Cognos User Ratings

[UWTechie]

I am currently doing a qualitative/quantitative analysis comparing certain components of Microsoft Office (Excel, Access) with some of the Cognos tools (PowerPlay, PowerPlay Transformer, Architect and Access Manager).

What I would really appreciate is some feedback on what you people think of these two products, with a view in comparing relative speeds, memory allocation, cost and the ability/efficacy of distilling the data tables given to these so that you may get some useful information.

Thanx a lot

 

[svenu]

hi UWTechie (Programmer)

Let me tell u onething that cognostools are Business Intellegense tools where as Microsoft tools are Office adminstration tools. Their is a lot of differences between these two..

memory wise Cognos will occupy 300MB and when using as reporting tool the speed will depend on Data base using for the report and Ram .

I hope more details u can find in cognos literature

Bye
venu

 

[tyche]

Hi UWTechie,

We are currently doing a similar exercise, evaluating certain bi solutions. (Bear in mind, we currently use both the Cognos suite as well as MS Office, and I am a definate fan of Excel functionality).However, my findings so far have been as follows:

Cognos has less limitations re size, i.e Excel can only handle +- 65 000 rows of data, and Access is limited to 1Gig tables. Cognos is capable of handling much greater volumes as well as being more stable in a DW environment.

Also, Cube building functionality is a definate bonus, but can be limited by development time when additional dimensions need to be added, i.e. Ad hoc queries are easier to perform with Access, (this could be simply because I find the VB and SQL capabilities of Access easier than that of Impromptu), but Cognos appears to process results faster.

Downside of Cognos (in my opinion): It doesn't have the presentation capabilities and functionality (i.e Pivot Tables) of Excel. Also, it is less "user-friendly" and requires more "technical" knowledge. During "development phases", the creation and RE-creation of catalogs can be an irritation, but once stabilised, it is definately the better of the two solutions.

In terms of costs, Cognos is much more expensive (but I think this is an economic factor in that Microsoft is widely used in South Africa, while Cognos is limited)

On the whole I would recommend Cognos from a DataMining / Analytical perspective and the Excel add-in allows for the presentation functionality of MSOffice. However, if your data is small enough to analyse with MSOffice, rather go that route.

My 2 cents worth, hope it helps X-)

 

[n30er]

As a point you should probably compare similar tools; right now you're comparing database/spreadsheet tools to business intelligence tools - they do very different things. If you have a specific report need/request we can give you a better explanation of how they are different.