Item: IBM Cognos Analytics
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cognos Analytics is an Enterprise Reporting and Analytics platform supporting a wide range of use cases and business value. Cognos Analytics supports a centralized semantic layer that enables broad access to governed data in a way that makes content creation easy for a variety of user abilities and content types.

Pros and Cons

Common metadata platform that enables reporting, dashboards, ad hoc access and advanced capabilities
integrates well with a broad range of databases, authentication providers
provides content creation capabilities at different levels of complexity to make more people with a range of skills productive.

metadata modelling capabilities could provide greater capabilities to do common data engineering tasks.
integration with modern data stack tech like Fivetran, dbt and Snowflake could and should go much deeper
mapping and visualization capabilities could be improved.
cloud deployment could be more advanced.

Return on Investment

High ROI with well designed solutions. Supported by scalable deployment, robust security model and ability to create valuable content.
High ROI where well designed data models can be deployed with a common metadata layer to a variety of users and use cases.
High ROI in an environment that includes a variety of vendors and best of breed products within the overall platform

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Power BI, Sigma Computing and ThoughtSpot

I like the cloud native character and ease of deployment with Sigma and ThogthSpot, I also like the metadata modelling capabilities of Power BI. I prefer the ability of Cognos to create and publish a metadata model that provides both ad hoc access and managed reporting and everything in between.

Self-Service

I do not normally deploy ion this way.

Data Security and Quality

This does increase throughput so that we can deploy content to a wider audience utilizing security to make sure people see only what they are supposed to see. The overall model is flexible and powerful so we can deliver data securely no matter the security need.

Reporting

There are so many capabilities in reporting that there is no practical limit to what you can do. The one key problem is that there are so few people producing content that demonstrates these capabilities and creative approaches online. You can always find a video demonstrating a concept, approach or solution with Power BI, but it is very difficult to find anything that helps like this with Cognos.

Other Software Used

Snowflake, dbt, Fivetran

Key Insights

Do you think IBM Cognos Analytics delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with IBM Cognos Analytics's feature set?

Yes

Did IBM Cognos Analytics live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of IBM Cognos Analytics go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy IBM Cognos Analytics again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Where governed enterprise reporting is important, where IT skills are mature and capable, where well designed, highly formatted and advanced reports are important, where data modelling skills are well developed, where data analysts and data engineers work well together.

Cognos Analytics for Enterprise reporting

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cognos Analytics