Slashdot Mirror
Pentaho and Jaspersoft: Good Alternatives To Bigger-Name Software?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Jeff Cogswell, the developer who recently offered a 'gentle' rant about the current state of software development and installers, returns with a comparison of two players in the open-source BI space, Pentaho and Jaspersoft. 'If you believe the hype, the business-intelligence tools offered by some of the world's largest software companies also pack a substantial punch,' he writes. 'But these systems are often difficult to install and maintain, not to mention downright expensive. Small and medium-sized businesses typically can't afford software platforms that cost upwards of several hundred thousand dollars, but that doesn't mean they're cut off from BI tools in general. In fact, there are some decent open-source options.'"
Those are products which have different licenses for the "community" edition and the "real" ones. I've used both and even the commercial editions are quite unpleasant to deal with, plus they steer you to a proprietary stack, just like more mature offerings (Cognos, BO, Oracle, Microsoft, etc.)
Commercial BI products are usually either brutal or too clever for their own good. Those two, Jasper and Pentaho, are more of the same, plus they feel like you need to have the guy who designed them to sit besides you and explain what to do. And community/forum-driven support is not that great.
The most interesting open reporting solution is definitely BIRT, it runs circle around Jasper:
http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/
lucm, indeed.
Stop associating open source with buzzwords, Point .
:)
These are essentially reporting tools, and I saw mention of ETL, which seemed conceptually similar to DTS/SSIS packages. Reporting is a part of business intelligence sure, but if it's the only intelligence your business has, you probably don't have one, or won't have one for long.
Also, I started my IT career writing reports, I don't miss it, if I was to even consider writing reports for a business, I'd require BIDS & SSRS period, then again probably I probably wouldn't do it anyways
How much of the BI tool do most organizations use?
The real issue is that most businesses spend all this money for the tool they barely utilize. They let their Corporate EGO get in the way, figuring that they deserve the best out there. While all they really want is a basic Reporting Tool, or a dashboard. As well they get caught in the we may need it in the future trap. Where most of the time the cost of migrating from an old system to a new one, is less than the continued maintenance and support of the bigger product.
For most organizations they just need a number of small self developed applications/Database Queries, mixed with simple reporting that display key metrics.
However they will tend to buy the beast of the system use the basic features, where setup is the same as developing it yourself + the Extra cost of the system + Extra Time, because the system was designed to do more that means the implementation staff if going thru extra hoops to get things done.
They buy the tool, then they come up with projects for it. While they should be going the other way, list the projects they need done and find the tool for the job.
I am OK with the Multi-Million Dollar systems, they do their job however companies should get smarter on deciding if and when they should switch over.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Business Inelegance.
Simply put, they are reporting and statistical and analytical tools.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Dag Nabbit!
Business Intelligence Curse you Chrome Spell check!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Granted Business Inelegance fits with the tools too.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Where is BIRT in this list? BIRT is open source and a top level Eclipse project. It is fully featured out of the box, is extensible, and is implemented and backed by several large companies. It is supported by every major Open Source reporting server (Pentaho, SpagoBI), and for enterprise conscious folks there is a commercial option. And it does away with that god awful banded report design model that is a hold over from the ancient Crystal Reports in favor of a more flexible report design paradigm. My guess is that Pentaho and Jasper paid SlashBI more money for a front page slashvertisement.
BI puts people like you into a OLAP cube and tells us what are the two largest quartiles of major metropolitan areas where people were too lazy to click on TFA and how many Starbucks in those areas which also happened to sell "Super-Pay-Attention Kenyan Ultra Blend" beans took a loss on that particular item.
Dreaded Microsoft has SQL Server packages including SQL Server, SSIS ETL tools, SSAS OLAP and SSRS Reporting with licenses starting well under $2,000. Much better than Oracle's cobbled-together BI at a fraction of the price.
Hold your disgust and consider this fully functional, enterprise quality BI suite. Good support and good community, too.
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
Is it Time for this Meme to End?
Click here for the whole story!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The frontend analytics tools are cool and that's what the users will see and use - but the main thing missing in the opensource BI space are the deep library of views and templates for the big ERP systems like Oracle EBS/PeopleSoft/JDE/Fusion & SAP. I don't want to spend thousands of hours writing my own views and ETL routines just to create standard reports. If you are developing your own software and bundling Jaspersoft/Pentaho/etc as your reporting engine, fine - but if you are a corporate IT shop using a major ERP system, then I would rather buy one that didn't make me reinvent the wheel.