IBM has announced a so-called "IBM BLU Acceleration for Cloud". Right now it is a technology preview and FREE to use. Thanks to the combination of the BLU Acceleration technology and Cognos it is powerful. Simplicity is guaranteed through the presence of many tools and the "load and go" approach.
Right now you can sign up for free to test the cloud-based offering with your data.
After signing up you will receive an email with instructions and a link. Then you need to bring your own lawyer to analyze several agreements. ;) I accepted them and was ready to go. What is nice are several "tours" that are offered. The tours give an overview of the different buttons and screen areas within the dashboard, the system panel, etc.
After launching the web console different task and tools are provided for "data scientists" and "business analysts" as well as for warehouse developers and database administrators. You can hook up your Excel or use SQL to work with your own data or use a sample database.
More on this in a later blog, now I need to work with my data on the BLU cloud...