents and watermarks. Export to Excel supports export of multiple document layouts to multiple Excel worksheets. Print-perfect reports can be printed exactly as seen to any network printer. MicroStrategy documents can be printed horizontally or vertically. Users can dynamically change the page layout, apply fit-to-page functionality, and customize headers and footers for any report. MicroStrategy provides out-of-the-box templates and the ability to create custom templates in order to decrease design time. These templates can be saved and shared across multiple projects.
Information Delivery and Proactive Notification • Ability to self-subscribe and subscribe others to report deliveries • Alerting and thresholds • Wide range of output types: Web, e-mail, print, fax, wireless, and file server • Report bursting • Portal integration, with support for portal servers including: Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere
YES
NO
Users can subscribe themselves and other users to personalized reports and alerts. Report deliveries can be triggered by dynamic events, exception thresholds, or time schedules. Personalized content can be delivered via portal, print, email, wireless, or file servers. MicroStrategy’s platform leverages highly scalable technology that slices a single report and dynamically bursts personalized information to the right users. Reusing a single report across hundreds of users saves processing resources. Portal integration is available out-of-thebox, with support for portal servers such as Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere. Portlet-to-portlet communication is also available out-of-the-box, making it easier to inject BI into a portal.
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Tableau does not support native report bursting features and does not provide the ability to self-subscribe, or subscribe others to personalized reports or alerts based on dynamic events, exception thresholds, or time schedules. Tableau Server does not provide the capabilities to send alerts to end users via mail or mobile devices when a threshold condition is met or a KPI exception happens.
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS Flexible and Powerful OLAP Interactivity • Drill anywhere fosters investigative analysis • Derived elements and derived metrics for on-the-fly calculations and groupings • View filters for quick data filtering • On the fly creation of derived elements, custom groups, subtotals, etc. • Built-in financial and statistical functions
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an extensive set of data manipulation options to allow the user to delve deeply into a report to identify and discover important trends and patterns in the data. Users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse for boundary-free investigative analysis.
Tableau does not support automatic drill-anywhere functionality. Drilling is automatically enabled only on the time dimension. In order to create drill paths Tableau developers have to predefine hierarchies using the desktop interface. The pre-defined hierarchies only allow drilling up and down within the same hierarchy. Users cannot drill from one hierarchy to another.
YES
LIMITED
New derived metrics, derived attribute element groups, filters, and subtotals can be created on-the-fly using existing metrics and attributes in the report. This functionality makes it possible for users to perform new calculations, custom groupings, and filtering directly on the report at the speed of thought. MicroStrategy’s analytical engine provides hundreds of built-in financial, statistical, and mathematical functions.
◗
Tableau does not recommend modeling the entire database at once as it is a subject-oriented analysis tool, i.e. a tool for performing analysis on only the subject at hand. Because of this reason, there are typically 100’s of small datasets floating across the tableau deployment. Drill hierarchies have to be individually defined and maintained for each of these datasets as the hierarchies are not common across the entire deployment. This also means that users are restricted to performing analysis within a given dataset and cannot seamlessly drill into the entire breadth and depth of the corporate data, limiting their investigative analysis capabilities. New objects like new metrics, derived metrics, subtotals, or new reports cannot be created from the Tableau Web interface, and as such, the analysis capability of end users is significantly constrained.
Seamless Microsoft Office Integration • All Office products supported (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook) • Leverage all BI reports and reporting objects • Full new report creation • Ability to save logic created in Excel back to enterprise metadata • Persistent and interchangeable formatting across Office and Web • Server based configuration for client settings, user, host, and IP address settings
YES
LIMITED
MicroStrategy delivers the complete reporting and analysis environment to Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook users. MicroStrategy Office applications are linked to MicroStrategy security and administration, ensuring 100% data consistency across the enterprise. Users are able to access existing reports or create new ones from within Microsoft Office applications. Changes made through Microsoft Office are immediately reflected across MicroStrategy Office and Web interfaces and can be saved to the enterprise business logic metadata layer. Microsoft Office formatting changes are preserved after automatic data updates. The Web administrator can set client side settings and security. Users can change their passwords through the familiar Microsoft Office interface.
