Decisionism Ships Version 2.3 of Aclue for Rapid
Delivery of OLAP Analytical Applications
ACTION ITEMS
Decisionism Inc., a leader in OLAP data mart management software, has announced the general availability of Release 2.3 of its Aclue Decision Supportware. Aclue enables organizations to rapidly create, deliver, and manage OLAP-based analytical and reporting applications that share consistent, synchronized corporate data. Version 2.3 adds support for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services (formerly code-named "Plato"), in addition to Oracle Express and Hyperion Essbase.
"The new features in Aclue version 2.3 significantly boost Aclue's ability to save time and money through rapid, consistent delivery of OLAP-based applications," said Gordon Rapkin, Decisionism's president and CEO." In particular, Aclue 2.3 can now leverage Microsoft OLAP Services as a low-cost vehicle for deploying analytical applications across the enterprise. Aclue complements OLAP Services by enabling faster delivery and management of applications across multiple servers with complete auditability and consistency."
Aclue 2.3 is the only product that fully automates the delivery of OLAP Services analytical cubes. It transparently generates and loads a SQL Server star schema database, creates the appropriate OLAP Services cube structures, and invokes the loading of data from SQL Server tables into the OLAP Services cube - all without user interaction. While other traditional ETL (extract, transform, and load) products have also announced support for SQL Server 7.0, this includes only the loading of predefined relational database tables.
"Decisionism's Aclue offers an innovative approach to generating and managing OLAP applications and data marts, particularly for users of Microsoft OLAP Services," said Bob Moran, vice president, Decision Support Research, Aberdeen Group. "Aclue can provide a competitive edge by delivering consistent, synchronized corporate data to multiple analytical applications across the enterprise, even spanning heterogeneous OLAP server platforms."
Aclue Decision Supportware saves time and money and delivers more dependable results by helping to rapidly create and deploy analytical applications and data marts that share consistent, synchronized data. Essential for applications that combine data from many sources, such as balanced scorecards, financial consolidation, or E-Commerce Analysis, Aclue enables deployment of OLAP analytical applications across the enterprise. Aclue gathers and transforms data from multiple production systems and data warehouses, and delivers highly focused views of this corporate data to various analytical applications in Hyperion Essbase, Oracle Express, and Microsoft SQL Server OLAP Services.
Because OLAP Services applications are likely to be deployed at a departmental level, there is a risk that "islands of automation" can proliferate, with different groups pulling corporate data into OLAP cubes with no central controls over data accuracy. Decisionism's Aclue 2.3 helps companies avoid this potential difficulty with an architected solution that delivers consistent, synchronized data across multiple OLAP cubes and servers, including a full audit trail. Aclue 2.3 will also be valuable to organizations that have already invested in other OLAP server technologies such as Essbase or Express, since it can generate cubes and manage applications in any of the three server products interchangeably.
In addition to adding support for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services, Aclue Release 2.3 includes other significant enhancements, including:
Aclue's "read-once, write-many" hub-and-spoke architecture eliminates multiple accesses of the source data, enabling consistent, synchronized exports to multiple applications and data marts while yielding shorter decision cycle times. Aclue's architecture also eliminates the need for IS to create multiple extracts of data from production systems to feed different applications, which significantly reduces mainframe data extraction costs.
For the business professional, Aclue includes audit capabilities that build end user confidence in the data by answering "who/what/when/where" questions without time-consuming manual tracing of data lineage. Aclue also supports one-click drillback to the detailed data that was aggregated into any value of the cube -- even if that detail is not stored in the OLAP application itself.
Aclue enables project managers to deploy analytical applications much faster than with traditional custom-coded approaches, and allows easier maintenance of those applications as changes occur in data sources and user requirements. It also reduces project costs and risks, and delivers improved accuracy.
About Decisionism
Headquartered in Boulder, Decisionism Inc. is focused on the mission of helping its customers to re-engineer their decision making processes using advanced OLAP technologies. Decisionism markets its product, Aclue Decision Supportware, to Fortune 1000 and mid-size organizations that are seeking to rapidly deliver analytical applications which require accurate, consistent, and timely information from across the enterprise.
Decisionism customers span a variety of industries and include major sites such as Adlink, AirTouch International, Bank of America, Circle International, Fluor Daniel (a subsidiary of Fluor), Gilroy Foods (a division of ConAgra), IBM, Nissan, Nordstrom and U S WEST Information Technologies. Decisionism sells Aclue and its support, training and consulting services directly to end user organizations, and through selected value-added resellers, systems integrators and business partners. Decisionism is a privately held company financed by a group of leading institutional venture capital investors.
Additional information about the company and product is available from Decisionism's Web site, http://www.decisionism.com or by calling (303) 938-8805.