Comments for Stéphane-Robert Langer http://blog.srlanger.com Just another Knowledge Worker Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:03:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU hourly 1 Comment on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 CTP available now by Ganesh http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2758 Ganesh Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:38:45 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2758 Yeah Stéphane, Completely agree with you on that. I've worked on Microstrategy before and though it was mainly a reporting thing and not much of a planning tool ... it was a TOOLBOX that you mentioned. Planning Module as you said demands plenty of time in design and its not straightforward as well. But anyways bosses here want me to keep analysing it so, have no other option to go on for a while. Thanks a ton for your help mate !! P.S. : Looking at the Tableau thingy as well mate. Cheers - Ganesh Yeah Stéphane,
Completely agree with you on that.
I’ve worked on Microstrategy before and though it was mainly a reporting thing and not much of a planning tool … it was a TOOLBOX that you mentioned.
Planning Module as you said demands plenty of time in design and its not straightforward as well.
But anyways bosses here want me to keep analysing it so, have no other option to go on for a while.
Thanks a ton for your help mate !!
P.S. : Looking at the Tableau thingy as well mate.
Cheers
- Ganesh

]]> Comment on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 CTP available now by Stéphane-Robert Langer http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2756 Stéphane-Robert Langer Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:31:06 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2756 Ganesh: I'm glad you could get past this issue. We chose not to go forward with PerformancePoint (for now). The driver for looking into it was the monitoring module, which is IMHO not mature yet (for an example of what I mean by a mature comparable feature set, check out <a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/" rel="nofollow">Tableau Software</a>). The planning module has some serious benefits to offer, but we don't have the bandwidth to go through an implementation right now. All in all, PPS does seem like a wonderful toolbox but would require a significant time investment to turn it into an actual solution. The ETL process for PPS-P alone will probably keep you busy for a while... Again, I think Microsoft came up with a really promising feature set - it was just not appropriate for our situation. Ganesh: I’m glad you could get past this issue.
We chose not to go forward with PerformancePoint (for now). The driver for looking into it was the monitoring module, which is IMHO not mature yet (for an example of what I mean by a mature comparable feature set, check out Tableau Software). The planning module has some serious benefits to offer, but we don’t have the bandwidth to go through an implementation right now. All in all, PPS does seem like a wonderful toolbox but would require a significant time investment to turn it into an actual solution. The ETL process for PPS-P alone will probably keep you busy for a while… Again, I think Microsoft came up with a really promising feature set - it was just not appropriate for our situation.

]]> Comment on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 CTP available now by Ganesh http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2755 Ganesh Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:16:28 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2755 Hey Stéphane, Thanks for your quick reply mate. I did alright with the installation ... it went further to staging DB creation and all and gave some error (regarding temporary storage) at the end. But, I treid deployment in the Modeler and its alright. Thanks again for your help. You are a champ !! :) Anyways ... what are your thoughts abt the MS-Perf.PointServer07 ? Did ya guys end up using it or just trail and evaluation thing ? cheers !! - Nesh Hey Stéphane,
Thanks for your quick reply mate.
I did alright with the installation … it went further to staging DB creation and all and gave some error (regarding temporary storage) at the end.
But, I treid deployment in the Modeler and its alright.
Thanks again for your help. You are a champ !! :)

Anyways … what are your thoughts abt the MS-Perf.PointServer07 ?
Did ya guys end up using it or just trail and evaluation thing ?

cheers !!
- Nesh

]]> Comment on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 CTP available now by Stéphane-Robert Langer http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2754 Stéphane-Robert Langer Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:10:04 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2754 Ganesh: It's been a while, but as far as I remember there's <a href="http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2408793&SiteID=17" rel="nofollow">a good TechNet thread</a> dealing with similar issues. The suggestion to specify drive:\path\ instead of \\server\path\ did it for me. I hope it works for you, too. Ganesh: It’s been a while, but as far as I remember there’s a good TechNet thread dealing with similar issues. The suggestion to specify drive:\path\ instead of \\server\path\ did it for me. I hope it works for you, too.

]]> Comment on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 CTP available now by Ganesh http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2753 Ganesh Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:17:48 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-2753 Hi Stéphane, How are you ? I read your post on the Performance Point Blog >>> http://performancepoint07.blogspot.com/2007/05/setting-up-alpine-ski-house-sample-app.html We have recently enetered into the MS PPS-2007 domain and in oder to know more about this Microsoft product, I'm trying to run the Alpine Ski House sample application. Now the error thrown by the script is EXACTLY the same as to what you've posted on the above blog. But, I couldn't find any solution for that. Were you able to solve the problem ? If you were successful in doin that, it will be nice if you could guide me on how to solve that niggling problem. Cheers !! -Ganesh Hi Stéphane,

How are you ?
I read your post on the Performance Point Blog >>>
http://performancepoint07.blogspot.com/2007/05/setting-up-alpine-ski-house-sample-app.html

We have recently enetered into the MS PPS-2007 domain and in oder to know more about this Microsoft product, I’m trying to run the Alpine Ski House sample application.
Now the error thrown by the script is EXACTLY the same as to what you’ve posted on the above blog. But, I couldn’t find any solution for that. Were you able to solve the problem ? If you were successful in doin that, it will be nice if you could guide me on how to solve that niggling problem.

