Online analytical processing, or OLAP, is an approach to answer multi-dimensional analytical (MDA) queries swiftly in computing. OLAP is part of the broader category of business intelligence, which also encompasses relational databases, report writing and data mining. Typical applications of OLAP include business reporting for sales, marketing, management reporting, business process management (BPM), budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting and similar areas, with new applications emerging, such as agriculture.
Cognos Incorporated was an Ottawa, Ontario-based company making business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM) software. Founded in 1969, at its peak Cognos employed almost 3,500 people and served more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries until being acquired by IBM on January 31, 2008. While no longer an independent company, the Cognos name continues to be applied to IBM's line of business intelligence and performance management products.
The common warehouse metamodel (CWM) defines a specification for modeling metadata for relational, non-relational, multi-dimensional, and most other objects found in a data warehousing environment. The specification is released and owned by the Object Management Group, which also claims a trademark in the use of "CWM".
Business Objects was an enterprise software company, specializing in business intelligence (BI). Business Objects was acquired in 2007 by German company SAP AG. The company claimed more than 46,000 customers in its final earnings release prior to being acquired by SAP. Its flagship product was BusinessObjects XI, with components that provide performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, as well as enterprise information management. Business Objects also offered consulting and education services to help customers deploy its business intelligence projects. Other toolsets enabled universes and ready-written reports to be stored centrally and made selectively available to communities of the users.
Essbase is a multidimensional database management system (MDBMS) that provides a platform upon which to build analytic applications. Essbase began as a product from Arbor Software, which merged with Hyperion Software in 1998. Oracle Corporation acquired Hyperion Solutions Corporation in 2007, as of 2009 Oracle markets Essbase as "Oracle Essbase", both on-premises and in Oracle's Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Until late 2005 IBM also marketed an OEM version of Essbase as DB2 OLAP Server.
SQR is a programming language designed for generating reports from database management systems. The name is an abbreviation of Structured Query Reporter, which suggests its relationship to SQL. Any SQL statement can be embedded in an SQR program.
IBM Planning Analytics powered by TM1 is a business performance management software suite designed to implement collaborative planning, budgeting and forecasting solutions, interactive "what-if" analyses, as well as analytical and reporting applications.
Applix Inc. was a computer software company founded in 1983 based in Westborough, Massachusetts that published Applix TM1, a multi-dimensional online analytical processing (MOLAP) database server, and related presentation tools, including Applix Web and Applix Executive Viewer. Together, Applix TM1, Applix Web and Applix Executive Viewer were the three core components of the Applix Business Analytics Platform.
Brio Technology was a San Francisco Bay area software company cofounded in 1984 by Yorgen Edholm and Katherine Glassey. The company is best known for their business intelligence software systems, starting with DataPivot on the Apple Macintosh. Brio Software was acquired by Hyperion in 2003. Hyperion was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2007. The Hyperion performance management software become the basis of the current Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solution which is still offered today as Oracle EPM Cloud. The Brio Technology products were offered as part of the Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE) solutions for a time but was eventually deprecated in favour of Oracle's business intelligence solution that was acquired separately from Siebel in 2006. Consequently the ever shrinking user base of Brio Technology is limited to those customers who purchased Brio products years ago.
Business intelligence software is a type of application software designed to retrieve, analyze, transform and report data for business intelligence. The applications generally read data that has been previously stored, often - though not necessarily - in a data warehouse or data mart.
OutlookSoft Corporation was a Stamford, Connecticut based software company with products for business performance management including planning, consolidation, forecasting, budgeting, dashboards, predictive analytics and reporting. Along with OutlookSoft, other vendors in the performance management space include SAS, Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion Solutions Corporation.
The Oracle Database OLAP Option implements On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP) within an Oracle database environment. Oracle Corporation markets the Oracle Database OLAP Option as an extra-cost option to supplement the "Enterprise Edition" of its database.
Simba Technologies Inc. is a software company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Simba specializes in products for ODBC, JDBC, OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) and XML for Analysis (XMLA). The company licenses data connectivity technologies, and provides software development for Microsoft Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac and mobile device platforms. Simba Technologies was founded as PageAhead Software in Vancouver and Seattle, Washington in 1991 and changed its name in 1995. Customers include Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, MIS AG, SAP AG and Descisys.
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server is a business intelligence software product released in 2007 by Microsoft. The product was generally an integration of the acquisitions from ProClarity - the Planning Server and Monitoring Server - into Microsoft's SharePoint server product line. Although discontinued in 2009, the dashboard, scorecard, and analytics capabilities of PerformancePoint Server were incorporated into SharePoint 2010 and later versions.
Cognos ReportNet (CRN) was a web-based software product for creating and managing ad hoc and custom-made reports. ReportNet was developed by the Ottawa-based company Cognos, an IBM company. The web-based reporting tool was launched in September 2003. Since IBM's acquisition of Cognos, ReportNet has been renamed IBM Cognos ReportNet like all other Cognos products.
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus, also termed as the OBI EE Plus, is Oracle Corporation's set of business intelligence tools consisting of former Siebel Systems business intelligence and Hyperion Solutions business intelligence offerings.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of online analytical processing (OLAP) servers. Please see the individual products articles for further information.
IBM Cognos Business Intelligence is a web-based integrated business intelligence suite by IBM. It provides a toolset for reporting, analytics, scorecarding, and monitoring of events and metrics. The software consists of several components designed to meet the different information requirements in a company. IBM Cognos has components such as IBM Cognos Framework Manager, IBM Cognos Cube Designer, IBM Cognos Transformer.
Datawatch Corporation was an American software company that creates and sells self-service data preparation solutions. The entire platform included Datawatch Monarch Complete, Monarch Server and Monarch Swarm.
Arcplan is a software for business intelligence (BI), budgeting, planning & forecasting (BP&F), business analytics and collaborative Business Intelligence. It is the enhancement of the enterprise software inSight® and dynaSight of the former German provider arcplan Information Services GmbH.
