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• Users can specify a uniform resource locator (URL) that defines the workbook and
worksheet enabling Discoverer content to be called via any HTML application.
—Discoverer reports can be embedded within existing Web Pages by specifying a
URL that defines the workbook and worksheet to be included.
—When the link is clicked, the database is queried, and the latest data is displayed
in HTML.
Analysis
Discoverer is a query and reporting tool for accessing data sources and producing visual displays. Itenables report builders and analysts to create, modify, and execute ad hoc queries and reports. In reality,Discoverer creates worksheets that present data in tabular and graph form but are not actual reports. Endusers can view and navigate through the tabular displays and graphs. Data sources may be relationaldatabases or Oracle Applications databases. Also, Discoverer can access multidimensional data from theOracle9i OLAP analytic workspace via SQL.
Oracle has bundled its BI tools under the Oracle9i umbrella and Discoverer is tightly integrated with theOracle9i database and other Application Server products. They have built OLAP functionality (most ofwhich is based on Oracle’s Express technology) into Oracle9i, which can be leveraged by Oracle’svarious BI tools, including Discoverer. The primary BI tools — Discoverer and Reports — require theOracle9iAS. Collectively, Oracle’s BI tools are equivalent to an enterprise business intelligence suite(EBIS). However, most EBISs are database-neutral and are designed and marketed to access a variety ofdatabases, usually including OLAP servers as well as relational databases. With Oracle’s predominantlyinsular integration, Discoverer is focused on the Oracle database (and Oracle 9i OLAP extensions).However, Discoverer can access non-Oracle databases via Oracle9i Generic Connectivity and can jointables from multiple Oracle or non-Oracle data sources, but not third-party OLAP servers.
Other than the Oracle database, the most important integration points for Discoverer are with:
• The Oracle9iAS on which the Discoverer Server runs and which provides load balancing and failoversupport.
• The Oracle9iAS Portal which enables users to publish reports to the Oracle9iAS Portal.
• Oracle 9iAS Reports which enables Discoverer to export query results to a reporting product.
Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence
Discoverer is deployed in either a client/server or n-tier distributed-component Web architecture (Java orHTML) which includes a Client tier, a Discoverer Server(s) tier and a Database tier. The DiscovererServer contains a data cache, the applications logic and user preferences. Discoverer components maybe installed across multiple servers, providing a distributed server environment that spreads the workload,which enhances performance. Discoverer can be scaled by dynamically adding additional DiscovererServers. Load balancing can be done by using standard HTTP and router load balancing which loadbalances all of the Oracle9iAS services, not just Discoverer. Alternatively, Oracle9iAS Web Cache can beused as a router (for Viewer, not Plus) to balance the load (and provide failover) across all availableapplication servers. While Discoverer Server can be run on Oracle9iAS along with other (non-Discoverer)applications, this is a more complex environment than one in which just Discoverer alone is using multipleOracle9iAS servers. In this case, Discoverer performance will be harder to determine and tune than in anenvironment dedicated to Discoverer.
Discoverer provides a server-based metadata repository (EUL) and query management engine that holdsuser-defined queries, usage statistics, and Discoverer privileges. The EUL hides the complexity ofunderlying relational database structures like tables, columns and joins, by presenting a business orientedview of the data. The Discoverer Administrator enables IT personnel to create and manage the Discovererenvironment, including building and maintaining the EUL. Support for Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On enablesusers to log on to Discoverer once and access multiple databases and EULs.
Discoverer includes three end-user client products: Plus (Java client), Desktop (client/server) and Viewer(HTML). All Discoverer clients provide ad hoc querying and OLAP functionality, like drilling and pivoting.More advanced OLAP functionality is available by accessing the Oracle9i OLAP functions. BecauseDesktop, Plus and Viewer are based on different technologies, there are some interface differences dueto the individual characteristics of these technologies. Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Desktop areintended for power users, report builders, and business analysts focused on building queries and reportsand performing detailed analysis. Unlike some competitive products, reports can be created via the Web,as well as the client/server user interface. For fully formatted reports, exporting to Oracle Reports isnecessary. Discoverer Plus has most of Discoverer Desktop’s functionality for ad hoc querying, reportingand drill down/pivot, query and workbook creation, and saving. While Desktop and Plus have someadditional analysis functionality and can be used to create and save workbooks, Discoverer Viewerfunctionality differences are due partly to the Viewer being designed for end users and business analyststo view existing workbooks, with some capabilities for drilling, pivoting, and sorting. Also, via parametersand drop-down lists, some tailoring is possible.