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◗
Tableau provides the ability to export data to Excel. However, it does not support exporting the data in its original format. Graphs and charts can be exported as images. Tableau users cannot access existing reports or create new reports from within the Microsoft Office applications and cannot save logic and formatting created in Excel back to the Tableau metadata.
3. SELF-SERVICE THROUGH A FAST AND INTUITIVE WEB INTERFACE MicroStrategy 9 provides capabilities for business personnel to create their own ad hoc report designs easily from their Web browser. Using drag-and-drop actions through the MicroStrategy 9 Web interface, any business person can assemble virtually any report by adding attributes and metrics to a simple report template without the need to know any technical details about the data or the underlying databases. With MicroStrategy 9, business users also have the ability to interactively build analysis with dozens of visualization options. To enhance usability, the MicroStrategy 9 Web user interface adopts many familiar Microsoft paradigms, including ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, controlclick multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions. MicroStrategy Provides End Users with a Fast and Intuitive User Experience
Add/Remove Add/Remove Attributes • • A*ributes • • Metrics Metrics
Many Views Easily Filter Easily filter data data
Drop Zones for Drop Zones for multidimensional mulCdimensional analysis analysis
Visually analyze data or Visually Analyze Data or use OLAP enabled grids use OLAP enabled Grids
Figure 4: Design and Format a MicroStrategy Report Using a Fast and Intuitive User Interface
MicroStrategy’s next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business users. Business users can easily import their personal or corporate data directly from the MicroStrategy Web interface and quickly convert the raw data into insightful visual analyses, reports, or dashboards. The MicroStrategy Visual Insight interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations, drag-and-drop manipulations, and instant results – thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions.
“
We were impressed with MicroStrategy’s self-service architecture, ease-of-use, highly visual dashboards, and mobile reporting that allows us to put the analytics and reporting in the hands of the business user. MicroStrategy’s history in the business intelligence sphere also gave us confidence that we had chosen
”
the right technology partner.
– IT Specialist at Silverstar Casinos
15
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
MICROSTRATEGY 9
User-Friendly Interface
YES
• Drag-and-drop actions
The MicroStrategy Web interface leverages many familiar, user-friendly paradigms, including folder-tree navigation, ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, control-click multi-select capabilities, and context-sensitive rightclick actions.
• One-click access • Familiar Microsoft paradigms • Tree view navigation • Ribbon toolbars and menus • Accordion controls • Personalized interface • User collaboration capabilities • Context-sensitive online help • Sophisticated formatting for final report presentation
TABLEAU 7
LIMITED
MicroStrategy 9 enables collaboration via comments that can be added to reports to provide instructions to other users and to share information. Every report can maintain and display a set of notes with details on who left the note and when. MicroStrategy provides users comprehensive, context-sensitive help throughout the interface.
◗
Tableau provides an intuitive and user friendly interface. However, the capabilities provided are very limited. For example, Tableau Web users cannot create new reports, format existing reports, or add new metrics to existing reports. This severely limits the end user analysis capabilities and makes them dependent on the IT department. If the end users want to create their own analysis they will have to install and learn the Tableau desktop thick client. Installing the Tableau desktop thick client is not practical in case of large scale deployments with 100s of information consumers.
MicroStrategy Web allows users to format reports and save custom format styles. These include row-level headers, row-level values, column-level headers, columnlevel values, metric headers, metric values, subtotal headers, subtotal values, custom groups, consolidation, and reports. Self-Service Web Interface
YES
• Fully interactive interface with controls for data formatting, manipulation, and analysis
MicroStrategy puts wide-ranging control in the hands of business users, minimizing the need for IT personnel to perform the same functions. Business users are able to rapidly create, manipulate, format, and analyze any report themselves, all through a single Web interface. Report objects such as prompts, filters, derived metrics, thresholds, and totals can also be created over the Web. Individual columns and rows on a grid can be selected quickly and users can easily format, drill, pivot, and perform other tasks on-the-fly.
• Real-time changes without a publishing process • Creation of report objects, such as prompts and filters, over the Web • What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) design and editing of any report type over the Web • Zero-footprint Web interface from any browser
LIMITED
Changes are available right away without any need to publish or export information to other environments. Business users create highly formatted reports using any metadata object using a zero-footprint, WYSIWYG design paradigm that drastically shortens report development time. MicroStrategy Web is zero-footprint, and does not rely on Java or ActiveX. As a result, report designers and business users can use any browser to design and interact with reports.
