Seagull Unveils New LegaSuite Reporting Tool

Published: November 4, 2008

by Alex Woodie

System i integration experts Seagull Software last month unveiled a new reporting tool that enables organizations to develop reports and dashboards based on data held in a variety of back-end systems. The new tool is called LegaSuite Reporting, and Seagull says it features a code-less development studio based on Eclipse.

There is no shortage of business intelligence tools on the market these days. That's a good thing, because the gigabytes of collected data continue to pile up, which challenges BI software developers to come up with new and clever ways to help customers dig out from the data avalanche in pursuit of a business advantage.

For some users of so-called "legacy" systems such as the System i and the IBM mainframe, it makes sense to embark on a new BI projects as part of a larger system modernization effort. At the cross-roads of these two IT disciplines, you will find Seagull and its new LegaSuite Reporting tool, which is a component of its legacy modernization bundle of products, and which the company revealed in its October 20 newsletter.

LegaSuite Reporting enables users to view reports, dashboards, and graphs directly from a Web browser, according to Seagull. The software features a number of pre-built charts, graphics, and other visual aids to comprehension, and also allows users to drill down to view more detailed data. Possible uses range from showing sales managers the breakdown of revenue by region, to analyzing log data for systems administrators.

No coding is required to create BI dashboards in LegaSuite Reporting using its Eclipse-based design tool.

Dashboards and reports are built in drag-and-drop fashion from within the Eclipse-based studio, without any coding, Seagull says. The software helps to automate the development of SQL queries, tabular reports, graphical reports, pivot tables, interactive visual dashboards, and OLAP analytics from data housed in multiple databases.

Seagull didn't develop LegaSuite Reporting. It was originally developed by Seagull's parent company, Rocket Software, and Seagull's product managers decided it was something that could be used by LegaSuite customers, says Ardy Franssen, vice president of product management for Seagull.

"We found this on the shelf, so to speak, and said 'Hey, this is useful. This would be great to have as an add-on to the LegaSuite studio,'" Franssen says. "It's complementary, and a good alternative to the other reporting mechanisms."

Seagull doesn't pretend that the new reporting tool will compete with the likes of Cognos, Crystal Reports, or even CorVu, a BI software developer owned by Rocket. "We really see it as an add-on for our LegaSuite customers, but not as a standalone reporting tool," Franssen says.

The software runs on any Java-based Web application server, giving it the capability to run on a wide breadth of servers, including System i, System z, Linux, Windows, AIX, and Solaris. It can connect to DB2, SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, and most other JDBC-compliant data sources, the company says. It also supports multi-dimensional data sources that support XMLA connectivity.

LegaSuite Reporting is a component of Seagull's broader LegaSuite collection, which includes LegaSuite GUI (formerly JWalk and WinJa), a screen modernization tool that generates Windows- or Java-based graphical user interfaces from 5250 and 3270 green screens; and LegaSuite Integration (formerly Transidiom and CrossPlex), a programmatic integration tool for exposing host applications' business processes using the latest Java- and .NET-based Web services technologies.

Seagull, which was bought by Rocket Software nearly two years ago and is operated as a subsidiary, also on October 20 announced that it's selling another Rocket product called SmartDB. SmartDB is aimed at helping customers migrate to Oracle's flagship ERP suite, called E-Business Suite, from JD Edwards, PeopleSoft Enterprise, and SAP enterprise applications, and from DB2 and flat file datasources.

LegaSuite Reporting is available now. Pricing starts at about $10,000 per CPU, although pricing can also be determined by the number of databases it connects to, or how it is bundled with other LegaSuite products. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.seagullsw.com.

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