Scheduling capabilities enable scheduling long running queries at a nonpeak time. Query predicting andgoverning is provided.
User Licenses
Users who query the Oracle database directly (for example, Discoverer users) or indirectly throughapplications, must have a named user license for the database. Users who view a copy of a report are notrequired to be licensed for the database, but must be licensed for Oracle9iAS which distributes reports viathe Reports Server. Portal users do not need to license the database if they are consuming data (that is,Discoverer portlets) published by others.
Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence
Oracle9iAS Standard Edition No BI components. Not Applicable
Oracle9iDeveloper Suite • Per-named user
• Includes:
—Oracle9i Discoverer
Desktop
—Oracle9i Discoverer
Administrator
5,000
Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop • Per named user
• Is included with
Oracle9iDS and also can
be licensed separately
1,000
GSA Pricing
Yes.
Competitors
Cognos and Business Objects are the leading vendors in the Enterprise BI Suites (EBIS) and Reportingmarket. Among vendors who are primarily BI tool vendors, other strong EBIS competitors include CrystalDecisions’ Crystal Enterprise, MicroStrategy 7i and Information Builders’ WebFOCUS. Oracle, although aleading software vendor, is known primarily for database and enterprise applications products. AlthoughOracle’s BI tool products place them in the EBIS and Reporting market, its BI tool product architectureand market vision doesn’t enable Oracle to be categorized by Gartner as a leader in this market.
Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence
Essentially, its tools are more loosely coupled than is characteristic of EBISs (for example, Reports is adifferent product from Discoverer; Discoverer only has a SQL link to Oracle 9i OLAP), and Oracle doesn’tsell a product that it denotes as an EBIS
The most direct competition for Oracle9iAS Discoverer are Cognos Impromptu, Cognos Query, andCognos Visualizer and the Business Objects’ Explorer and Reporter modules of BusinessObjects andWebIntelligence, together with the server-based components of their respective suites. Although it takesmultiple Cognos or Business Objects products to provide the same query and analysis functions, it is alsotrue that the totality of functionality provided by these multiple products, is greater than Discoverer’s. Thisis a design choice; some of this additional functionality is provided in other Oracle products, for example,Oracle Reports. In many respects, the products are very similar, with Oracle’s products beingdistinguished largely by their ability to leverage the Oracle database and its extensions. However, CognosImpromptu and Business Objects Reporter also have report formatting functionality. Whereas Oracle’sfocus is on accessing data in Oracle databases, Discoverer’s competitors are database-neutral.
As contrasted to the greater integration of the Cognos and Business Objects query tools with theirrespective reporting siblings, Discoverer has only one-way integration to Reports. Bidirectional integrationexists between Impromptu (Cognos’ reporting product) and Cognos Query, and between PowerPlay(Cognos’ OLAP product) and Cognos Query. Cognos Visualizer not only supports data sources fromPowerPlay and Impromptu, but also provides drill-through to each, as well as to Cognos Query. BusinessObjects Explorer is an OLAP analysis tool that typically operates as an integrated module to BusinessObjects Reporter. Explorer enables users to perform on-report analysis, with no need to switch betweentools. Thus, Discoverer’s integration with Reports, which consists of exporting Discoverer workbooks toReports, is quite limited vs. integration provided by its main competitors.
Crystal Decisions offers two competitive products — Crystal Reports and Crystal Analysis Professional(along with the Crystal Enterprise server infrastructure). Neither product is purely an ad hoc query toolanalogous to Discoverer, although Crystal Reports 9 has the query capability coupled with OLAPanalysis. Also, it is not exactly competitive with Discoverer, because it is a robust report writer, whichDiscoverer is not. To enable ad hoc query, a user would have to employ Crystal Decisions’ SmartReporting technology, which enables developers to push simple report manipulation and reformatting toend users, essentially providing an ad hoc reporting interface.
Some of the competitive products offer the ability to access OLAP servers and thus can offer the type ofOLAP functionality that is provided by Discoverer via the Oracle9i OLAP extensions. Business Objects,Cognos and Crystal Decisions can access both relational databases and third-party OLAP servers (forexample, Hyperion Essbase), whereas Discoverer doesn’t access third-party OLAP servers.