◗
Tableau users have limited options to analyze and modify data over the Web. Users can only sort, export, filter, and refresh data. Users cannot format the visualizations that are published to the Web or change the visualization styles. Further, users cannot create or modify visualizations, filters, prompts, metrics, thresholds, or subtotals over the Web limiting their data analysis capabilities. As a result of this limitation: • Only a select few can actually create analysis (as the desktop license is expensive), this also means that end user requests will have to be routed through a professional developer requiring unnecessary iterations before business users can actually get to the point of performing analysis. • In scenarios requiring large scale rollouts, end users will most likely use the Web client which provides very basic capabilities (filtering, sorting, etc). Users cannot modify the analysis to perform ad-hoc analysis thus missing most of the benefits that visual analysis tools offer. WYSIWYG design or modification is not supported over the Web. Visualizations must be published to Tableau server for consumption through Web. Realtime changes without a publishing process is not supported by Tableau.
16
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS Advanced Self-Service Functionality • Data Import • Visual Insight
MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES
TABLEAU 7
LIMITED
The Data Import and Visual Insight functionality is designed to give more control to business users. Business users can convert raw data into decisions in minutes and without assistance from the IT department. Using Data Import functionality, business users can easily import personal or corporate data from local files, Excel files, or relational databases through the MicroStrategy Web interface. The imported data can be easily converted into interactive reports or dashboards without any IT assistance.
◗
Tableau does not provide the capability to import data from the Web interface, desktop client is required to set up connections to data sources. As a result, end users will have to make requests to the IT department to set up access to data sources as they will not be able to import personal or corporate data that they want to analyze directly from the Web interface. Similarly, Tableau does not provide the capability to build visual analysis through the Web interface. This severely limits the end user self-service capabilities.
MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows business users to visually identify patterns, trends, and anomalies in data. Business users can intuitively query, visualize, filter, and drill into their data. A drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG interface enables business users to visualize the changes as they are made. MicroStrategy Visual Insight provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, detailed visualizations, and instant query results, thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions.
LIMITED
Instant Response to User Actions
YES
• Extreme AJAX Web interface
The MicroStrategy Web architecture adheres to an Extreme AJAX model, shifting processing from the Web server to the Web browser for any browser type. By spreading the processing workload, the user is given a much more responsive and interactive Web experience while still preserving a true zero-footprint Web interface.
• High degree of client-side processing while maintaining a zero-footprint Web client
17
◗
Tableau supports a zero-footprint Web interface. However, the functionality supported by the Web interface is limited to basic actions like sorting and filtering.
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
YES
In MicroStrategy, a single report can span hundreds of possible data combinations tailored to different user needs.
Prompting is not supported by Tableau. Only basic element list prompts can be simulated by means of filters.
• Personal answers saved for reuse across different reports
MicroStrategy prompts provide report input parameters that control most aspects of a report, and give the user significant ad hoc reporting capabilities. Prompts enable the personalization of reports from a single report definition, reducing the number of objects stored in the metadata repository.
Object prompts (like column and filter prompting), hierarchy prompts, and metric
• Security profiles personalize report content for individual users
NO
Dynamic Report Personalization • Comprehensive parameter and question prompting (column, filter, search based, value, hierarchical)
• Advanced report parameters, like object (column) and hierarchy prompts, allow users to select the business attributes and KPIs to include in the report at run-time.
level prompts are not supported. This results in creating and publishing more views of reports than necessary. On the other hand, with MicroStrategy, a single highly prompted report can suffice the analysis requirements of thousands of users across multiple departments. Furthermore, Tableau does not provide a standalone prompt object that can be reused across the entire deployment or across multiple Tableau data sources.
• MicroStrategy Web displays prompt values and report contents that are permitted by the user's security profile. For example, when running a prompted report, dashboard, or document, the user can only select prompt answers that he has permission to see. In a similar way, when running a report, only the metrics and attributes that the user has permission to see will be displayed to the user.
