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Gartner © 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. DPRO-113091 Alan Tiedrich Product Report 11 February 2003 Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence Summary Oracle9iAS Discoverer, an ad-hoc query, reporting, analysis and Web-publishing tool, is a component of Oracle9i Application Server. Table of Contents Overview Analysis Pricing Competitors Strengths Limitations Recommended Gartner Research Insight List Of Tables Table 1: Overview: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Table 2: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Infrastructure Table 3: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Client Products Table 4: Features/Functions — Oracle9iAS Discoverer Administrator Table 5: Features and/Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Table 6: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Portal/Web Site Integration Table 7: Price List: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

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Page 1: Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence · Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence Summary Oracle9iAS Discoverer, an ad-hoc query, reporting, analysis and Web-publishing

Gartner© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to bereliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretationsthereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

DPRO-113091Alan Tiedrich

Product Report11 February 2003

Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence

Summary

Oracle9iAS Discoverer, an ad-hoc query, reporting, analysis and Web-publishing tool, is a component ofOracle9i Application Server.

Table of Contents

Overview

Analysis

Pricing

Competitors

Strengths

Limitations

Recommended Gartner Research

Insight

List Of Tables

Table 1: Overview: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Table 2: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Infrastructure

Table 3: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Client Products

Table 4: Features/Functions — Oracle9iAS Discoverer Administrator

Table 5: Features and/Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Table 6: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Portal/Web Site Integration

Table 7: Price List: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

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Oracle Oracle9iAS Discoverer Business Intelligence

© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.DPRO-11309111 February 2003 2

Corporate Headquarters

Oracle Corp.

500 Oracle Parkway

Redwood Shores, CA 94065, U.S.A.

Tel: +1 650 506 7000

Fax: +1 650 506 7200

Internet: www.oracle.com

Overview

Table 1: Overview: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Version 9.0.2

Product Type Oracle9i Application Server (Oracle9iAS) Query, analysis and reporting tool.

User Interface • Discoverer Plus — Java-based interface

• Discoverer Viewer — Extensible Markup Language (XML)/HTML-based user

interface

Client Platforms • Oracle9i Discoverer Plus — any standard browser (Oracle provides the Java

Virtual Machine)

• Oracle9i Discoverer Viewer — any standard browser

• Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop (1) — Windows NT/2000/XP

• Oracle9i Discoverer Administrator (1) — Windows NT/2000/XP

Server Platforms • Windows NT/2000 on Intel Pentium

• Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM-AIX and Linux

Relational

Databases

• Oracle — Oracle8i and Oracle9i

• Non-Oracle — IBM DB2, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server and other Open Database

Connectivity (ODBC)-compliant databases

Online Analytical

Processing (OLAP)

Servers

• Oracle9i OLAP analytic workspace (using Structured Query Language [SQL], not a

specific OLAP application programming interface [API])

Database

Connectivity

• Oracle — SQL*Net

• Non-Oracle — ODBC, which can be Oracle9iAS Discoverer (Discoverer) ODBC or

via Oracle8i or Oracle9i Generic Connectivity

Date Announced and

Delivered

Oracle9iAS 9.0.2 Solaris — May 2002

Oracle9iAS 9.0.2 Linux — May 2002

Oracle9iAS 9.0.2 HP — May 2002

Oracle9iAS 9.0.2 IBM AIX — June 2002

Oracle9iAS 9.0.2. Windows NT — July 2002

Oracle9iDS (Developer Suite) 9.0.2 Windows — May 2002

Base Price (US$) Oracle9iAS Enterprise Edition — 20,000 per CPU

Oracle9iAS Enterprise Edition — 400 per named user

Oracle9iDS — 5,000 per named user

Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop — 1,000 per named user (can be licensed separately)

Number of

Customers/Users

Over 10,000 active Discoverer customer sites (no information on number of seats

per site, but varies from 10s to 1000s).

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Table 1: Overview: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

(1) Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop and Oracle9i Discoverer Administrator are included in the Oracle9i

Developer Suite.

Table 2: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Infrastructure

Architecture Can be either:

• Client/server

• N-tier distributed-component Web architecture (Java or HTML), which includes:

—Client tier

—Discoverer Server(s) tier

—Database tier.