Strengths
Integration With Oracle Products
Oracle9iAS Discoverer is a proven and successful ad hoc query and analysis product for Oracle’sinstalled base. It is tightly integrated with a number of Oracle products, most importantly the Oracle9idatabase, Oracle9i Application Server, Oracle9iAS Portal and Oracle9iAS Reports. This provides anintegrated ad hoc query, analysis and reporting system in a multitier architecture. Discoverer can leveragethe Oracle9i database for its security and scalability and the Oracle9i OLAP extensions for extensiveanalytic functionality. It also leverage’s Oracle’s Enterprise Manager for configuration management andintegrates with Oracle’s enterprise applications which provides users with access using the Applications’security. Oracle9i Warehouse Builder provides data transformation functionality, can design the targetdata warehouse or mart, and can also generate Discoverer’s EUL.
Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence
Discoverer offers a number of scalability enhancing features, including caching of data, clustering ofservers (using Oracle9iAS) and support for Unix platforms in addition to Microsoft Windows. Loadbalancing and failover support scalability as well as availability.
Web Deployment vs. Client/Server
The Web-based Plus and the client/server Desktop allow users to create and maintain reports that can beviewed by Plus, Desktop and Viewer users. Some competitive products don’t support creating reportsfrom their Web clients.
Caching
Discoverer employs a cache, transparent to both end user and administrator, which enables analysiswithout re-querying the database. When data is retrieved from the database it is stored in a cache in RAMand on the Discoverer Server. Designed to support OLAP analysis, the cache supports the pivoting,drilling and local calculation capabilities of Discoverer. It speeds up the response to generate the mostcommon requests, such as frequently queried result sets. Another cache — Oracle9iAS Web Cache — isleveraged by Discoverer to enhance performance over the Web. It also can be used as a router tobalance the load across all available application servers.
Query Performance
Discoverer’s predictive Query Governor provides an estimate of the retrieval time before a query is run. Ifthe query is predicted to take longer than a user-defined threshold, Discoverer warns the user, who canthen decide whether to run query. The Query Governor also allows an upper limit to be set for queryexecution time.
Query Redirection to Summaries
Requests for aggregated results are automatically redirected by the EUL engine to pre-summarized data,without user intervention. Discoverer recognizes existing summary tables (Pre-Oracle 8.1.6) andMaterialized Views (Post-8.1.6). Discoverer can create and maintain summaries as materialized views inOracle8i or Oracle9i.
Fan Traps
When a “fan trap” appears, in situations where information is retrieved from relational databases via SQLin which multiple tables are involved, Discoverer automatically rewrites the query so that the appropriateresults set is generated and executes the query on the server. Oracle claims that Discoverer is the onlyproduct on the market that detects a “fan trap” and rewrites the query. Gartner hasn’t found this capabilityin the major competitive products.
Ease of Use
Discoverer supports a breadth of users, with the Plus and Desktop interfaces allowing more sophisticatedusers to create queries and perform ad hoc analysis. It supports Viewer for users who are just going toconsume workbooks that have been set up by more technical users, while still allowing them to performmuch of the analysis functionality available in Plus. Discoverer’s EUL provides an environment for endusers to perform ad hoc queries, shielding them from the complexities of databases and relationaldatabase structures like tables, columns and joins by presenting a business oriented view of the data.Oracle also designed Discoverer, particularly Viewer and the portlet provider to be subsumed into acustomer’s environment so users are not aware they are in a BI tool.
Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence
In Desktop users can effectively drill anywhere through the drill dialogue and also can drill to detail. (Drillanywhere refers to “drill-to-related-item.” This allows a user to drill to any other item in the folders fromwhich items have been pulled for the current query.)
Ease of Administration
Discoverer Viewer is an HTML interface that does not require installation on the client machine.Discoverer Plus is a Java client that installs itself once and is then available for use subsequently. Oncethe EUL has been generated (can be done by OWB), it is managed centrally in the database, and allDiscoverer users have access to it. All workbooks are also stored in the EUL so these are alsoaccessible, and deployment is not otherwise required.
Limitations
Dedicated to Oracle Products
While its tight integration with other Oracle products is a Discoverer strength, Discoverer doesn’t directlyintegrate with any non-Oracle products. Thus, it is more complicated than other BI tools to integrate anduse with non-Oracle products. To access non-Oracle data sources, Discoverer must use Oracle9i’sGeneric Connectivity. Even so, Discoverer is not typically used other than in Oracle-centric shops.
OLAP Server Access
Discoverer doesn’t access third-party OLAP servers. Most competitive products access HyperionEssbase and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services. Discoverer accesses Oracle9i OLAP analyticworkspaces using SQL, not the OLAP API which would provide more robust functionality geared to OLAP.