4. HIGH PERFORMANCE AT ANY SCALE MicroStrategy technology has long been the performance leader at high user counts and data scale. MicroStrategy 9 continues and extends that leadership with adaptive caching technology called In-memory ROLAP and SQL generation optimizations that can deliver the highest query performance, even when accessing hundreds of terabytes of data. In-memory ROLAP takes advantage of the huge addressable memory space now available on 64bit computers to provide high performance middle-tier databases that can respond directly to data requests from reports, dashboards, and OLAP analyses.
“
We look forward to using MicroStrategy 9 In-memory ROLAP technology to help us improve our user
”
experience with faster response times and to take unnecessary pressure off our Teradata system. – Manager of BI Architecture, eBay
18
In-Memory BI Fills a Void in the Performance Curve of a BI System
BEFORE IN-MEMORY BI Database Query
AFTER IN-MEMORY BI Database Query
Slower Response Time
In-memory Query
Output Caching
Report Caching
Data Set Caching
Faster Response Time
Output Caching
Report Caching
Data Set Caching
In-memory
On-Disk
In-memory
Caching
Query
Caching
On-Disk Query
Figure 5: MicroStrategy In-Memory BI Provides the Combination of Fast Response Time from Multidimensional Caching and the Flexibility of Ad Hoc Query BI
ROLAP is unique among BI architectures in that it can model whole relational databases as if they were a single multi-dimensional cube. In this case, the cube is virtual since relational databases often contain terabytes of data that could not fit within any physical cube technology. MicroStrategy’s virtual cube provides MicroStrategy users with the ability to perform OLAP interactions with the data and drill freely throughout the vast virtual cube without the severe size limitations of MOLAP architectures.
“
MicroStrategy’s new In-memory ROLAP option is game changing. Unlike other in-memory approaches on the market today, it is fully integrated with an enterprise BI environment and provides high performance transparently to business users. The way in which large amounts of data are stored and accessed in-memory is so seamless that I was skeptical until I saw the actual SQL generated and witnessed the performance.
– Cindi Howson, Founder of BIScorecard
”
MicroStrategy 9 Multisource ROLAP Allows Data Environments to be Optimized for Performance and Cost Supporting Hub and Spoke Data Architectures
Balance the Workload Across Databases
MicroStrategy Virtual Cube
MicroStrategy Virtual Cube
Sybase IQ
MySQL
Netezza
Marketing Data Mart
Mfg Data Mart
SQL Server
SQL Server
DB2
Enterprise Data Whse
Financial Data Mart
Sales Data Mart
Lookups, Aggregates, Summary Data
Teradata
Enterprise Data Warehouse
Figure 6: MicroStrategy Multisource ROLAP Helps Decrease Time to Value by incorporating Hub and Spoke Architectures and Decrease Cost by Switching Database Processing from the Enterprise Data Warehouse to Alternative Lower Cost Databases.
19
Successful BI systems often experience dramatic growth in user populations. It is increasingly common for a single MicroStrategy BI installation to support thousands and even tens of thousands of business users. The technical challenge in these circumstances is to be able to efficiently accommodate thousands of concurrent user sessions while providing high performance and easy administration. MicroStrategy 9 supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. The dramatically expanded memory available in 64-bit JVMs supports many more concurrent user sessions, and allows users to display and interact with larger reports and dashboards.
“
The most critical factor for our organization is the speed with which we can react to the needs of the business. MicroStrategy enables our executives and other business users to run reports and analyses
within seconds, which in turn, allows our employees to make timely decisions that dramatically impact the business. Also, our high performance BI environment encourages the use of BI across the company,
”
providing greater visibility into the business for more employees.
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
– Chief Information Officer, FAMIQ
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
Quick Response Time
YES
• In-memory ROLAP
MicroStrategy’s In-memory ROLAP capabilities leverage 64-bit operating systems to improve the overall performance of the BI system. In-memory ROLAP cubes improve the performance of the most time-consuming and frequently used queries, while still allowing users to seamlessly navigate the entire data warehouse.
Tableau does not provide a in-memory ROLAP architecture. Tableau is a Windows application and it does not support other platforms. As a result, Tableau cannot take full advantage of the existing hardware infrastructure.
