Are you looking to increase your business intelligence capabilities? Have you considered Jet Analytics but haven’t wanted to commit to the cost and effort of an on-premise implementation? If so, Jet Analytics Cloud could be the solution you are looking for.
This TVision and insightsoftware webinar is an informative introduction to Jet Analytics Cloud. In just 30-minutes you will discover how Jet Analytics Cloud, and its flexible managed services approach to business intelligence, can fit into your business.
You will also learn about how cloud deployment of insightsoftware’s leading data preparation, automation and modelling solution:
- Leverages the power Microsoft Azure Public Cloud
- Eliminates single points of failure on application, database, storage, and network levels
- Provides continuous automated performance monitoring and alerting
- Ensures data security and integrity
- Provides hot standby disaster recovery
- Provides flexibility and scales both vertically and horizontally
- Provides simple and fast implementation with minimal efforts from the customer
Transcript
0:01
Welcome everybody to today’s webinar talking about: Harnessing the Power of Jet Analytics Cloud.
0:13
So, my name is Danusia Jolliffe. I am the Marketing and Customer Services Director here at TVision. Been with the business about 6.5 years now and I will be facilitating the call. For anybody that does have questions, please do put them in the chat box or in the question area and I will pass them across to Rekha at the appropriate time. Or, if not, at the end. And if there’s anything deeper that needs talking about, we can take that offline. Rekha, a quick introduction from yourself to our listeners, please?
0:41
Yes, sure. Good afternoon. My name is Rekha Shinh and I work for insightsoftware. I am the Technical Account Manager for Jet Reports, Jet Analytics and Jet Analytics Cloud.
0:56
OK.
1:00
So, on today’s webinar, this is the information that Rekha will be going through. It was also included on the invite. So, talking about how Jet Analytics Cloud leverages the power of Microsoft Azure. Talking about eliminating the points of failure.
1:14
Providing continuous automated performance, ensuring data security, stand-by disaster recovery, the flexibility and scale and also that simple and fast implementation. Rekha I’ll now pass over to you.
1:28
Great, thank you.
1:31
So, I just want to say I’m really delighted to be on the call today. And I will be introducing Jet Analytics cloud and I hope to bring you great insights for this product.
1:47
OK, so firstly, what value is Jet Analytics providing. To start, see, that currently, we would need to look at ERP data, that is our starting point. So, our ERP databases are optimized for data input and not for output.
2:14
There are good reasons for that. Databases cannot be optimized for both input and output. As one is completely opposite from the other.
2:27
Optimizing input, also gives a lot of value for fast speed on entry, so journals are taken in immediately.
2:39
This optimizing for input also increases accuracy and data update ability.
2:48
Unfortunately, optimized for import makes reporting very difficult.
2:53
As you can see this in the diagram, for just the GL of the Dynamics database.
3:01
So, what is the solution for fast and easy reporting?
3:11
Now, with Jet Analytics, we extract this data from the ERP database, transform the data while combining multiple data sources, and load them into data cubes.
3:28
The data cubes are optimized for reporting even pre joined.
3:34
This means you can open pivot table in Excel, point it at a specific data cube.
3:43
It could be finance, sales.. you can then start slicing your data with immediate results, and no data joins are required.
3:56
You have all your data, even data outside of your ERP, loaded into one source of the truth and ready for instant reporting.
4:13
So, a quick overview of Jet Analytics.
4:17
This enables self-service reporting where business managers can start slicing their reports or even building new ones faster than they can ask someone over an e-mail, OK?
4:32
Now, often when talking to accountants, they just want a number.
4:38
What is going on in a particular area of a company?
4:43
The reality is it is hard to overstate the power of dimensional reporting with slices.
4:51
If you have one Jet Analytics report with three slices and each of these reports is, sorry, each of these slices has five members, than one of the screen report will provide the same data in 125 tabs in Excel.
5:12
So, looking further from top-down, not only switching screens, makes it easier for the business managers to consume internal, um, data.
5:25
The former also gives you future proofing. Since the cubes do not need change. Well they don’t need to change. What actually changes is the underlying data. So, for example, if there is an upgrade that you are doing from an ERP system, then that will actually require the change of the data rather than the cubes.
5:55
OK, so this is just Jet Analytics data structure.
6:01
So here is a flowchart, showing multiple data sources coming together, and getting pushed into a data warehouse and cubes.
6:12
oh, OK.
6:21
So, not only can the Jet Data Manager databases and cubes be hosted in the Jet Analytics Cloud, but we can also load your SQL server based legacy databases in our cloud, giving you the one stop shop for converting entirely to the cloud.
6:47
This means someone on GP or NAV on-prem. Looking to move to Business Central in the cloud can leverage Jet Analytics cloud.
