Cognos Planning (EPS) vs TM1
Written by: Ankit G
Cognos planning (EPS) was the flagship planning and budgeting solution from Cognos until Cognos took over Applix and hence TM1. Now they are promoting both the products as planning and budgeting solution. I have installed and evaluated both but did not find much differences, as long as application is concerned (in order to recommend one over the other).
Some points I found worth noting are:
1) EPS has got a better workflow management and matured front end, hence if you have large number of users spread across various locations who want to collaborate and enter planning data, EPS would be a better solution than TM1.
2) EPS works on a 32 bit engine. Analyst has difficulty while loading large slices of data in contiguous RAM. Contributor also moves large blocks of data in and out of datastore in the form of xml. Hence scalability and performance is a problem in case the data is in very large volumes. TM1 uses 64 bit architecture and hence faster while dealing large amount of data.
3) TM1 allows cognos 8 to access data directly via MDX while EPS requires a periodic publish task to export the internal xml to relational datastore for analysis and reporting. Hence TM1 is expected to scale better then EPS.
4) In the nut shell if better UI, collaborative features and workflow is needed then EPS is a solution, but when data is huge and scalability is a requirement, TM1 is better suited due to its better architecture.
Roadmap ahead seems to have a unified planning platform with EPS UI and workflow features while TM1 would replace existing underlying architecture.
Cognos planning (EPS) was the flagship planning and budgeting solution from Cognos until Cognos took over Applix and hence TM1. Now they are promoting both the products as planning and budgeting solution. I have installed and evaluated both but did not find much differences, as long as application is concerned (in order to recommend one over the other).Some points I found worth noting are:
1) EPS has got a better workflow management and matured front end, hence if you have large number of users spread across various locations who want to collaborate and enter planning data, EPS would be a better solution than TM1.
2) EPS works on a 32 bit engine. Analyst has difficulty while loading large slices of data in contiguous RAM. Contributor also moves large blocks of data in and out of datastore in the form of xml. Hence scalability and performance is a problem in case the data is in very large volumes. TM1 uses 64 bit architecture and hence faster while dealing large amount of data.
3) TM1 allows cognos 8 to access data directly via MDX while EPS requires a periodic publish task to export the internal xml to relational datastore for analysis and reporting. Hence TM1 is expected to scale better then EPS.
4) In the nut shell if better UI, collaborative features and workflow is needed then EPS is a solution, but when data is huge and scalability is a requirement, TM1 is better suited due to its better architecture.
Roadmap ahead seems to have a unified planning platform with EPS UI and workflow features while TM1 would replace existing underlying architecture.
Comments
But: The installation is VERY complicated, hopefully this will be covered from a single setup procedure with V10 next time...
Best regards, Stefan, Hamburg, Germany
2-ePlanning does work on a 64 bit processor
3- Incremental publish allows ePlanning to create a real time publish
If you have hugs data sets then you have bad metadata management..stick SSIS or framework manager inbetween
Good working with you Abi
regards
Santanna
This was the reason Cognos purchased Applix TM1, which was giving tough competition to both the products of Cognos.
Front-end and work-flow in TM1 is far better than Cognos Planning.