Heterogeneous

Database

Functionality Support

• Heterogeneous database support enables Discoverer users to query and join data

from multiple heterogeneous (including non-Oracle) databases simultaneously

—Joins must be predefined in the Administrator.

• Query Prediction on non-Oracle databases — Discoverer’s query prediction

capability can make use of Query Statistics, which will be saved in the End User

Layer (EUL) for all queries.

• Batch support — Discoverer uses the batch scheduler available within the Oracle8i

and Oracle9i databases.

—With Oracle Generic Connectivity, the EUL resides in the Oracle database,

allowing batch support using ODBC data from non-Oracle databases.

• Oracle Functions — Using Generic Connectivity, the Oracle analytical functions

(and other Oracle functions) can be applied to data provided from an ODBC

database.

—The data is brought into the Oracle database and the function then applied.

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© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.DPRO-11309111 February 2003 4

Table 2: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Infrastructure

Metadata —

Discoverer EUL

• A server based metadata repository and query management engine.

• Provides an environment for end users to perform ad hoc queries using

terminology they understand.

—Shields complexities of databases and relational database structures like tables,

columns and joins, by presenting a business oriented view of the data.

—Joins are automatically read from the database.

—Logical hierarchies, calculated items (Oracle uses the term “item” as the

equivalent of a database column, which can be an actual database column, or a

calculation created by an administrator or by the user), join definitions, custom sort

orders and other elements enable users to graphically perform tasks.

• Holds user-defined queries, usage statistics, and Discoverer privileges.

• Discoverer stores all of its metadata centrally in the database management system

(DBMS), so there is only one copy to maintain.

—Oracle has one design time metadata — managed by Oracle9i Warehouse

Builder (OWB).

—Metadata is extracted from a number of sources including the data dictionary or

gateway, or populated via OWB Common Warehouse Metadata (CWM) bridge.

—OWB writes out runtime metadata for Oracle products, including Discoverer’s

EUL.

—OWB manages any changes to source/target schemas and can regenerate

metadata for Discoverer.

• Can map to third-party metadata, for example, Business Objects Universes can be

mapped to a view in the EUL; imported by using the EUL Gateway

—In general metadata can be mapped to the EUL via the EUL Gateway.

—OWB supports CWM; any vendor’s product that supports CWM can export their

metadata to the CWM format, which OWB can import and utilize.

• Discoverer can upgrade (or import changes to) an EUL without overwriting any

customizations made since the last upgrade (or import of changes).

—The requirements for the EUL upgrade were driven by Oracle Applications, which

builds an EUL for Discoverer.

• Centrally stored in Oracle9i for convenient maintenance.

• Provides feedback on query performance, query volume and usage patterns,

which is accessible through ad hoc reporting or predefined reports.

—A series of EUL Workbooks are supplied with Discoverer to help analyze the EUL.

• One EUL is used by Discoverer Plus, Discoverer Desktop and Discoverer Viewer,

so there is only one administration tool for supporting all deployment options.

• Created and administered by the Discoverer Administrator.

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Table 2: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Infrastructure

Query Handling • Discoverer sends a SQL statement to the database kernel and processes the

stream of data that is returned.

• The EUL engine automatically performs query redirection to summaries, if they

exist.

• Discoverer automatically detects queries that can generate unexpected results,

called “fan traps” by Oracle.

—A fan trap typically appears in situations where information is retrieved from

relational databases via SQL in which multiple fact tables are involved.

—Discoverer automatically rewrites the query so that the appropriate results set is

generated (ensures that aggregation is done at the correct level).

—The intelligence for recognizing a fan trap situation resides in Discoverer’s EUL

semantic layer.

Cubic Cache • Query result sets are stored on the Discoverer Server in a “cubic cache” (RAM and

disk), which is an Oracle term that indicates that the data can be manipulated as an

OLAP structure:

—In a Web environment, this cache is located on a middle-tier server and is

associated with the user’s session.

—Has intelligence about totals and hierarchies.

—Supports pivoting data, sorts, drills, local calculations, for example, totals and

subtotals.

Query Performance • Discoverer’s query performance is affected mainly by how well the database is

tuned for queries and not by specific settings available within Discoverer.