7:00
Not to only combine the old data and new data, but Jet Analytics Cloud can also provide hosting of your legacy, GP or NAV database in Jet Analytics Cloud… Rekha…
7:16
We have had one question. Someone said, have you got a feel, when moving from on-prem to cloud, roughly how long that might take?
7:24
I know it’ll be different for every business, but maybe got a rough feel for that.
7:28
Yes, so, I think, when we are actually doing that full move, you’re probably looking at around about 10 days.
7:37
The actual migration from on-prem to cloud is pretty much straightforward. We would actually move your, from the data manager, we would move your projects across from one server to another, and we would update that. We would then look at moving your individual users and your groups, and we can do that via the jet service tier. And then, in terms of your data, there’s no actual data migration. The Jet Analytics will be pointing to your data source.
8:11
And so, that there is an advantage there because it’s like there’s a migration cost is zero, and all we’re actually doing is it’s actually moving the components.
8:22
Thank you.
8:24
That’s fine, thank you.
8:26
And so, just back onto this chart, this data flow diagram. So, one of the most common objections to setup like this is.
8:37
That we are no longer pulling directly from the ERP database, or live data.
8:46
Many companies that need fast reports will say they need to have reports pulling from live data. And, to be honest, I actually think this is a mistake.
8:57
Because what they, what they are really saying is, that, they need to report quickly, a better requirement, is, to say, after I make a change, in my ERP, during close, I need to update, I need updated reports, within 15 minutes. And, yes, this can be done through Jet Analytics.
9:18
By using an incremental, updating the data warehouse and the cube’s, so that it loads the new data.
9:29
Now, these updates can be started by anyone with access to the data manager, the Jet Data Manager.
9:36
Or these updates can be scheduled to run automatically, every 15 minutes, or as often as five minutes. I mean, I talked to a partner the other day and that has Jet Analytics.
9:53
Customers were wanting to update their sales data, and they actually running every five minutes, so that they could use Excel, pivot tables to monitor their sales during the business day.
10:09
So, for those of you who are wrestling with Power BI deployments, or even just wanting to start enjoying data dashboards, that are easy to create, Jet Analytics, makes it simple for you to create dashboards in Power BI.
10:26
Or, any of the front-end tool that can connect to SaaS databases, such as, Excel, Tableau and many others.
10:41
OK, so this brings us onto the Jet Analytics deployed in the cloud. So, we will be using, as your public cloud infrastructure, and get all of the benefits associated with that, including security and privacy, region specific, primary and stand-by Disaster Recovery Data Centres.
11:07
The cloud offering gives our customers quick and simple implementation with minimal efforts from the customer.
11:16
In many cases, customers can be completed without involving technical resources on the customer side.
11:26
We will have monitoring and alerts to manage and prevent outages and keep up with our SLAs obligations as well.
11:38
And with that, many customers should see better security and data management than they currently do with their own on-prem setup.
11:53
OK, so, just going to take you into a little bit more detail on Jet Analytics Cloud under the covers.
12:02
So, let’s jump right in.
12:06
OK, so, as you can see, this is a complete Jet Analytics cloud, architecture.
12:15
Now, to continue to use the product that works without on-prem.
12:19
So, when we do actually move to the cloud, you will actually realize that it will alleviate any stress from local IT teams.
12:30
High availability, infrastructure with stand-by disaster recovery.
12:38
Rekha?…Yes.
12:39
Someone’s asked, what the, if you have a guaranteed uptime at all? For Jet Analytics Cloud?
12:46
Erm, yes, so with the guaranteed uptime and we’re probably looking at 99.4% and that’s included, that’s excluding customer side data issues.
13:01
So, yeah, so it’s, it’s the scale, like it’s, it’s very good, the uptime there.
13:08
And then, obviously, going back to the diagram here, we’ve got redundant geo replicated database fabric. We’ve also got support for tabular, and multidimensional models.
13:23
And then finally, a dedicated Jet Data Manager via in the browser application streaming. So, yes, so the architecture is set up extremely well, and, you know, it’s supported well too.
13:39
So, yeah, I’m just going to move on to the next slide.
13:49
OK, so security and data protection. So, Cloud security, so with this, you, you will get solution compliant with SOC controls, so that’s your system organizational controls. You will also get Open web application security project methodologies, firewalls for SaaS.
14:13
You will get the robust monitoring and alerting.
14:21
Near … recovery time objective, which is up to four hours, and then the recovery point objective, which is an hour. So, the database snapshots is every 10 minutes, stored for 30 days.
14:39
Now the customer data segregation, you will see the dedicated Jet Data Manager, data warehouse, SaaS models, guaranteed application performance, and finally, role-based access to data.
15:05
So, this actually now brings us on to the comparison of, the Azure, sorry, the Jet Analytics Cloud product, OK?
15:16
So, you will get for a full Azure deployment, which is self-managed.