Single Query With Predefined Joins
Some users want to be able to define joins on the fly, which can’t be done in Discoverer. Discoverer islimited to issuing only one query per worksheet which prevents bringing in data from multiple nonjoineddata sources. (Discoverer can access multiple data sources if joins have been predefined inAdministrator, but this provides a single result set.) As Discoverer doesn’t support linking worksheets,there isn’t any way to create multiple nonlinked tables and graphs in a single Discoverer output fromwithin Discoverer. However, a similar result can be achieved with Discoverer portlets and Oracle Portal,that is, a single portal page can display multiple portlets produced by Discoverer — multiple graphs anddata from Discoverer, as well as Reports and BI Beans.
Hierarchies
In the current release of Plus and Viewer, there is no drill dialogue; so the drill hierarchies must be used toperform drills. (Hierarchies in Discoverer are purely predefined drill paths. They do not affect any rollupinformation.) In Desktop users can drill through the drill dialogue, so the predefined hierarchies areoptional and set up for ease-of-use. Also, Plus and Viewer do not support drill to detail or drill anywhere(drill to related item). Oracle plans to add the drill dialogue and drill to detail to Plus in the near future.Although Oracle also plans to add drill anywhere to Plus, this is not high priority because there is minimalcustomer interest (according to Oracle).
Microsoft Excel Support
Unlike its competitors, Discoverer doesn’t offer an Excel Add-in, which could provide Discoverer OLAPanalysis in the Excel interface. However, Discoverer can export a pivot table to Excel.
Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence
Discoverer must export its results to Reports to achieve a highly formatted report that is more than justbasic output with basic formatting provided by Discoverer (that is, fonts, colors, title), Although Discoverercan export query results and reports to Reports, it cannot import Reports queries or results for furtheranalysis.
Oracle9iAS Is Required
Discoverer (and Reports) requires Oracle9iAS, which supports not only Oracle’s BI products but alsoother Oracle products. While competitive products also require servers, these are specific to these BIproducts and are dedicated to their support. It is questionable whether using Oracle9iAS for multiple (BIand non-BI) uses will be as effective and efficient for all customer BI installations. While Discoverer Servercan be run on Oracle9iAS along with other (non-Discoverer) applications, this is a more complexenvironment than one in which just Discoverer alone is using multiple Oracle9iAS servers. In this case,Discoverer performance will be harder to determine and tune than in an environment dedicated toDiscoverer. In some situations, a dedicated Oracle9iAS server may be needed for a BI project to achievethe desired performance. Thus, an Oracle9iAS may not be “free,” even if the customer already has such aserver on hand.
Multiple Oracle Metadata Repositories
There is loose metadata integration across the Oracle9i products, with several places where metadata isstored and managed. Multiple metadata repositories for the interrelated BI tools will require additionaldesign and management effort from customers. This is an integration issue. Oracle’s BI tools, includingDiscoverer, are well integrated with Oracle’s portal and database products and with the ApplicationServer, but are not so well integrated with each other (as other EBISs are). Unlike competitive BI suites,which are integrated across the BI tools, Oracle’s suite of BI tools is integrated across the Oracle products(for example, database and application server).
SQL Coding
Discoverer doesn’t currently have a user interface that allows the user to explicitly code SQL. SQLpresently is generated automatically. However, Administrator has an interface to explicitly code SQL
Recommended Gartner Research
Business Intelligence Magic Quadrants: Turbulent Waters, M-17-6578.
Oracle BI Tools and Strategy: Limitations Require Caution, P-16-8232.
Insight
Oracle9iAS Discoverer, together with other complementary Oracle9i products — particularly Oracle9iApplication Server — is a viable alternative for Oracle-centric enterprises that need a Web-based (andclient/server) ad hoc query and analysis tool. While it is a contender for such installations using theOracle9i database and can access non-Oracle databases via Oracle9i’s Generic Connectivity, Discovererdoesn’t emphasize the breadth of data sources that its competitors do and doesn’t access third-partyOLAP servers. However, with its intimate knowledge of the Oracle database, Discoverer can leverage itsOLAP extensions and other facilities. For enterprises that are not Oracle-centric, however, Discoverermay not be the optimal query and analysis tool. If they have a heterogeneous database and datawarehouse environment, non-Oracle application server and portal technology or enterprise applications,and need or want more robust reporting built into their OLAP query tool, they should probably look towardone of the competitive products from an independent tools vendor.