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Getting the Best of Both Worlds – SAP & MicrosoftThe challenge to standardize towards a singular BI solution, enterprise wide, is one that many companies are continually facing as the need to access data that is dispersed throughout their respective organizations becomes increasingly imperative. A constant need that challenges those who work in BI is to place critical information in the hands of the end users who need it to do their jobs. In the most perfect of worlds, companies would choose one single platform on which to standardize and then use it to access the large volumes of data within the organization. However, in reality, it doesn’t always happen this way. The two most commonly used BI platforms in the market today are SAP Netweaver Business Intelligence and Microsoft’s BI platform. Many enterprises in today’s ever-changing market have significant investments in both. The adversities faced by these companies, with respect to accessing data across two different platforms, are quite significant. Trying to ensure that relevant information is being extracted from both platforms can be a timely, inefficient and cumbersome process that often translates to critical information flying under the radar, unbeknownst to users. What is the solution to this quandary? To allow the different BI platforms to live in harmony, one next to the other, while a single suite of BI applications accesses both of them simultaneously. In reality, Microsoft Excel was supposed to enable that functionality but Microsoft’s entry into the bigger BI competitive world has made Excel a tool optimized for one platform – Microsoft’s Some BI solutions today have taken that “Switzerland” approach to become the single product that can work natively on top of different platforms thus simplifying the process of standardization from a usability and adoption perspective. Standardizing on the application level enables organizations to access and use data from multiple sources, for example SAP Netweaver BI and Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, without very much hassle and expense. It sounds like an almost too-simple solution and the logical question that arises is how can this be done? Well, if an application translates queries using multi-dimensional expressions (MDX) which is a BI standard, it can originate queries, retrieve results from any MDX supported platform (and most platforms do enable MDX as it has become a standard) and then conduct the required calculations. This will effectively enable the data from both platforms to work together for reporting and analysis. The ideal application-based solution should be able to connect seamlessly to both SAP and Microsoft platforms without the need to rebuild models and metadata and provide the capabilities to bring data together at the report, crosstab or dashboard levels. It will act as a metaphorical bridge between the two platforms being used in a company and can thus yield powerful results for decision-makers within the organization. For the large number of enterprises that have significant investments in both SAP and Microsoft based platforms, the burdensome task of working with both to serve one need, in many ways, has become an accepted cost of business. However, as a way to maximize the benefits of both worlds, a robust application can be introduced to the equation to help put more power in the hands of decision makers in any given company.
Panorama NovaView: a Single Solution for your SAP BW and SSAS InvestmentsJoin Panorama Software and ACS Systech Integrators as we discuss Panorama Novaview, the only business intelligence solution that leverages the full power of MDX to support both SAP and Microsoft platforms. NovaView connects natively to SAP InfoCubes, queries, SAP Data Store objects and Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services cubes without extracting data or duplicating metadata. The webinar will focus on key strategies to enable more self-service and end-user empowerment, thus extending the reach of both SAP and Microsoft platforms to more end users inside your organization. Topics that will be addressed include:
Presenters: Michael Mahoney Oudi Antebi Panorama NovaView: a Single Solution for your SAP BW and SSAS Investments Wednesday, March 19, 2008 or
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“Clearly for organizations that want a powerful analytical tool that offers the maximum exploitation of Microsoft’s rich OLAP API and SAP BW, with the ability to deploy sophisticated views to large numbers of users across the Internet, Panorama has a compelling, and probably unbeatable, offering.” OLAP Report 2007 |
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