BV gives business users the ability to maintain, govern and share dimensional information from various sources (for example: csv files, excel and IBM Cognos 8 packages)
Even at early stage, it is a great tool for those aspects.
I am also pretty sure that this topic will get much higher priority in the upcoming years.
Surely, due to this early release of an MDM solution, IBM will have the chance to gather important feedback from customers while competitors (like Microsoft) still not have their products on the market. This is a huge benefit for IBM.
Installation:
After the installation of version 8.4.27.39 I got the message stating that the dll file "msvcp71.dll" is missing. Why?
The problem could be easily solved by copying the file from an existing bin directory of Cognos 8.4 to the bin of IBM Business Viewpoint. Apart from that, the installation and configuration of the tool was very handy. I don´t know why they did´nt implement a feature "test connection" for the database / content store as it is already implemented in IBM Cognos 8 BI but if you configured everything correctly the produt starts without any problems.. :-) Maybe they will implement this feature in a later release?
The service name "Tomcat Server" can not be renamed in the IBM Cognos Configuration and default to IBM Cognos 8 Business Viewpoint.
Usability:
IBM Business Viewpoint has a new sexy,easy and understandable desinged Web Interface for the administration of the product.
All dimensions are imported into the same workspace. This may result - like in my case - in a high memory consumption on the client side. In addition end users may get confused since the don´t know what to edit. This could be handled through security but i would rather expect somehting like projects or solutions for editing.
After modification of the GOSalesFact_EN_MSAS2005 (Sample Package) it was not possible to apply the new dimension structure back to cognos connection (as by design). Trying to publish changes to the same package, the original one will be overwritten. But the new package is incomplete. The facts are missing. The new version will be unusable for any use in production. Publishing to IBM Cognos Connection makes just sense with a new package to verify your changes. If you are finished with you work you can export the new dimension structure to a flat file or a new framework manager model.
There are many types of different views available for editing. Trees, Lists, etc.
I highly recommend to install the available hot fix package C8_BV_SERVER_8_4_Win32_FP001 at minimum. I had terrible memory leaks within Internet Explorer 6.x with earlier versions of the product.
My IE needed more than 600 MB of RAM! Trying to publish all dimensions from the GOSalesFact_EN_MSAS2005 Package at a time resulted in Error:
" java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0"
Looks like the developers did not expect many modifications at multiple dimensions or the publish of many dimensions at a time.
Conclusion:
IBM Business Viewpoint is one of the first products on the market for professional Master Data Management. Business Users don´t need any in depth technical knowledge to make use of it.
Applying new dimensional data to the underlying sources does not work automatically (In my Case a MSAS Cube) The product is still at an early stage.
I am happy to see further improvement in error handling and functionality of this great tool.
Great writing but it should be pointed out that the goal of BV is to supplement any existing MDM technology to take advantage of its workflow capabilities and strong integration with the supported Cognos tools such as cogtr.exe, Planning Anaylist, Planning Contributor,Controller, TM1, and of course, reporting.
AntwortenLöschenI fully agree with you. Thx for the feedback.
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