—Good database design, utilizing summaries, bit-mapped and star indexes,

network bandwidth and database parameter settings, offer greater performance

advantages.

—There also are settings in Discoverer that can affect performance.

• Creating summaries or Materialized Views (MVs) speeds up queries with

aggregation.

—A Summary wizard determines which fields should be summarized based on prior

queries and their performance.

—Wizard graphs performance gain vs. space required.

• When the user executes a query, the Discoverer query rewrite system determines

whether summary tables exist that satisfy the query request.

—Discoverer automatically rewrites queries to summaries if they have been

recorded within the EUL.

—SQL is generated to access summary tables rather than the original detail tables.

—The database server automatically rewrites queries when using MVs.

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Table 2: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Infrastructure

Server Clustering

and Scalability

There are two ways to add additional Discoverer Servers, both of which provide

round robin load balancing (all load balancing is done at the Web server level) and

fault tolerance:

• Components of the Discoverer Server can be added dynamically to meet

increased demand as the number of concurrent users increases.

—Can install Oracle9iAS on multiple servers and use standard HTTP or IP router

load balancing capabilities.

—The router uses its own round robin load balancing facilities to direct the request

to the next available machine.

—This is the standard mechanism for 9iAS and most Web applications.

—This architecture load balances all 9iAS services, not just Discoverer.

—Administrator intervention not required.

• If the customer does not have a preferred HTTP or IP router, Oracle9iAS Web

Cache can be used as a router (for both Plus and Viewer) to balance the load (and

provide failover) across all available application servers; this also is round robin

balancing.

—The Web Server may be replicated using standard Web Farm techniques.

Performance • To minimize network traffic, Oracle9iAS Discoverer offers HTML paging, no

software download, direct communication between the Java client and Discoverer

Server sessions, and client-side time outs.

• Whatever can be done without going back to the database for more data is done in

the Discoverer Server on the middle tier.

• The Discoverer cubic cache, completely transparent to both end user and

administrator, enables analysis without re-querying the database.

—End users can ask subsequent questions about the data without having to re-

execute the query on the database server.

—Rotation, sorting, some totals and percentages and some calculations are

handled.

—If an item is deleted, totals will be aggregated locally.

—As users drill for more detail, Discoverer fetches only the additional information

requested and incorporates this into the existing cache, reducing both database and

network traffic.

—If a user does a filtered drill, just the filtered data is retrieved from the database

and merged into the cubic cache’s existing query results.

• Large documents are viewed in pages:

—Discoverer breaks the document into pages in the background and displays the

first page.

—Additional pages are displayed on demand.

• Discoverer Server monitors client activity and ends inactive sessions after a

specified time out limit.

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Table 3: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Client Products

Discoverer Plus and

Discoverer Desktop

• Create ad hoc queries, reports and graphs in a Java client (Plus) or client/server

client (Desktop).

—Plus provides most of Desktop’s functions to Web users.

• Drill up and down on the result set, pivot data and change the layout.

• Create calculations, conditions and totals to generate custom reports.

• Scheduling is set up via a wizard or triggered by exceeding the threshold limits.

—Workbooks can execute automatically on a regular “repeat” interval specified by

users.

• Results are parameterized, shared or exported in a variety of formats, including

spreadsheets and HTML.

• Discoverer Plus supports multiple firewalls for users who create queries on the

Internet or intranet.

• Discoverer Desktop enables users to export results in XML to other business

intelligence (BI) tools like Oracle9i Reports Developer.

Discoverer Viewer • Intended for users who open and consume workbooks, not create or save them.

• Users execute reports and graphs created in Discoverer Plus or Discoverer

Desktop from any HTML browser.

• A completely HTML solution, which uses a servlet engine (Oracle Components for

Java) with Extensible Style Language (XSL) style sheets.

• Built using standard Web technologies, so the usual browser facilities are

available.

• Offers functionality similar to Discoverer Plus.

—Once users have opened a workbook, they can view data, drill, pivot, change the

layout, sort, add a logo, customize what actual Discoverer controls are displayed

and export data.

• Users can tailor a report by the use of parameters and page items (used to create

a Master-Detail style report) which have drop-down lists of values that the user can

select.

