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Chapter 4. IBM technologies supporting real-time 151

4.2.1 DB2 Alphablox applications

DB2 Alphablox-enabled applications typically have the following characteristics,

that may be implemented using various combinations of DB2 Alphablox features:

򐂰 Interactive and guided analysis

򐂰 Real-time data access, analysis and alerts

򐂰 Personalization

򐂰 Sharing and collaboration

򐂰 Real-time planning through write-back

Interactive and guided analysis

DB2 Alphablox-enabled applications enable users to interact with real-time data

via grids and charts, as well as other components such as drop-down lists.

These interactive analytic components are served in dynamic HTML, based on

Dynamic HTML (DHTML) technology, utilizing JavaScript™ and cascading style

sheets (CSS). The DB2 Alphablox Dynamic HTML client provides the benefits of

easy deployment with interaction.

For example, a user can interact with a grid and have just that grid updated

rather than having to refresh the entire page.

Users perform multidimensional analysis by manipulating the data displayed in

the grid and chart, as depicted in Figure 4-28. Analysis actions such as drilling,

pivoting, sorting and selecting can be performed directly on the grid and chart,

through toolbar buttons, through right-click menu options or via the DB2

Alphablox form-based controls and components added by application

developers.

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Figure 4-28 DB2 Alphablox Grid and Chart

Real-time data access and analysis

DB2 Alphablox-enabled applications can drive analysis of data from multiple data

sources, both relational and multidimensional, including DB2 Cube View cubes.

Through the native ability to query a database, DB2 Alphablox exposes the

analytic functionality in the database engine. Users can leverage capabilities

such as ranking, derived calculations, ordering, filtering, percentiles, variances,

standard deviations, correlations, trending, statistical functions and other

sophisticated calculations while performing analyses.

For example, a controller of a manufacturing company could choose to look at

key performance indicators (KPIs) such as profit, bookings, billings, backlogs,

trends and comparisons of actual to budget, as depicted in Figure 4-29. The data

is real-time and the controller can choose to drill down on various items, such as

total revenue, to get more detail.

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Figure 4-29 DB2 Alphablox example: comparisons of actual to budget

The DHTML client in DB2 Alphablox is very flexible. Data can be presented the

way users need to see it. For example, in Figure 4-30 a controller wanted to see

a butterfly report in which the prior three months of actual figures are shown to

the left of the Accounts row headers and the current month details are shown to

the right of those headers.

Figure 4-30 DB2 Alphablox butterfly report

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Personalization

Users have different data and business needs. Therefore, DB2 Alphablox

analytic-enabled solutions can be personalized to meet the needs of each

individual user. For example, the first log-on screen that users see can be

customized according to their role in the organization. Users in the sales

department may see the top five best-selling products or the most profitable

regions for the month-to-date. Users in finance may be more interested in

monthly summary figures for sales, cost of goods, marketing, payroll and profit,

as shown in Figure 4-31.

Figure 4-31 DB2 Alphablox customization example

In addition, each DB2 Alphablox analytic-enabled solution may contain custom

user preference screens that enable users to personalize the solution to their

needs, as depicted in Figure 4-32. In this example, the user can choose the

business units and accounts that are displayed in the dial gauges.

Figure 4-32 DB2 Alphablox personalization example

Finance Sales