Key Information Systems, newly rebranded as Key Info, announced at COMMON last week that, in addition to changing its brand name, it was releasing its IBM i-based Smart i business intelligence solution for general availability and is working on designing a mobile BI client. The company said it had upgraded its website and also created a new Smart i social networking group on LinkedIn for users to get together and share information about business intelligence.
The company's URL remains the same: http://www.keyinfo.com/ but has been significantly overhauled. The new LinkedIn group for Smart i users can be found at Smart i Appliance Users.
Company Website
Revenue and profits at Key Info were up sharply last year, prompting a significant redesign of the company's website to better serve its clients. Pete Elliot, Key Info's director of Marketing, said, "Our website is very critical to Key's support of our clients and has been redesigned to provide maximum value to our client base."
The new site is built around six sections: services, products, solutions, industries, news and events, and "who we are." The new LinkedIn group for users is intended to provide a place where users of Key Info's Smart i business intelligence solution can connect in order to share information. The Smart i solution launched in late 2008 and provides analytics at an affordable cost of less than $50,000 including setup and training. The product runs on the IBM i platform.
Key announced at COMMON that the Smart i Appliance had been released for general availability. The announcement followed completion of a three-phase implementation and evaluation process conducted at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles. The firms involved were Key Info, Systech Solutions, Talend and IBM.
The Smart i Appliance is a plug-and-play business intelligence appliance that runs on all models of IBM's System i product group and its new Power System servers running on the IBM i operating system. The heart of it is IBM DB2 Web Query for i.Smart i and DB2 Web Query were the subject of an add-on panel session at COMMON titled "Power i as an Industrial Strength Native BI Platform."
Smart i is the result of a collaboration between Key Info as integrator, Systech Solutions who handles all technical implementation and training, Talend, which provides an open system extract transform and load (ETL) tool to access data from different databases. The fourth part of the development group was a group from IBM that supported integration of the product with the System i and Power Systems servers, operating system, DB2 database and the DB2 Web Query analytics/reporting tool.
V1.1 of Smart i has been approved for general availability to users of the IBM i platform in the U.S. General availability to other parts of the world is expected to be announced later in 2009.
Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, chief information officer at FIDM, said, "The world that we're in, it's a very dynamic world and it changes on a dime. We have to be able to respond to that. I think that the Smart i offers us that potential."
Called by its developers "business intelligence that works," Smart i is designed for the highly secure System i and Power Systems platforms. It requires no staff additions for technical expertise and can be installed with a data mart, four custom reports and some training for under $50,000.
Upon completion of the implementation at FIDM, Al Saavedra, national sales director at Systech said, "Smart i is a state-of-the art appliance that will help FIDM improve decision-making whether strategic or operational. It runs native on the System i, the most affordable platform for business intelligence."
To achieve general availability, Smart i required four separate areas to be satisfactorily completed:
- Approval by the test site (FIDM) that the product performed as specified. This included Systech's production of a data warehouse with sales, marketing, financial and enrollment data, plus the conversion of 21 reports from the old environment on Microsoft BI tools
- Both technical and user documents in place
- Talend's ETL tool being able to transfer data from diverse data base platforms to the IBM i platform
- Having all contracts between the four developers in place
"What's nice about DB2 Web Query, in my opinion," Saavedra told MC Press Online during an interview, "is the way it takes advantages of features in DB2. By moving some of the processing logic of the query into DB2 to let IBM's database solution do what it is really good at, we were able to significantly shorten the time it took to produce the same reports in the old Microsoft environment."
Additional information about the Smart i Appliance, the associated ETL software from Talend and the installation and support services from Systech Solutions, is available at http://www.keyinfo.com/, under Solutions we "Build," then "Business Intelligence," and finally "Smart i Appliance."
Assessment Offering
A free BI needs assessment and Smart i executive overview are available through any member of the Smart i Alliance including Key Info, Systech, Talend, or IBM.