• Dynamic sourcing • Dynamic multi-level caching
LIMITED
When building a report, the report developer never has to explicitly reference an In-memory ROLAP cube. Dynamic sourcing capabilities automatically direct queries to In-memory ROLAP cubes whenever possible. Administrators can be assured that the In-memory ROLAP cubes they create will automatically and immediately improve overall query performance. MicroStrategy provides automatic caching at multiple levels, including element list, metadata object, report dataset, XML definition, document output, and database connection caching. Caching makes the entire BI system efficient by reducing redundant computations and network traffic.
20
◗
Tableau does provide a tool similar to MicroStrategy to automatically recommend and create in-memory cubes based on the usage statistics to maximize the performance gains. Tableau’s caching capabilities are limited and it does not support caching the metadata objects, or caching of element lists. In a clustered environment the caches are not shared across the different nodes. The options provided for cache configurations are also limited.
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
High Performance ROLAP Engine
YES
• Push-down joins
MicroStrategy’s ROLAP architecture uses the database for much of its processing. Data joins and analytic calculations are processed in the database whenever possible. MicroStrategy’s multi-pass approach provides the flexibility to answer analytical questions in an optimal manner. Any technical advances in the database are seamlessly accessible to the MicroStrategy platform. By leveraging the database to its fullest extent possible, large volumes of transaction level data are processed efficiently and network traffic is minimized.
Tableau does not recommend its customers to model the entire database and positions itself as a “subject-oriented” analysis tool. Tableau SQL engine is not designed to handle complex datasets and is suitable for only simple datasets with a single fact table. As a result, Tableau is limited in its ability to answer complex business question involving data from multiple fact tables and complex datasets.
• Push-down analytics • Multi-pass SQL • Support for all implementations of multi-pass SQL, including the use of temp tables, derived tables, and common table expressions • Minimize network traffic • Automatic aggregate awareness • Database-specific SQL generation and optimization through VLDB drivers
Market Proven Enterprise Scalability and Performance • Native 64-bit BI processing • 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) support • Server Clustering for failover recovery and load balancing • Customer references for large user and data scale production deployments
LIMITED
Automatic and intelligent support for common data warehouse optimization techniques like aggregate tables and table partitioning ensures that the MicroStrategy SQL engine maximizes database usage for every analysis. VLDB properties allow for further fine-tuning of the SQL engine on both a global and report-by-report basis. Through VLDB drivers, MicroStrategy can optimize table join sequences, databases’ parallel execution capabilities, query optimization hints, and other database-specific tuning parameters. Global SQL query optimization algorithms optimize complex queries to reduce the number of SQL passes, providing further performance improvement to queries.
YES
Tableau does not support database specific SQL generation or database specific optimizations using VLDB settings. MicroStrategy on the other, hand has implemented unique optimizations for all major database vendor including Aster, Vertica, Greenplum, Netezza, and Teradata. Tableau does not support multisource pushdown joining capability. When accessing multiple sources using Tableau, the data is pulled from each individual data source to the mid-tier and then joins are performed on-the-fly by the mid-tier client, resulting in unnecessary network conjunctions and inefficient data processing. Calculations like percent to total or dimensional/level metrics are not performed at the database level; rather, these types of calculations are computed on-the-fly by the Tableau mid-tier, resulting in wasteful utilization of the database processing power.
NO
The MicroStrategy platform is designed for enterprise scalability. Native 64-bit processing allows MicroStrategy to support large numbers of users and data volumes while improving performance. MicroStrategy supports native 64-bit processing for all major operating systems, and across the entire BI platform. MicroStrategy also fully supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. The expanded memory available in 64-bit JVMs allows for optimal Web performance across the enterprise. One server can maintain more concurrent user sessions and run much larger reports, reducing overall hardware costs. A cluster-capable server provides load balancing and automatic failover capabilities, so system resources are allocated efficiently and system uptime is maximized. MicroStrategy clustered servers support asymmetric configurations, so each cluster node can support different applications. All cluster nodes share caches and in-memory cubes and all changes made to the metadata objects and security settings take effect immediately. MicroStrategy has many customer references for deployments to thousands of users who are reporting and analyzing tens of terabytes of data.
