Questions about PowerCubes and PowerPlay

[chud182]

I am very ignorant of Cognos but have been asked to migrate our customers from Cognos 7 to 10.  One of the administrators insists that we need to have PowerPlay.  I have several questions to try and get to the bottom of this:

1.  Is there anything that PowerPlay provides that I can't get using Cognos BI/Framwork Manager/Transformer?

2.  Is there any difference between the terms, PowerCube and PowerPlay Cube?

3.  Is there any difference between the terms, Transformer and PowerPlay Transformer?

[Lynn]

I am very ignorant of Cognos but have been asked to migrate our customers from Cognos 7 to 10.  One of the administrators insists that we need to have PowerPlay.  I have several questions to try and get to the bottom of this:

1.  Is there anything that PowerPlay provides that I can't get using Cognos BI/Framwork Manager/Transformer?

Transformer is a tool used to model and build PowerCubes.

Framework Manager is a tool used to create models that may deliver relational reporting packages and/or DMR (dimensionally modeled relational) packages. The latter look like cubes but really are executing regular SQL to a traditional database behind the scenes.

Cognos BI refers to the whole suite of tools that support business intelligence applications.

The reference to PowerPlay perhaps refers to PowerPlay Studio or PowerPlay Web which are ways that a user interacts with a PowerCube to perform analysis against data available in the cube. These tools were long ago replaced in favor of Analysis Studio which has since been replaced by Cognos Workspace Advanced. Although you may be able to procure and use those older tools they aren't going to enjoy any upgrades or improvements in the future since Cognos' development efforts are not focused there at this stage of the game.

In fact Transformer itself is somewhat on the way out in favor of TM1 or Dynamic Cubes or DMR. The first two of those can handle larger volumes of data whereas DMR isn't going to perform as well over very large data sets.

2.  Is there any difference between the terms, PowerCube and PowerPlay Cube?

Nope, not as far as I know.

3.  Is there any difference between the terms, Transformer and PowerPlay Transformer?

Nope, not as far as I know.

I'm sure others can chime in with their thoughts on this and correct anything I might not have covered well. Personally I think you'd do well to move towards the newer tools.

Good luck!

[MFGF]

I am very ignorant of Cognos but have been asked to migrate our customers from Cognos 7 to 10.

Oh dear. That puts you in a very difficult position. Imagine you read a post on a medical forum that said "I am very ignorant of surgical procedures, but I have been asked to perform a heart transplant on the president of the United States". What would your thoughts be on reading that post? I imagine you'd be concerned for the future viability of the patient. Similarly, statements like the one you are making here cause me huge concern for the viability of any solution you attempt to deliver in Cognos 10. If you don't know anything about Cognos, why are you the right person to do this job?

One of the administrators insists that we need to have PowerPlay.

Can you do some digging here? What exactly does the administrator mean by "PowerPlay"? Is he referring to the PowerPlay windows client reporting tool? Is he referring to PowerPlay Web? Is he referring to PowerPlay Transformer? Is he referring to PowerPlay Enterprise Server? Some of these? All of these? Unless you understand what he means (exactly), it's going to be pretty difficult for you to know what you need to deliver in Cognos 10. It's quite possible that he might simply mean he needs the ability to slice-and-dice and to drill down and up? If so, PowerPlay isn't exclusively the answer - you could potentially deliver the same capabilities using DMR or Dynamic Cubes and Cognos Workspace Advanced.

Lynn has given you some good pointers above, but you really need to do more digging to discover the real requirements here.

Good luck!!

MF.

[cognostechie]

If you don't know anything about Cognos, why are you the right person to do this job?

I would refrain myself from jumping to conclusions but I can tell you why some people I have worked with were the right people to do their jobs. I worked for a company where the BI manager was a musician (Yes, he had an MBA in music) and it was his first gig at DW and BI but he was the boss and he was the right person to be the boss because he had the best relationship with the CIO. Whether the business was happy with the BI solution was another story but that wasn't considered such a big problem at least in the eyes of the senior management. Another company where I worked, the BI Manager was from QA background and didn't know the difference between relational and OLAP, didn't know what's meant by a model/package and why is it needed but he was the right person to make decisions. The reason why he was the right person is the same as in the 1st case.

Ok, seriously, I believe that everybody should be given an opportunity to learn and make a career but at a certain level so as not to sacrifice the company's interests but that's not how it works in many companies.

[srinisid]

Awesome reply cognostechie....I second it..

[MFGF]

I would refrain myself from jumping to conclusions but I can tell you why some people I have worked with were the right people to do their jobs. I worked for a company where the BI manager was a musician (Yes, he had an MBA in music) and it was his first gig at DW and BI but he was the boss and he was the right person to be the boss because he had the best relationship with the CIO. Whether the business was happy with the BI solution was another story but that wasn't considered such a big problem at least in the eyes of the senior management. Another company where I worked, the BI Manager was from QA background and didn't know the difference between relational and OLAP, didn't know what's meant by a model/package and why is it needed but he was the right person to make decisions. The reason why he was the right person is the same as in the 1st case.

Ok, seriously, I believe that everybody should be given an opportunity to learn and make a career but at a certain level so as not to sacrifice the company's interests but that's not how it works in many companies.

Yep - I agree that the most unlikely people can succeed at their roles, and we shouldn't be biased by our thoughts on their past experience. In fairness, though, this leans more towards generic management and decision-making roles in the real world. When we get to serious technical roles that require learning and experience in a specific discipline, it's another matter altogether. I stand by my analogy of someone with no skills in surgery being asked to perform a heart transplant. This is not a manager of a hospital department juggling budgets and headcount, it is a skilled technical challenge for a trained and experienced surgeon that should not be attempted by people with no knowledge of the procedure or tools. I believe it's the same paradigm the original poster identified. :)

MF.