Re: Anyone use Sterling's Eureka products?

My opinion of Eureka is rather different, at least from the ROLAP perspective, especially in regards to Strategy being the best high-end ROLAP tool. In my opinion, the user interface leaves a lot to be desired, metadata management can only effectively be done at the database level, and the product doesn't have very good support for some simple metrics, such as rankings (yes, it does support rankings, but only if you include the rank as a separate metric, and retrieve all of the data). I also found creating advanced metrics fairly difficult and counter intuitive. I've also discovered some bandwidth issues if the server is placed on a separate platform from the database.

I typically would recommend MicroStrategy before Eureka because the interface is much more mature for both Agent and Web, metadata management is much less database invasive, and I find metric and filter creation to be much easier. They also released InfoCenter to compete with Eureka:Portal, and it's a very clean implementation in my opinion (if you believe in the whole portal hype, which I still think is a debatable topic).

Now, just so I don't come off too biased, Eureka does appear to be more scalable with regards to users and reports. It also doesn't use up so much temp space on the database, which can be a DBA nightmare. I think that it's a decent tool, but far from being 'The Best ROLAP tool'.

In article <xyra4.5083$Ry2.169194_at_typhoon2.austin.rr.com>,   "William Teague" <wteague_at_houston.rr.com> wrote:
> As a former IA/Sterling consultant, I can tell you a lot about the
products.
> The Eureka:Strategy is the best high-end ROLAP tool out there. The
> Eureka:Portal was the first and is still probably a step ahead of the
> competition. Eureka:Intelligence is a good introductory web-based
query
> tool, but its a 1.0 release and was previously a Sterling product that
was
> switched to the Eureka line. I don't have much experience with it,
> actually. It was just released recently. The other two
Eureka:Reporter and
> Eureka:Analyst can be problematic to implement. Reporter provides
great
> looking reports, but it is not as easy for the end users as say,
Cognos
> Impromptu. Make sure they are truly supported on your platform (call
tech
> support). Analyst uses TM1 by Applix as the back-end. I still think
TM1 is
> a great product, but it stores the cubes in memory, so there are
definitely
> size and server considerations.
>
> more questions? e-mail at mailto:dtilley_at_houston.rr.com
> dt
>
> itc_at_my-deja.com wrote in message <82m3es$efp$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >Hi, all. I am spec'ing out a Data Mart in a virginal environment and
am
> >planning to use a three-tier, web-centric approach. Sterling
Software's
> >Eureka products look great on paper; I was wondering if anyone here
had
> >used them and what their opinion is of its usability, stengths and
> >weaknesses.
> >
> >TIA -
> >
> >Regards,
> >jh
> >
> >
> >Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> >Before you buy.
>
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy. Received on Tue Jan 11 2000 - 14:19:02 CST