Speaking the language of business intelligence with an Australian accent

Monday, September 24, 2007

PPS Monitoring SAP BW Data Source: CUT

Well, PerformancePoint Server 2007 has shipped. The launch event took place in New York a few days ago. Remember, that this was not the fireworks and streamers type launch - the really colourful general availability / volume licensing events will be coming in November. The NYC event was really just to say that the RTM version is built and is ready for use by MSDN subscribers.

...and now for the bad news. The SAP BW 3.5 multidimensional data source connector that existed in CTP builds (including CTP4) has been cut. The RTM build of PerformancePoint Server Monitoring does not support connections to SAP BW 3.5. This feature was cut at the very last minute.

I don't know about anyone else out there but this feature represents a deal-breaker to several companies. I have worked with in several large MS customers recent times who also have substantial investments in SAP BW infrastructure. Many made the strategic decision to align themselves with PPS over other products because they were told that PPS would support SAP BW connectivity.

I know, I know, CTPs are just CTPs and we can't rely on the feature set to stay the same once RTM arrives. Nonetheless, I think the decision to cut this particular data source at the last minute was a big mistake.

I have logged a suggestion on Connect to get the SAP BW data source put back into the product. Vote for it here. If you know anyone who may be affected by this, get them to vote too.

UPDATE: Tim Kent has left a comment informing us that the evaluation versions of PPS are available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?pocId=&freetext=performancepoint&DisplayLang=en

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm. Interestingly enough this opens up opportunities for third parties to understand the PPS architecture and add value buy building extensions. Or is that not how Microsoft likes to do business?

Anonymous said...

Are you sure the RTM has been cut? I could not see any links in the MSDN download site. I thought the "launch" was just a "marketing thing", which was distinct from the "release" (which I believe was planned for November, but I could be mistaken)

Nick Barclay said...

Hi Darren,

I can tell you with absolute certainty that the RTM has definitely been built. I must say that I haven't seen the official RTM bits myself. To the best of my knowledge the NYC launch meant that the product is available. It could just be a little late in getting onto MSDN.

Cheers,
Nick

Anonymous said...

The "evaluation" release is available on MS public downloads

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?pocId=&freetext=performancepoint&DisplayLang=en

Anonymous said...

Hi Nick

Thanks for the mention ;)

There's some good stuff up on MSDN now as well.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb794633.aspx

Anonymous said...

As cubegeek mentioned, this certainly opens this opportunity to 3rd parties. The SDK supports building a scorecard data source provider with the same capabilities our SAP BW provider (RIP) did. The documentation is here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb836514.aspx

That being said, we're counting your votes...

X5 Networks said...
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