digitalKnowledge Essentials - Issue 3

Welcome to this month's edition of digitalKnowledge Essentials.

With the spring season in full bloom, we hope you have been able to enjoy our first days of pleasant weather and sunshine!

This issue features a case study on a local manufacturing company who worked with us as we developed a reporting solution that provides their management team with quick and easy access to meaningful, enterprise-wide sales data.

Additionally, we wanted to share insights from a recent presentation on object-relational mapping as well as research findings from a comparison study of Microsoft’s Reporting Services and BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 2.

I would also like to extend a thank you to those of you who have provided us with valuable recommendations as we continue to develop and evolve our newsletter. We appreciate your interest and feedback and look forward to sharing our insight and solutions with you next month.

Sincerely,

Curt Sellke
President, digitalKnowledge

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Transforming Sales Data into Actionable Information

Client: Indianapolis-based firm comprised of two distinct companies which provide quality electronic products and industrial repair services to customers across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Challenge: The management team lacked certainty around the accuracy of internal sales information and the manual reporting solution involving the integration of data from several disparate source systems was proving to be cumbersome, inefficient, and at times contained incorrect information.

Solution: digitalKnowledge designed and implemented a consolidated data warehouse capable of housing data from multiple ERP source systems as well as incorporating a reporting structure based on Crystal Reports Server XI. The new solution not only provides the company with first-time access to integrated corporate sales data across multiple divisions and international locations but also enables users to deploy and access reports through a web- based interface.

Results: In a little over two months, digitalKnowledge designed, built, and implemented a single, easy to use set of tools to obtain and analyze accurate sales-related information across the entire organization. Today, the company is relying solely on this new system for accurate and timely reporting and analysis. Management now has quick and easy access to meaningful data that can be used to drive sound business decisions at a corporate level.

Click here to read more about this solution

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Object-Relational Mapping with Java and Oracle

Object-relational mapping (ORM) is a programming technique that bridges the gap between object-oriented modeling and relational databases. ORM supports an agile development methodology and aims to improve developer productivity, reduce application maintenance costs, and optimize the performance of data-driven applications.

At the recent Oracle FastTrack Technology Day, hosted by Perpetual Technologies, Oracle, and the Indiana Oracle Users Group, Matt Ruel from digitalKnowledge discussed ORM and how it applies to enterprise application development. He introduced approaches to data persistence frameworks and how ORM ties into the overall development lifecycle.

 Additionally, Matt discussed a number of ORM vendors whose products are designed to work with object-oriented programming languages such as Java. The discussion included a detailed overview of Oracle’s TopLink, the industry’s leading Java object- to-relational persistence framework.

To find out more about object-relational mapping or to request a copy of Matt’s presentation, please click here.

Learn more about the Indiana Oracle Users Group

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digitalKnowledge Byte

Microsoft Reporting Services vs. BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 2

Selecting a reporting platform that will deliver managed reporting capabilities to your organization can be a daunting task. You could find yourself swimming through mountains of industry analyst reports or reading stacks of vendor marketing materials only to realize that you do not have a clear picture of how the platforms compare or if they will fit your unique business requirements for reporting and analysis.

With the growing number of vendors entering the marketplace, simply understanding which tools can deliver the functionality your organization needs to get the right information to the right person at the right time and in the right format will be key to selecting and implementing the best solution.

With the recent launch of Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005, there has been much industry discussion surrounding one of the components included with this product, Reporting Services 2005, and how the functionality compares with BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 2 when implemented as a platform for managed and/or embedded reporting.

While most organizations have not considered Reporting Services as a competing product to BusinessObjects, results of our internal research have illustrated many interesting similarities between the two solutions with regard to report authoring and rendering capabilities, data access utilizing a semantic layer, and options for embedding all of the out-of-the-box functionality offered by the platform into a custom application.

Whether you are in the midst of reporting platform research or simply would like to learn more about the results from our comparison between the BusinessObjects and Microsoft product offerings for managed reporting, contact us to obtain a complimentary copy of our findings.

Please note that this research is solely based on the efforts of digitalKnowledge and has not been sponsored by Microsoft or BusinessObjects. The information presented is based on our current understanding of both platforms and was gathered from publicly available research, vendor documentation, and findings resulting from a proof-of- concept implementation with each platform offering.

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