Cheers !!
-Ganesh

]]> Comment on Cubes and Universes by Stéphane-Robert Langer http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2749 Stéphane-Robert Langer Sat, 20 Sep 2008 07:29:02 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2749 Donovan: thanks for chiming in and for understanding the limited scope of the comparison. You're also raising a good point here with regards to the reasons for organizations adopting a particular solution over another. IBM/Cognos is certainly a strong contender. Starting from scratch, I guess I'd also be looking at Oracle/Hyperion. Donovan: thanks for chiming in and for understanding the limited scope of the comparison. You’re also raising a good point here with regards to the reasons for organizations adopting a particular solution over another.

IBM/Cognos is certainly a strong contender. Starting from scratch, I guess I’d also be looking at Oracle/Hyperion.

]]> Comment on Cubes and Universes by Donovan Hsieh http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2748 Donovan Hsieh Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:38:45 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2748 Having developed & used both BO Universe & SSAS cubes in the past, your comparison is fair from the BI modeling perspective. I agree with your assessment that BO Universe is not as powerful as SSAS cubes functionality-wise. However, BO offers other reasons for consideration that SSAS doesn't have, i.e., scalability running on non-Windows boxes. Many enterprises wouldn't even consider Windows as production-worthy due to security and performance risks. That said, if I were to choose a platform from the developer perspective, SSAS definitely wins hand-down. However, when IT Ops weighs in, BO probably wins 9 out of 10 times. Alternatively, I would choose Cognos (now acquired by IBM) since it has both strength of BO Universe & SSAS cubes albeit with some compromise. Having developed & used both BO Universe & SSAS cubes in the past, your comparison is fair from the BI modeling perspective. I agree with your assessment that BO Universe is not as powerful as SSAS cubes functionality-wise. However, BO offers other reasons for consideration that SSAS doesn’t have, i.e., scalability running on non-Windows boxes. Many enterprises wouldn’t even consider Windows as production-worthy due to security and performance risks. That said, if I were to choose a platform from the developer perspective, SSAS definitely wins hand-down. However, when IT Ops weighs in, BO probably wins 9 out of 10 times.

Alternatively, I would choose Cognos (now acquired by IBM) since it has both strength of BO Universe & SSAS cubes albeit with some compromise.

]]> Comment on Cubes and Universes by Stéphane-Robert Langer http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2302 Stéphane-Robert Langer Sat, 15 Dec 2007 09:58:50 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2302 Mike: It is worth repeating that I know much less about BO than about Microsoft's BI stack. According to information from BO's forums however, there's a productivity pack for Business Objects Enterprise XI R2 (Service Pack 2) that allows you to access SSAS 2005 through a new OLAP tool called Voyager. That would tend to confirm your understanding that you need to invest in a new version, but please bring that up with BO if you're currently a customer. Mike: It is worth repeating that I know much less about BO than about Microsoft’s BI stack. According to information from BO’s forums however, there’s a productivity pack for Business Objects Enterprise XI R2 (Service Pack 2) that allows you to access SSAS 2005 through a new OLAP tool called Voyager. That would tend to confirm your understanding that you need to invest in a new version, but please bring that up with BO if you’re currently a customer.

]]> Comment on Cubes and Universes by Mike Day http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2297 Mike Day Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:46:25 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/05/24/cubes-and-universes/#comment-2297 'There is no reason, by the way, why you couldn’t build SSAS cubes and make them available both directly for certain purposes and via a BO universe for other purposes...' I'm told that Business Objects Universes can't use SSAS 2005 cubes, short of investing in new versions of Business Objects. Is this true? ‘There is no reason, by the way, why you couldn’t build SSAS cubes and make them available both directly for certain purposes and via a BO universe for other purposes…’

I’m told that Business Objects Universes can’t use SSAS 2005 cubes, short of investing in new versions of Business Objects. Is this true?

]]> Comment on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 CTP available now by Stéphane-Robert Langer http://blog.srlanger.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-1262 Stéphane-Robert Langer Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:24:43 +0000 http://srlanger.wordpress.com/2006/11/22/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-ctp-available-now/#comment-1262 stansmith, That's actually a really good question - I can't seem to find a trace of any such documentation either. There used to be "lab" pdf files up to CTP2 but not thereafter as far as I can tell. I can recommend a few blogs about PPS, though - assuming you don't know about them already: "Establish. Execute. Evolve." by Adrian Downes, Intelligent Insight on PerformancePoint by Ben Tamblyn and The PerformancePoint Team Blog. stansmith,
That’s actually a really good question - I can’t seem to find a trace of any such documentation either. There used to be “lab” pdf files up to CTP2 but not thereafter as far as I can tell. I can recommend a few blogs about PPS, though - assuming you don’t know about them already: “Establish. Execute. Evolve.” by Adrian Downes, Intelligent Insight on PerformancePoint by Ben Tamblyn and The PerformancePoint Team Blog.

]]>