21
◗
Tableau supports 64-bit for data loading but does not support 64-bit processing for data rendering. As a result, Tableau cannot take full advantage of 64-bit hardware, limiting its performance and scalability. Tableau does not offer scalable and high performing in-memory ROLAP architecture. As a result, Tableau deployments are typically departmental with low data volumes and limited number of users. Tableau is a Windows only application and therefore deployment options are limited. The distributed configuration of Tableau Server helps with performance, but does not help with reliability. Tableau does not provide fail-over of the application database; if the primary machine goes down, the cluster as a whole is inoperative. Tableau has limited customer references for large scale user and data implementations and is typically used in small departmental deployments.
5. QUICK TO IMPLEMENT AND DEPLOY, EASY TO MAINTAIN AND ADMINISTER MicroStrategy 9 can deliver BI solutions quickly with little or no IT support. MicroStrategy’s unified BI architecture offers many IT timesaving features including object reuse and optimized administration. MicroStrategy 9 allows organizations to create a single shared business logic layer, the metadata, which presents a single cohesive model of the business. Object reuse across the entire platform facilitates faster application development. Object reuse across the entire platform also minimizes IT maintenance effort, since IT only needs to maintain one object instead of several (or several hundred) object copies. Object reuse ensures a single “version of the truth” that persists across all reports, dashboards, and analyses, regardless of who creates them.
MicroStrategy Allows Report Designers to Create Reusable Metadata Components Range of Metadata Elements Used in Reports
MicroStrategy
Other BI Technologies
REPORT DESIGN Layout Format Calculations
ReportSpecific Components
REPORT COMPONENTS Parameterization Templates Filters Autostyles
BUSINESS ABSTRACTION Metrics
Reusable Metadata Components
ReportSpecific Components
Hierarchies Custom Groupings Transformations DATA ABSTRACTION Attributes Facts Tables
Reusable Metadata Components
Aliases
Figure 7: The More Comprehensive the Reusable Metadata, the More an Enterprise can Ensure Fast and Managed Development
MicroStrategy designed its architecture to minimize administration overhead through capabilities such as a single administration point, reusable and automated cell level data security, and automatic internationalization features. A central point of control across the entire platform reduces overhead. MicroStrategy’s universally-applied reusable security system protects the privacy of the data and dynamically filters out data from any report based on the security profile of each business user. MicroStrategy 9 offers the ability to automatically present every report, dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business user viewing the information without requiring any additional design work by report authors. MicroStrategy capabilities, such as centralization and automation, allow administrators to deliver secure BI to any user base, whether to a department or to thousands of users, with minimal IT effort. any additional design work by report authors. MicroStrategy capabilities, such as centralization and automation, allow administrators to deliver secure BI to any user base, whether to a department or to thousands of users, with minimal IT effort.
“
The new BI system has reduced the time we spend on monthly reporting by more than 50%. There is now
”
more time to spend on operations and innovation.
22
– IT Specialist, Silverstar Casino
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
MICROSTRATEGY 9
Unified BI Architecture
YES
• Single interface provides seamless integration of analytics and reporting for root cause analysis
MicroStrategy’s single code base offers reusable business logic across the entire platform. For example, MicroStrategy’s dashboards can be made from existing reports and objects, speeding development and ensuring consistency of report logic across reports and dashboards.
• Single metadata reduces IT effort • Single Server • Single code base across platforms • Single, zero-footprint Web interface
LIMITED
• MicroStrategy’s single BI server provides efficient, centralized administration for the IT administrator. A single server with fewer moving parts and processes translates into less downtime. Reusable and Rich Metadata Layer
YES
• Robust abstraction layer where all physical constructs can be modeled logically and hidden from the business user
MicroStrategy’s object-oriented metadata defines an enterprise’s business layer in a single repository. Metadata objects can be nested as building blocks to create more complex objects. If a metadata object changes, every other metadata object dependent on it automatically changes. This ensures consistency across business definitions and minimizes the number of objects to create and maintain.
• Highly reusable metadata • Automatic change management • Object-oriented metadata
TABLEAU 7
Tableau is limited in its ability to provide all five styles of BI. For example, Tableau cannot generate the complete range of enterprise reports (highly structured, multi-page reports); and provides limited capabilities to deliver sophisticated userdriven alerting.
