A powerful, scalable, secure and easy-to-use data mining tool, BI/Suite is comprised of three key components: BI/Web, the thin client; BI/Query, the thick client; and BI/Broker, which manages the two. A GQL (graphical query language) API for BI/Suite's query and reporting enables connectivity to a variety of databases from companies including IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., NCR Corp., Oracle Corp., Sybase, Tandem and Unidata. If you're using Microsoft Access or another thick client to run your queries and reports, BI/Suite is worth a look.

Also, if you've abandoned a GUI and resorted to using SQL code, your life is about to get simpler. BI/Query and BI/Web are amazingly easy to learn, and produce professional results. Although still in its infancy--I tested a beta version in one of our Real-World Labs® at the University of Wisconsin--BI/Suite shows considerable potential. But it's not without competition: Business Objects, Cognos Corp. and Lotus Development Corp. all are making headway in this market. We can expect to see some BI innovations in the near future, including more powerful and functional OLAP (online analytical processing) clients.

The Brain Behind the Intelligence BI/Broker aims to manage a common content repository, as well as the suite's centralized services, security and administration functions. Built on CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture)--which enables Java interoperability between the Web-based client and the back-end server--BI/Broker ties BI/Query and BI/Web together in one management package.

Three tools comprise BI/Broker: the BI Administrator, the User and Group Manager, and the Scheduler. The Administrator component addresses primarily server variables, such as repository directories and mapping of the HTML links for BI/Web. Other than adding licensed users and setting up default printers, I didn't find a need to go back into the Administrator during testing; the factory defaults worked fine. Thanks to its tabular format, the Administrator was easily navigable.

For the most part, administration is performed via the User and Group Manager, the latter of which is well-laid-out, consisting of a toolbar with only a few buttons. The window construction is standard, with groups in the left pane and members on the right. Adding groups and users was somewhat disappointing: Although adding single users and groups was painless, the Manager didn't allow for domain-user importation. Fortunately, permissions-setting was easy with the use of group inheritance, which let me single-click and populate group permissions.

Although I didn't extensively test the Scheduler, I conducted a few test runs. Setting up a query to trigger takes only about two seconds and three clicks. You only need to specify the query and a corresponding time stamp. I made two additional queries that were dependent on the completion of the first. The Scheduler offers superb functionality to guarantee that important queries aren't bumped out of the queue due to a busy server or a crash.

BI/Broker utilizes a scalable architecture through the use of load-balancing. You can use multiple Broker servers when you need to replicate application services. During testing, adding more servers was seamless and painless. After I set up my central Broker server, I installed a secondary server, which--to my delight--detected the existing server and configured itself to use this existing server as the central server. Although I didn't have an opportunity to test it, another noteworthy Broker feature is Named Server Ports, which provides access to a user or group.

Thin Is In The BI/Suite's front end encompasses the best of both worlds with its thin and thick clients. For power users who hesitate to relinquish the speed of their thick client, Hummingbird presents BI/Query. Its excellent interface let me quickly and easily produce queries and reports via point-and-click. I then published them by clicking the publish icon, which places the queries and reports in the user's central repository. Once they were published, I used the queries from BI/Query and BI/Web. Additionally, users can set permissions on their queries for other group members.

If server-based architecture is what you're after, then BI/Web is a must. It provides the same intuitive interface as BI/Query, with the addition of a Java- based navigation bar. While setting up BI/Web, I encountered a few stumbling blocks because the beta version required the most updated browser and Java patches. The client requires either Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 with SP1 and JVM version 2829, or Netscape version 4.05 with JVM 1.1.5 or version 4.06.

David Fetters is a Network Computing lab technician. Send your comments on this article to him at dfetters@nwc.com.