• Can be used as a stand-alone business intelligence (BI) tool or can be used to

integrate database output into a Web site and portal.

—Can be embedded and customized (using standard Web technologies such as

XML and XSL) within the enterprise’s Web site.

—Makes information available on the Internet/Intranet, and allows it to be

embedded in Web pages, accessed from corporate portals, PDAs or Mobile

phones.

• Supports multiple firewalls and SSL for users who run queries on the Internet or

Intranet.

• Requires no plug ins or downloads.

• Viewer is invoked via a URL from a standard Web Browser.

—The Viewer servlet running on the Web Server interprets the HTTP request from

the client browser, and calls the Discoverer Server.

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Table 3: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Client Products

Discoverer Plus • As a Java UI, supports interactivity that allows users to create queries and perform

ad hoc analysis.

• Wizards and dialogues are based on Discoverer Desktop.

• Plus adds functionality beyond Viewer:

—Create/edit queries

—Create/edit calculations and percentages

—Create/edit conditions and parameters

—Add totals

—Create/change formats

—Share workbooks with other users

—Schedule workbooks (Viewer can open scheduled results).

Discoverer Plus,

Desktop and Viewer

Features include:

• Dynamically run reports that have been saved in the database.

• Enter parameters at runtime.

• Retrieve scheduled report results.

• Cancel a query.

• Change workbook and database options.

• Print reports.

• Export reports to various file formats such as HTML, Excel (pivot table), and other

PC file formats.

• Perform drill down analysis through multiple levels of summarized data.

• Drill out to data held in other applications, for example, Web pages, MS Word

documents

• Control query execution time — if a query is still running when the time threshold is

reached, the query is automatically terminated.

• Display a query estimate.

—If a query is predicted to take longer than a predefined time threshold, Discoverer

warns the user, who can determine if the query should be run.

• Automatically redirect queries to summary tables — requests for summarized data

are automatically redirected to a summary table containing pre-summarized data.

• Leverage the security features of the Web server and database

• Go through multiple firewalls

• Support Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), x.509 (a widely used standard for defining

digital certificates — used by both Netscape and Microsoft to implement SSL in their

Web servers and browsers) and other standard Web security protocols.

Client/server and

Web Interoperability

• Existing business views in the metadata are available to Discoverer Plus,

Discoverer Viewer and Discoverer Desktop users.

• Workbooks created using Discoverer Plus run in Discoverer Desktop without

modification, and vice versa.

• Workbooks can be created on the Web (or client/server), then edited and run on

the client/server platform, or vice versa.

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Table 3: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Client Products

User Functionality

User Interface • Graphical.

• Wizards, tool tips, tutorials, and context sensitive help.

• Common options such as adding calculations, conditions, subtotals, sorts and

exports, are accessible from icons.

—Each option contains an advanced level.

• Discoverer Desktop and Discoverer Plus have similar functionality for ad hoc

querying, reporting and drill down/pivot functionality.

—There are interface differences due to the different technologies employed

(Windows and Java)

• Viewer has some of the functionality of Plus and Desktop, but because it is HTML,

there are some differences due to the different interface characteristics of HTML

technology.

Data Visualization • Plus, Viewer and Desktop enable graphing result sets.

• Graphs are Oracle9i BI Beans.

• Graph wizard supports 14 main graph types, each with a number of sub-graph

types for a total of 30 graph types.

Query Building • QueryBuilder (patented) enables users to specify query properties without SQL

expertise.

—OLAP queries are defined in business terms, which end users can modify.

Analytic Functionality • Discoverer leverages the Oracle9i database functionality (like ranking, period-to-

period comparisons and moving averages), allowing users to get answers to Online

Analytical Processing (OLAP) questions.

• Users can sort, pivot and total calculated items (like a ranking returned from

Oracle9i), like any other column.

• While most analytic functions and calculations are done in the Oracle9i database,

there are some percentage, totaling and subtotaling calculations, and some two-

pass calculations, done in the Discoverer Server.

• DBMS analytics can be used to define a condition, allowing a user to view only the

top “n” customers, or products that have grown by more than “x” percent in one

period.