15:23
You will get an instance of the Azure VM, Azure SQL database, the Azure AS tabula and Jet Analytics.
15:33
Now, with this, you will get, so for, so for the cost of this, you’re looking at around about 19,300.
15:44
And then with the Jet Analytics Cloud Managed Deployment, which is cheaper, again, you would get the same instances for Azure VM, the SQL database, tabular and Jet Analytics. And for this, you, you are looking at 13,729. And now, bear in mind, disaster management is all included in, as discussed in the previous slide. So, yes, I’m happy for more questions from the chat. If we have anything else and Danusia I’m happy to answer any questions here.
16:23
Someone asked about updates, how do updates work with Jet Analytics Cloud?
16:29
So, with updates, we would look to do them twice a year for Jet Analytics Windows SQL and the update time will be in an agreement with the customer.
16:44
OK, also someone’s asking what knowledge or training do you need for this? For the Jet Analytics, Power BI piece? How much knowledge do you need to have? How easy is it to use? What training is provided?
17:02
So, if you were to take on Jet Analytics Cloud, I would definitely recommend that for your technical people, you would need to be on a two-day course to take real advantage of actually working with the product.
17:18
And then you’d also need, perhaps 1 or 2 hours of Power BI training. So, if you were to push data into a reporting, you know, front end visualisation tool like Power BI, I think, definitely a couple of hours on that would be important.
17:40
So, then you can start to build dashboards immediately. Now to enable the wider team, like sales and purchasing to build their own dashboards.
17:53
…as data models are already set up for use, you should consider, perhaps one key person prepares the data and then 1 to 2 key people actually building the dashboards.
18:12
Thank you. We’ve also had another question come in, saying they’ve currently got a TVision designed cube.
18:18
Would this be a viable replacement and can the data structure be replicated?
18:23
Is that something that you can answer now? Or should we take that one offline? So, so, sorry. Can you say that again? They have a cube, already designed. Yeah, by TVision. Would it be a viable? Would Jet Analytics be a viable replacement and can the data structure be replicated?
18:39
Yes, so, pretty much in Jet Analytics Cloud, you can actually build your own cubes, although we do have our pre-built cubes there ready. So, the options are, you can extend. You can use the current cubes and build on further, and pull in extra fields, and extra things that tables that you want to use and deploy them. Or you can build it from scratch.
19:04
So, it’s…there are options there. But we’d obviously need to look at that little bit more in detail to see exactly what the requirements are. OK, no problem. Thank you.
19:18
Oh, this is a good one. Looking ahead, do you think there are any trends on the radar that customers might be interested in or need to know about?
19:29
Yes, absolutely. So, in addition to the insightsoftware platform, that should help with better licensing, viewing and management that was just been released, we can take advantage of the platform, where we have multiple products. And we don’t need to set up connections twice. It is only set at once.
19:52
We can also benefit of the platform, as it will combine many of our flagship products to increase cross use, and, and also enhance features and updates for multiple products. Which really reduces the effort in setting up a connection twice. And it’s only really done once. So, for example, if a customer has bought Jet Analytics, and we have a connector for that, that we use, we can also re-use that connector for another one of the products, which is Bizview. So, we can actually easily see that.
20:36
And we, it prevents sort of looking for other connectors, we know, that we can use it. So that’s by using the platform.
20:47
It also allows partners to understand the products better and increased sales. The platform helps us to look at other products for cross use as well. So, that was the connector example, that I’d given.
21:04
So, yes. So, please do look out for that. So, it is called The Platform and it is available now.
21:11
Um, got time for a few more. But someone’s just said that they’re aware that there are sometimes incentives in May and June, is that still the case this year? Is there anything you can talk to us about?
21:23
Um, so. I’m quite happy to come back on that. You know, I can sort of get more information in terms of incentives. But we do have some offerings for our Jet Analytics Cloud. But yeah, so, I can definitely elaborate more on that, and come back to them.
21:44
Great.
21:47
Oh, someone has asked. They’ve got some business outside of the UK, what regions it is available in, at the moment?
21:57
Is it everywhere with all the other products or…? So, at the moment we have the US, the UK and The Netherlands. So, that’s, that’s where it’s available right now.
22:12
Great, thank you.
22:14
Um, I think that’s everything for the moment, unless anyone has any other last questions that they’d like to ask.
22:22
Um, nope, no more at the moment.
22:27
I think that’s everything.
22:30
Right. So, thank you so much, Rekha for joining us today, giving everybody an overview of Jet Analytics Cloud. As always, this webinar will be available on demand. So, if anyone does want to, just review it and see if there’s any more information to pull out of it. Likewise, if anyone does have some more specific questions, get in touch with us and we can schedule a meeting with Rekha or another colleague, in due course. So, once again, thank you everyone for joining. And thank you Rekha for speaking today.
22:59
Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone.
23:01
OK, bye. Bye, bye.