The free assessment and executive overview can help users of the IBM i platform determine the value and feasibility of implanting BI at their organizations. The easiest way to schedule is to contact Pete Elliot at 818.737.2804 or
Smart i Mobile
Key also demonstrated new Smart i Mobile technology for bringing business intelligence to the handheld device at COMMON. Smart i Mobile is a concept that enables user to receive data from the Smart i Appliance. It will run on a Blackberry, iPhone or any handheld mobile device.
Smart i Mobile was demonstrated as a possible future feature for the Smart i Appliance business intelligence solution that runs on the IBM i platform. It allows users to view a graphical representation of critical data generated by the Smart i Appliance business intelligence solution for the IBM System i and Power System servers running on the IBM i operating system.
Smart i Mobile is a joint development project by Key Information Systems, Systech Solutions and Intelligent Applications Hatchery LLC.
Elliot said, "We meet with our clients regularly to fully understand their needs. We have discovered strong interest among our clients and among the i Series marketplace to push the availability of BI analytics down to the handheld device. This puts analytics as close to the decision as possible. The result was development in collaboration with Systech Solutions of this important concept for our Smart i Appliance product..."
David Brown, president of Intelligent Applications Hatchery, reported, "Smart i Mobile graphs will directly link to the numerous Smart i reports generated by IBM DB2 Web Query for i. Data is automatically refreshed each time the information in Smart i data warehousing reports is updated. Clickable graphs allow users to navigate through the data behind the graphs."
Smart i Mobile provides an executive dashboard for mobile devices that is initially running on the Android platform. Android brings Internet-style innovation and openness to mobile phones. It was designed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance and allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Java compatible code running on a virtual machine especially designed for mobile devices.
About Key Information Systems, Inc.
Key Information Systems is a leading technology firm in the western United States, specializing in solutions for corporate infrastructure, business continuity and storage. Key is an IBM Premier Business Partner, AVNET Premier Business Partner and Microsoft Certified Partner. The company also represents brands such as IBM ISS, Tivoli, Microsoft and VMware. Key's business intelligence, virtualization, IT security, high availability and fault tolerant solutions are backed by a full range of professional services including critical assessment, financing, systems integration, installation, training, maintenance and technical support.
With one of the most knowledgeable and best trained teams in the industry, the company has been listed as one of Inc. magazine's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in Los Angeles and has received Leadership, Beacon and Fast Track Awards from IBM as well as a Top Partner Award from AVNET. Corporate headquarters are in Woodland Hills, CA, with additional offices in San Francisco, Newport Beach and Phoenix, AZ. An IBM-authorized Business Partner Innovation Center is maintained at the Woodland Hills location. For more information, contact Key Information Systems, 21700 Oxnard St., Suite 250, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, 877-442-3249, http://www.keyinfo.com/.
About Systech Solutions, Inc.
Systech Solutions, Inc. is a leading professional services firm providing cutting-edge business intelligence and Data Warehouse solutions with business strategy to help clients achieve a sustained competitive advantage.
Founded in 1993, Los Angeles-based Systech Solutions has grown internationally with offices in San Francisco, Oregon and India. To offer its clients cost-effective solutions, Systech established an Offshore Technology Center in Chennai, India. This incredible growth story has resulted in Systech being named one of the Fastest Growing Companies in America for the second consecutive year by Inc. Magazine. Focused on partnering with its customers, the company provides end-to-end BI/DW solutions. To achieve this goal, Systech integrates its team with its clients - listening, analyzing, strategizing and delivering solutions that help to realize a competitive advantage and improve their client's bottom line. Systech teams are trained to be highly responsive - continuously building knowledge resources and skills in cutting edge technologies. The aim is to build long-term relationships through professionalism and excellence. The company can be reached at http://www.systechusa.com/.
About Talend, Inc.
Talend is the recognized market leader in open source data integration. The company leverages the open source model to make data integration available to all types of organizations, regardless of their size, level of expertise or budgetary constraints. Talend's solutions connect to all source and target systems and they can be downloaded at no cost. Talend also offers data quality solutions, fully complementary to its data integration solutions. The company can be reached at http://www.talend.com/.
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online