• Discoverer permits users to nest functions (for example, calculating the growth

rates between two data sets, then ranking them at the same time.)

—Example: the user can rank the fastest growing products this year compared to

last year in a single calculation.

• Discoverer processes the SQL directly in the DBMS kernel, without client

processing overhead.

Calculations • Plus and Desktop enable users to create their own calculations.

—Calculations can be predefined by administrators for more complex calculations.

• Viewer does not allow users to create their own calculations, nor to add items to

the query, unless they are drilling.

—Oracle is considering adding the capability to turn on/off existing items,

conditions, and calculations (customer request).

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Table 3: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Client Products

Joining • Discoverer doesn’t enable users to define joins at report building time.

—Joins are pre-defined by the administrator.

—Can join tables from multiple business areas, that is,multiple Oracle and non-

Oracle databases (joins must be set pre-defined in the Administrator), if logical.

• Discoverer computes the result set entirely within the database engine.

—No joining is required on either the client or middle tier server.

Reporting • The terms “worksheet” and “workbook” are used by Discoverer to identify a report

or a set of reports created by users.

—The workbook has pages, or worksheets, that contain data for the specific tasks.

—Each worksheet in a workbook contains the result of a query (one query per

worksheet) in a tabular or cross-tabular format that may include a graph.

—Discoverer also offers a page-detail (master-detail) format.

Table 4: Features/Functions — Oracle9iAS Discoverer Administrator

Uses • Used by IT professionals for setup and maintenance of metadata — End User

Layer (EUL).

• Administrators perform tasks such as creating and maintaining the business-

oriented view of the data, access control, summary data management, and batch

scheduling.

Features Overview • Wizards, tutorials and online help facilitate development and deployment.

—Wizard helps the administrator create the dimension hierarchy.

• Metadata — administrators default common configuration parameters, such as

converting field names, defining data types, joins, and generating lists of values.

—Date fields from database automatically become the date hierarchy.

—Numerical data types become dimensions.

—Supports creation of new calculation types.

• Discoverer administrators distribute EUL “patches” to support changing business

requirements via granular import/export of metadata.

—Allows adding or modifying existing metadata without disturbing unrelated

business views.

—Users can continue using Discoverer while administrators maintain multiple

development, test, and deployment environments.

—When headquarters sends an update to the EUL (for example, new tables or

items have been added to the data source), just the changes are applied to the

remote site EULs.

—Allows customers to deploy the EUL to remote databases.

—Allows sites to customize the EUL for their local needs and not lose their

customization when EUL changes are applied (the old EUL is not replaced by the

new one).

—Discoverer provides impact analysis so the administrator knows what folders,

items, and workbooks are impacted by changes; if there are conflicts, the

administrator can choose how to resolve them.

Query Governor • Allows end users or administrators to set an upper threshold on query execution

time.

—If a query is still running when the time threshold is reached, it is automatically

terminated.

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Table 4: Features/Functions — Oracle9iAS Discoverer Administrator

Query Prediction • Discoverer’s predictive query governor provides an estimate of the retrieval time

before a query is run.

—If the query is predicted to take longer than a user defined time threshold,

Discoverer warns the user, who can then decide whether to run query

—Statistics are kept in the EUL for query run times, which are used to help produce

the estimated query time for a new query.

—Can be disabled if it causes excessive delays.

• Discoverer provides a running status of the time remaining, giving users a realistic

estimate of the wait until results are returned.

• Discoverer includes a Query Statistics workbook that displays query statistics for

an administrator’s analysis.

Security • Discoverer uses the existing database security as defined by the Discoverer

Administrator.

• Users can view only data they are authorized to see.

Connections/Single

Sign on

• A Discoverer connection stores login details — automatically when a connection is

created — that enable the user to connect to Discoverer.

—Each connection stores: database user name, database password, database

name (optional), Oracle Applications responsibility, language and EUL.

—Discoverer is started by clicking on a connection name in the Discoverer

connections list that is displayed when Discoverer is run.

• Connections are either private (available to a single user) or public (available to all

Discoverer users).

—Users manage private connections, create new private connections, modify

existing connections and change their passwords as necessary.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) manages public connections.