NO
MicroStrategy assembles all metadata objects necessary for a report and dynamically builds the report SQL at run-time. Complex queries, such as set qualifications, dimensional calculations, and custom groupings, are created easily without requiring manual SQL coding.
23
◗
Tableau’s lack of object reusability makes the BI environment more difficult to maintain, and increases the risk of having “multiple versions of the truth.”
Tableau’s lack of a unified object oriented metadata results in redundant development and maintenance efforts. There is little object or metadata reusability between dashboards making it difficult to maintain a consistent business view of the data. One change to a business definition would involve making changes to each Tableau application one by one, a mistake-prone and onerous process. The lack of object reusability makes the BI environment more difficult to maintain, and increases the risk of having “multiple versions of the truth.”
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
Enterprise-Caliber Administration
YES
• Single management console
MicroStrategy’s centralized administration provides a single console for real-time user and system management. Administrators can view and perform tasks on many system-wide activities, including executing jobs, user management, and scheduled services.
In order to be data scalable, simply being able process large volumes of data is insufficient. Large data volumes are typically associated with
• Self-tuning scalable server for maximum performance • Impact analysis • Usage monitoring / auditing • Controlled environment for usage analysis • Object management / migration • Change journaling • Automated regression testing • Optimization of In-Memory ROLAP environment
LIMITED
MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager provides out-of-the box platform monitoring with hundreds of KPIs and corresponding dashboards to perform impact analysis, auditing and tuning of the BI application. MicroStrategy Object Manager facilitates metadata life cycle management, metadata dependencies, and project management. MicroStrategy’s change journaling system captures and logs all changes to the metadata. Change tracking is critical for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Persistent commenting allows distributed development teams to communicate with one another about their changes. MicroStrategy Integrity Manager automates the report comparison process and verifies the consistency of reports. This tool can detect, compare, and present inconsistencies in reports and data caused by changes in the BI ecosystem. Discrepancies in data values, SQL, and graph display are highlighted. Cube Advisor recommends and automatically creates an optimal set of In-Memory Cubes to reduce database processing and improve response times.
Industrial-Strength Multi-level Security • One, reusable setup for platform-wide cell level data security • Same report yields different views of the information based on user profiles • User profile determines appropriate level of functionality • Truly zero-footprint Web interface. No use or download of ActiveX and other plug-ins • Automatic secure extranet ready with 128-bit encryption • Integrate with any security infrastructure with single sign-on
YES
• Complex Schema • Many tables and columns • Sophisticated analytical needs • Large number of users (which typically translates to more reports to maintain) Tableau is typically difficult to administer under these conditions. Tableau’s capabilities to queue and prioritize jobs are limited. As a result, the administrator has little control to prevent the server from being overtaxed or to properly prioritize resource allocation. Tableau provides system statistics to the administrator – for example, how many users are logged in and how many jobs are running. However, Tableau does not allow the administrator to manually log out users or kill jobs. In short, the Tableau administrator can monitor the system, but has little power to act. Tableau does not support change journaling capabilities out-of-thebox and does not provide object management and migration capabilities to move selected objects from development to production projects. Tableau does not provide automated regression testing tools to detect report and data discrepancies caused by changes in the BI system.
LIMITED
MicroStrategy provides centralized security administration across the entire platform. Reusable user profiles and privileges automatically ensure users only access the appropriate information and functionality down to the data cell level. MicroStrategy automatically provides 128-bit end-to-end encryption with a zero-footprint Web client, making it a secure platform behind the firewall. MicroStrategy automatically integrates with existing security authentication infrastructure such as LDAP, NT, Windows Active Directory, Tivoli, CA SiteMinder, and database security.
24
◗
◗
Security has to be defined redundantly for each Tableau workbook and there is no way to centrally apply security across the entire Tableau deployment. It is not possible to centrally apply access control privileges to individual objects like metrics, filters, prompts, or custom groups across the entire deployment.
KEY BI REQUIREMENTS Easy to Maintain Global Deployments • Native support for multilingual deployments • Configurable translations for multiple content categories, including the interface, error messages, date/number formatting, metadata objects, and report data • Integrated interfaces and wizards to input translations or import translation strings • Support for partially translated metadata • Flexible support for multiple data warehouse translation methods • Internationalization-aware data precalculations
Easy to Customize and Migrate Seamlessly • Single development environment for entire platform • Easy to create and upgrade customizations via Web Customization editor • Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) integration • Flex Builder support • Extensive API documentation
MICROSTRATEGY 9
TABLEAU 7
MicroStrategy offers the ability to dynamically present every report, dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business user viewing the information.
Tableau currently only supports English, French and German and has very limited international presence.
YES
NO
Translation wizards and interfaces make it easy for end users to input or import translation strings into the metadata. Translations can be performed incrementally; fallback language settings allow for partially translated metadata.
Tableau does not provide integrated interfaces and wizards to manage multilingual deployments.
Multiple methods of data warehouse translations are supported, including translations at the column-level, row level, table-level, and database-level. A single In-memory ROLAP Cube supports multiple languages so that resources are used efficiently.
YES
LIMITED
The MicroStrategy SDK is a comprehensive development environment primarily used for integrating MicroStrategy functionality into other existing systems, especially enterprise portals, and customizing and extending the functionality of MicroStrategy Web. The MicroStrategy Web Customization Editor integrates into the Eclipse IDE. Developers can easily perform MicroStrategy Web customization and migration tasks by eliminating the need to manually modify configuration files. MicroStrategy provides Flex Builder 4.6 support for creating powerful Internet applications embedded with robust business intelligence. The MicroStrategy Developer Zone offers developers access to documentation via advanced search functionality such as sorting results by relevance or by date, wild card and exact phrase searching, word highlighting, spelling suggestions, and exclusion searches. MicroStrategy provides developers with an online collaborative community, documentation, and customization code samples.
25
◗
Tableau does not provide a customization editor that can be used to easily create and maintain customizations.
6. HIGHLY INTERACTIVE AND FLEXIBLE MOBILE INTELLIGENCE The use of the Internet on smartphones and other mobile devices has changed the way people communicate and consume information, creating an exponential rise in the acceptance, adoption, and usage of data. With the ability to access information at any time, in any location, on a hand-held device, consumers can now make more and more decisions quickly and easily. MicroStrategy offers a very robust and innovative mobile app development platform that can be used either for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications, or for directly displaying existing Reports and Dashboards on mobile devices without the need of re-authoring. MicroStrategy Mobile Apps: • A re faster and simpler to develop (no coding) – Created by metadata driven, point-and-click paradigms and fully utilizing MicroStrategy’s BI infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. • Are easier to maintain – Changes to the centralized BI platform metadata are instantaneously propagated to all user interfaces, including mobile devices. Changes are made once and only in one place in the metadata, ensuring a “single version of the truth” and hassle-free maintenance. • Are enterprise grade – Delivers the full benefits of MicroStrategy’s BI infrastructure: administration, security, scalability, and performance. • Provide intuitive and powerful visualizations – Fully leverages MicroStrategy’s vast library of advanced visualizations. • Provide exceptional flexibility – The MicroStrategy app platform provides exceptional flexibility to create a wide range of mobile apps that go above and beyond the boundaries of traditional BI, without writing a single line of code. Most other BI companies are still trying to establish their mobile strategies and are primarily focused on providing traditional BI through mobile devices. These companies do not offer an app development platform that is specifically designed for building rich mobile applications, while fully leveraging the underlying BI platform infrastructure.
Information at Your Fingerprints – Using MicroStrategy's Workflow-Driven Mobile BI
100%
1:55 PM
iPad
100%
1:55 PM
iPad
Channel Overview
450,000,000 Web
Card Home
Consolidated Balance: Next Payment Due: Due Date:
$ 6,798.11 $ 1,699.53 April 15, 2010
Series: Repeat Visits Category: 20092 Value: 348,604,353
400,000,000 350,000,000
Series: Web Category: Revenue Value: 186,810M
Welcome Joyce L. Fowler Summary as of April 1, 2010 Pay Bill
300,000,000
Total Visits
250,000,000
Under-driven Purchases
200,000,000
Offer-driven Purchases Top Buyers
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150,000,000
1 card close to limit
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100,000,000
Retail Large Charges
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7 charges in this period
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IVR 100,000,000,000
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