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Microsoft Power BI vs Teradata comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
Teradata
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (3rd), Backup and Recovery (20th), Data Integration (17th), Relational Databases Tools (7th), Data Warehouse (3rd), Marketing Management (6th), Cloud Data Warehouse (6th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 27, 2022
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
Amol Rane - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 17, 2024
Supports AI initiatives in terms of predictive analytics
The only issue is with permissions. Sometimes, despite granting granular permissions, dashboards are visible to people who shouldn't have access. It's difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. Sometimes dashboards are visible to stakeholders even though they should not have permission. It's a bit difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. The dashboards lack a user-friendly appearance, and the permissions should be easier to understand. At this point, we have to go through a lot of details. It takes a lot of time to understand the permissions, so if there were better options available within the Power BI setup, it would be quite beneficial, especially for admins. So, there should be a more user-friendly dashboard appearance and easier-to-understand permissions.
SurjitChoudhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 20, 2024
Offers seamless integration capabilities and performance optimization features, including extensive indexing and advanced tuning capabilities
We created and constructed the warehouse. We used multiple loading processes like MultiLoad, FastLoad, and Teradata Pump. But those are loading processes, and Teradata is a powerful tool because if we consider older technologies, its architecture with nodes, virtual processes, and nodes is a unique concept. Later, other technologies like Informatica also adopted the concept of nodes from Informatica PowerCenter version 7.x. Previously, it was a client-server architecture, but later, it changed to the nodes concept. Like, we can have the database available 24/7, 365 days. If one node fails, other nodes can take care of it. Informatica adopted all those concepts when it changed its architecture. Even Oracle databases have since adapted their architecture to them. However, this particular Teradata company initially started with its own different type of architecture, which major companies later adopted. It has grown now, but initially, whatever query we sent it would be mapped into a particular component. After that, it goes to the virtual processor and down to the disk, where the actual physical data is loaded. So, in between, there's a map, which acts like a data dictionary. It also holds information about each piece of data, where it's loaded, and on which particular virtual processor or node the data resides. Because Teradata comes with a four-node architecture, or however many nodes we choose, the cost is determined by that initially. So, what type of data does each and every node hold? It's a shared-no architecture. So, whatever task is given to a virtual processor it will be processed. If there's a failure, then it will be taken care of by another virtual processor. Moreover, this solution has impacted the query time and data performance. In Teradata, there's a lot of joining, partitioning, and indexing of records. There are primary and secondary indexes, hash indexing, and other indexing processes. To improve query performance, we first analyze the query and tune it. If a join needs a secondary index, which plays a major role in filtering records, we might reconstruct that particular table with the secondary index. This tuning involves partitioning and indexing. We use these tools and technologies to fine-tune performance. When it comes to integration, tools like Informatica seamlessly connect with Teradata. We ensure the Teradata database is configured correctly in Informatica, including the proper hostname and properties for the load process. We didn't find any major complexity or issues with integration. But, these technologies are quite old now. With newer big data technologies, we've worked with a four-layer architecture, pulling data from Hadoop Lake to Teradata. We configure Teradata with the appropriate hostname and credentials, and use BTEQ queries to load data. Previously, we converted the data warehouse to a CLD model as per Teradata's standardized procedures, moving from an ETL to an EMT process. This allowed us to perform gap analysis on missing entities based on the model and retrieve them from the source system again. We found Teradata integration straightforward and compatible with other tools.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"Because this solution is very easy, and very visual, you can have results in minutes."
"It is in the cloud, which makes it easy for mobile access of reports and data."
"The most valuable feature is that it's easy to use. It's very useful for non-engineers and it is the ultimate solution for providing information and insights. Power BI is the best visualization tool I have ever worked with."
"The product is user-friendly."
"It is easy to work with and very chic."
"It allows individuals to do the analysis themselves​."
"The flexibility of the program is valuable. We are able to add other information to the reporting information and expand upon it."
"It's the analytic engine in terms of the interface on the Power BI environment, as opposed to pivot tables, and it's a mobile solution."
"The data processing, clustering, and distributed computing are impressive."
"It's the same as your visual database. I like the fast load feature for data, the BTQ solution is very good, and storage procedures are very fast."
"Teradata's capabilities enhance data management efficiency, support scalability, and contribute to faster query performance."
"We did performance testing. We had a set of real life MicroStrategy reports. Our conditions were: Not allowed to redesign data model, not allowed to rewrite the queries, all queries should be generated by MicroStrategy, no aggregates. Teradata appeared to be way faster than a similarly configured (in terms of hardware) Oracle server."