—OEM centralized configuration management enables Discoverer administrators to

view and configure Discoverer services in the middle tier, create or switch on/off

user defined connections, set a connection’s default locale, switch on/off

Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On (SSO) for Discoverer

• Support for Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On enables users to log on to Discoverer once

and access multiple databases/EULs (independent of Oracle9iAS Portal usage).

—Within the same browser session, Discoverer enables the user to use other SSO

compliant applications such as Oracle9iAS Portal, without logging in again.

Administrative

Reporting

• Discoverer automatically tracks statistics regarding users queries, including:

columns and tables requested, estimated run time, actual run time and other system

level information within the EUL.

• Statistics are stored within a relational database schema, accessible to SQL tools,

including Discoverer.

• Discoverer administrators are provided with workbooks that report on the most

common questions, to proactively meet users requirements.

• Administrators can create their own management reports using Discoverer Plus or

Discoverer Desktop.

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Table 4: Features/Functions — Oracle9iAS Discoverer Administrator

Aggregated

Data/Query

Redirection

• Discoverer can use Materialized Views from the Oracle database.

• Discoverer maintains summaries (pre-summarized data) as Materialized Views in

Oracle8i or Oracle9i

—Discoverer-maintained Oracle8i or Oracle9i Materialized Views support

incremental refresh, which reduces refresh time.

• Discoverer’s automated summary management also can be used to create and

maintain summaries as standard tables in Oracle, including for databases that do

not support Materialized Views.

• Requests for aggregated results are automatically redirected to pre-summarized

data, without user intervention.

• A wizard-based feature simplifies the summary creation process by recommending

and creating summaries:

—Based on criteria set by the Discoverer administrator, that is, the summary policy.

—The summary policy is defined once and executed without any further

intervention, with the actual set of summary tables dynamically adjusting with

system usage.

—Discoverer recognizes existing summary tables (Pre-Oracle 8.1.6) and

Materialized Views (Post-8.1.6).

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Table 5: Features and/Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Related Products

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Table 5: Features and/Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Related Products

Oracle Products • Oracle database

• Oracle9i OLAP:

—Integrated part of Oracle9i Database; provides support for multidimensional

calculations and predictive functions.

—Supports both Oracle relational tables (with a SQL interface) and analytic

workspaces (a multidimensional data type), which are Oracle Express OLAP

structures.

—Accesses analytic workspaces using SQL, not a specific OLAP API.

—Supports complex, multidimensional calculations.

—Supports predictive functions, such as forecasts, models, non-additive

aggregations and allocations, and scenario management (what if).

• Oracle9iAS Portal integration with Oracle9iAS Discoverer enables users to publish

reports to the Oracle9iAS Portal.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) integration provides centralized configuration

management.

• Oracle9i Reports Developer:

—Discoverer users can export workbooks, with information about layout, formatting,

exceptions, parameters, and other features being passed via XML.

—This provides users access to the full suite of publishing capabilities of

Oracle9iAS Reports Services, such as batch scheduling and PDF support.

• Oracle9i OWB, which leverages the OWB metadata:

—Consolidates disparate data sources, performs required data transformations,

manages the warehouse life cycle.

—Connections to flat file sources, or relational data sources such as Oracle, DB2,

Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, and SAP R/3 are made by using the

appropriate OWB integrator.

—OWB administrators automatically generate a Discoverer EUL for any target data

model.

—Dimensions and hierarchies created in OWB are understood by Discoverer.

—OWB provides a portal environment for metadata reporting, with a set of reports

that allows users to view contents of OWB repositories including object properties,

lineage and impact analysis.

—Discoverer users can drill from their queries to the metadata definition in OWB

and can view the objects impacted by a particular data transformation (to determine

the validity of the results from the transformation).

—Impact analysis reports allow users to identify which other objects are likely to be

affected by a change to an OWB object.

—Discoverer extends impact analysis reports to include the relevant objects in

Discoverer EULs and Workbooks that may be impacted by a change to an OWB

object.

—Discoverer provides workbooks that enable users to specify an item and drill out

to OWB, displaying the view of an associated data lineage, tom learn the origin of

the data.

• Discoverer leverages Oracle9iAS Web Cache.

—Speeds up the response to generate the most common requests, such as lists of

workbooks, or frequently queried result sets.

—Oracle9iAS Web Cache can be used as a router to balance the load across all

available application servers.

—Deployed in front of a Web server farm, Oracle9iAS Web Cache intercepts HTTP

and HTTPS requests sent to the Web site and responds with a cached page if it

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Table 5: Features and/Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Related Products

Oracle e-Business

Suite Support

• Enterprises implementing Discoverer against Oracle e-Business Suite can use the

same security structures present in Oracle e-Business Suite.

—Provides consistent access control across a customer’s OLTP and BI systems.

—End user accounts and responsibilities in the OLTP system are available in

Discoverer immediately, without extra setup.

—Discoverer also provides the same level of multi-organization access control that

is available through Oracle e-Business Suite and cross organization reporting is

also supported.

—When a user logs in to Discoverer, they view only the data pertaining to the

organizations to which the Applications administrator has granted them access.

—Descriptive and key flexfields are customizable Oracle e-Business Suite features

— supported by Discoverer and displayed as EUL items — that enable customers

to flexibly set up and configure their OLTP systems.

—Flexfield customizations can be seamlessly included in Discoverer queries without

any additional setup.

Oracle Business

Intelligence System

(BIS)

• A performance management system for Oracle e-Business Suite built with the

Discoverer, Alert and Workflow technology.

• Includes an integrated set of BI modules for Financials, Purchasing, Operations,

Human Resources and Process Manufacturing.

—Each BI module comes with Discoverer workbooks and Oracle Reports that

provide ad hoc and detailed analysis of key performance measures.

• Includes the Oracle e-Business Suite EUL for Discoverer.

Table 6: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Portal/Web Site Integration

Discoverer Portlets • Oracle9iAS Discoverer is a portlet provider to the Oracle9iAS (information placed

within a region on a portal page is called a portlet).

• Major types of portlets:

—”List of Workbooks Portlet” includes the names of workbooks available from

Discoverer.

—”Worksheet Portlet” is an individual worksheet that contains data only (table or

cross-tabular), a graph only, or both.

• Authenticated users granted the “Create/Customize Page” privilege in Oracle9iAS

Portal can add and customize Discoverer portlets.

• Discoverer’s security allows the portlet publisher to control the connections used to

display data to authenticated and un-authenticated users.

• Discoverer portlet provider automatically refreshes the portlet content on a

schedule as required (according to a refresh frequency parameter).

—Users also can refresh the “List of Workbooks Portlet” on demand.

—When a Worksheet Portlet is initially published, the content is rendered by

querying the database and immediately cached.

—When the portal page is accessed, the portlet content is retrieved from the cache.

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Table 6: Features and Functions: Oracle9iAS Discoverer Portal/Web Site Integration

Customization • Discoverer provides customization options to integrate within a Web site.

• Users can enhance the appearance of their reports, incorporate a company logo or

other artwork.

• Discoverer Viewer’s appearance can be customized by specifying HTML

formatting attributes in a customization file.

—Fonts, colors and graphics with HTML formatting.

• Power users using Extensible Markup Language (XML) with XSL can build custom

Discoverer applications for the Web to fit in with their company’s Web site.

—Uses industry standard XML to represent application state and the XSL style

sheet language to format the user interface.

—Standard XSL tools can be used to customize the user interface or produce an

embedded BI application.

• By controlling the size, position and number of portlets on a page, users and

administrators create new, customized applications.

• 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.

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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.

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Pricing

Table 7: Price List: Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Product Description Price (US$)

Oracle9iAS Enterprise Edition • Per CPU

• Includes BI components

plus some non-BI

components:

—Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Plus

—Oracle9iAS Discoverer

Viewer

—Oracle9iAS Web Cache

—Oracle9iAS Reports

Services

—Oracle9iAS Portal

—Oracle9iAS Security

—Oracle9iAS Clickstream

Intelligence

—Oracle HTTP Server

—Oracle Enterprise

Manager

—Additional components

not relevant to this report.

20,000

Oracle9iAS Enterprise Edition Per named user 400

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.

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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.

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Scalability and Availability

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.

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Drill Anywhere and to Detail

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.

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Oracle9iAS Reports Synergy

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.