Fast Search & Transfer's new version 8.1 of FAST Radar sells itself as BI for broad-based users. In reality, it's a lot more than that, almost a full-fledged Executive Information System (EIS) or what some newbies call a "dashboard" tool.
The company is aiming this BI tool squarely at the mid-market, trying to deliver a self-service model for non-analysts to build gauges, widgets and other visual indicators to track indicators in real-time or at intervals. From the demo I got, the building routines seem approachable for an intelligent user, and the default end products come out looking like eye candy.
Previously known as Corporate Radar, FAST Radar presents data from back-end databases: Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server. A few of the aspects that make it uncommon are in the data store. For example, the system uses a ROLAP model.
And unlike most BI solutions that only broadcast data, not receive it, FAST Radar supports users posting updates and comments back to the data store through "writebacks." The company says IT can structure this process by designing workflows to handle control of updates. For organizations striving to apply data more broadly and quickly, it's well worth a look.
FAST Radar 8.1
Cost: $40,000 for the server application and five end-users
Platforms: FAST Radar's Application Server runs on Windows 2003, Windows 2000 or Windows NT and requires IIS 5.0 or greater. Client runs inside standard browser windows with Javascript
Verdict: FAST Radar is a promising BI offering, with its strength being increasing user interaction both through the self-service dashboard model and through the writeback ability. If your organization is looking for ways to apply data more broadly and quickly, FAST is worth your consideration.
Posted by Jeff Angus on December 4, 2006 07:00 AM