"The solution's banking model, called FSLDM (Financial Services Logical Data Model), is sophisticated and good."
"The data mover is valuable over the last two years as it allows us to achieve data replication to our disaster recovery systems."
"​We really enjoy the FastLoad, TPump, and MultiLoad features.​"
"The most valuable feature is the ease of running queries."
 

Cons

"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"The solution's support could be better."
"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium."
"The on-premises version lacks some technical features that are available with the Cloud version."
"Our expectation is putting BI to work in real-time data collection systems in the maritime environment."
"Microsoft BI’s integration and visualization could be improved."
"It's quite difficult to learn how to use Power BI."
"Sometimes while developing, the front end is not easily customizable and it has limitations. We cannot go and do any UI we want. We have to stick to the limitations of the product."
"I would like them to provide a license that just allows us to see dashboards. What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license. Currently, you need to purchase a full license of Power BI Pro just to see something, which is not attractive. If you have a license, you can see a shared dashboard, but you can also build a dashboard or you can collaborate with other people. However, if you only want to see a dashboard, there is no license for that. I only want to see the dashboard, and I don't want to do anything more than watching the information on the dashboard. There is no license that allows you to see a shared dashboard. This is one of the areas of opportunity because I would like a lot of people to be able to see a shared dashboard, not to interact with it or to collaborate online with it. I would like to see more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources. Given the fact that everything is related to Microsoft Azure and all services available on Microsoft Azure, I see that they're building more connections to Microsoft Azure services instead of other non-Microsoft services. I understand the strategy, but it would be good to have more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources."
"Things can slow down if you create too many pages."
"The solution could improve by having a cloud version or a cloud component. We have to use other solutions, such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Snowflake for the cloud."
"The current operational approach needs improvement."
"An additional feature I would you like to see included in the next release, is that it needs to be more cloud-friendly."
"Teradata is an expensive tool. Like, if you're already using Microsoft products like Windows, they'll market all their products together. And with the rise of cloud technologies, companies will adopt solutions that offer them some privileges or facilities. Similar to how SAP does it in the market, so do Microsoft and other companies. Even Oracle and other such tools are quite commonly seen compared to Teradata's competitors in everyday solutions."
"It could be a bit more user-friendly."
"GUI of administrative tools is really outdated."
"The cloud is the new challenge and the new opportunity."
"It is hard for some of our users to set up rules for cleansing and transforming data, so this is something that could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"It is averagely priced."
"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"The solution is affordable."
"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."
"Its pricing is great."
"We have premium licenses, but you can use it for free. You can share the content with anyone else, so you can use it for free."
"Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."
"The current licensing model that Microsoft BI has is expensive. My customers have told me the cost is approximately $20 per user and this can get expensive fast. There should be a one-time purchase option if the customer has a lot of users."
"I am satisfied with its price. Its price is very less as compared to Tableau and QlikView."
"It is part of our Office 365 license."
"Its price is very low. It is like $10 per user, per month. The clients pay for their own licenses. It is not on us. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. That's the beauty. With other systems, you need to spend a couple of thousand dollars just to get started, and then you need to spend $500 per year for the license, which becomes much more costly. You have a system here where for $120 to $140 a year, you can start with two people and start developing and deploying. You can see why the cost difference is huge, especially when you are on a low scale, like us, and you're not building something very huge."
"It's straightforward licensing."
"​I would advise others to look into migration and setup as a fixed price and incorporate a SaaS option for other Teradata services​."
"Teradata pricing is fine, and it's competitive with all the legacy models. On a scale of one to five, with one being the worst and five being the best, I'm giving Teradata a three, because it can be a little expensive, when compared to other solutions."
"The price of Teradata is on the higher side, and I think that it where they lose out on some of their business."
"We are looking for a more flexible cost model for the next version that we use, whether it be cloud or on-premise."
"In the past, it turned out that other solutions, in order to provide the full range of abilities that the Teradata platform provides plus the migration costs, would end up costing more than Teradata does."
"Teradata's licensing is on the expensive side."
"Teradata is expensive, so it's typically marketed to big customers. However, there have been some changes, and Teradata is now offering more flexible pricing models and equipment leasing. They've added pay-as-you-go and cloud models, so it's changing, but Teradata is generally known as an expensive high-end product."
"Teradata is expensive but gives value for money, especially if you don't want to move your data to the cloud."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
57%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
41%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...
What do you like most about IBM Cognos?
The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?
I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may d...
Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?
Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if ...
Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?
Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
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