With the scope and features of business intelligence applications hitting new stratospheric heights of splendiferousness, are simple query tool products being left behind? Apparently not just yet.

Written by John Ghrist

Sometimes you just don't want all the glitz. While one of the messages our whole culture seems to be delivering is one of "biggest is best," there are still situations when simple solutions are all that's needed. One of the best illustrations of that idea may be database query tools.

Even though many of these data-retrieval utilities are now embedded in applications that offer levels of complexity ranging from report generation and distribution tools to business predictive-analytics suites, sometimes all you really need right now is a factoid or two to get on with the task at hand. Not that all those other bells and whistles aren't frequently useful, of course, but sometimes it's also good to focus on the basics.

Learn how to tackle the challenges of poor data quality, inconsistency of business terms, fragmented view of the customer and product, and security and privacy.

Written by Sunil Soares

Editor's note: This article is an excerpt from the book Selling Information Governance to the Business: Best Practices by Industry and Job Function, published by MC Press.

According to the IBM 2009 Global CIO Study, today's CIOs spend an impressive 55 percent of their time on activities that spur innovation. These activities include generating buy-in for innovative plans, implementing new technologies, and managing nontechnological business issues. CIOs spend the remaining 45 percent of their time on essential, more traditional tasks related to managing the ongoing technology environment. This includes reducing IT costs, mitigating enterprise risks, and leveraging automation to lower costs elsewhere in the business.

NGS-IQ is New Generation Software's flagship query, reporting, and business intelligence suite for companies that need to move beyond Query/400 and other IBM i query tools.

Written by New Generation Software, Inc.

NGS-IQ is an integrated suite of business intelligence, Web modernization, enterprise reporting and analytical solutions for IBM i on Power Systems. It provides powerful query development for both IT professionals and power users with their choice of Windows, Web, and 5250 environments. Custom Web pages and reporting portals can also be designed with the drag-and-drop, point-and-click Windows interface. 

Vendors have so many different types of products to offer. How do you sort through it all?

Written by Alan Jordan

It's easy to get confused when investigating the requirements and options for implementing a successful business intelligence (BI) initiative. There's an amazing array of product offerings from different vendors, each with its own unique mix of functionality, strengths, and weaknesses. If you are new to BI, it can be difficult to sort through these offerings and identify what is best for your organization.

Empower users so they can get the data they want to see.

Written by Floyd Del Muro

How do you deliver the information your users need to do their jobs? Can they answer business questions quickly and correctly? Are they empowered with the tools and knowledge they need to find and access the data spread out across your enterprise?

Sadly, for many the answer is, "No, not easily" or "No, not at all."

Would you like to effortlessly replicate data from DB2 databases into Oracle, Informix, and Microsoft SQL databases and back again without custom programming or large-scale integration costs?

Written by Vision Solutions

Editor's Note: This article is an extract of the white paper "Real-time Database Sharing: What Can It Do for Your Business?" available free from the MC White Paper Center.

Senior managers expect IT teams to deliver consistent, high-quality data that creates a single view across the business. But with data stored across multiple databases and platforms, where does this single view reside? Attempting to combine all data into one "logical" database presents major data formatting, transformation, and consistency challenges.

How do you leverage business information for on-the-spot analysis?

Written by Floyd Del Muro

Need to provide critical business data to executives, managers, and business analysts, but find that the amount of training and supervision required is preventing you from providing a hands-on reporting tool for the business community? Is the thought of another software product to support across the entire network of users just too grand a plan with your limited staff? Need a fully functional, data?retrieving user interface that is as familiar and as easy to use as the Web? Do you have people that need to access data on the road for critical accounts and decisions?

Learn about the IBM query and reporting tool for the IBM i market.

Written by Gene Cobb

If you have been following recent IT industry trends, you may have noticed that there has been a lot of activity in the area of Business Intelligence (BI). Mergers, major acquisitions, and announcements have dominated the headlines in the past year. IBM has been quite active in this area as well. The recent acquisition of Cognos and the announcement of the Dynamic Data Warehouse Initiative are evidence of this. But the IBM i investment in and commitment to BI has not just been recent; it has been a point of emphasis in the last several releases, going back to V4R1. Consider some of the following database enhancements that have been built into the operating system over the last decade and beyond: