If you were to follow the evolution of reporting, you would find a logical transition that shows companies uncovering as much information as they could in as meaningful a way as possible while using the best technology available.
In the 1980s, the key concepts of reporting were defined and enhanced. Companies were learning how to use computers to make decisions based on their data. Reports were built from software tools that resided on end user computers. The tools would connect to company databases for reporting purposes. Later, the data would be consolidated into OLAP (or cube) data sources for reporting. OLAP stands for Online Analytics Processing and is a standard term to used describe data that is formatted for multidimensional analysis. With OLAP, data is preconsolidated with multiple cross-sections of data. This allows for faster reporting.
In the late 1990s, during the dot-com boom, software was developed to bring reporting into the Web. Cognos ReportNet was one of the first tools to do so. Much of the technology introduced by this tool remains as the backbone of Cognos BI today.
With the introduction of web-based reporting, users around the world could share one centralized version of their data. All data and reports began to be stored in a single location, which made it easier to manage the information that was being dispersed within and outside an organization.
A few key benefits of web-based reporting are:
Centralization of information
Ease of management, maintenance, and administration
Minimization of IT overhead
Improved data security
IBM Cognos Business Intelligence v10.x continues to use the web-based platform that was developed for Cognos ReportNet. Let's start by taking a look at the welcome screen that many users see when they first log on to IBM Cognos BI v10.x via the Web.