All BI environments need to provide a complete suite of tools to create, publish, distribute, and schedule rich report content. Pentaho's Classic Engine is based on the banded reporting design. Banded layouts divide the report into sections, and the reporting engine traverses the data and fits the data into the predefined bands. In the classic banded engine, the data being sent to the report determines how the report appears. This paradigm has been—and continues to be—used successfully by many reporting tools. However, a relatively new model that is gaining popularity is based on the output rather than the data driving the processing of a report. The Flow Engine, still in development, will work on a report definition built using the Document Object Model (DOM); the final output will be rendered by combining the definition and incoming data. The Report Designer includes support for several data sources, a variety of formatting options, and the ability to render multilingual reports in hypertext markup language (HTML), portable document format (PDF), and Excel (XLS), among other output formats. An AJAX-based, thin-client, ad hoc reporting tool is also available in Pentaho's reporting suite. Reports in the ad hoc tool can be designed using the metadata layer, while the report designer, in addition to the metadata layer, can connect directly to data sources.
Pentaho Dashboards provide the ability to define metrics that are important to an enterprise and deploy them using a variety of user interface features: spreadsheet-style grids, integration with Google Maps, cross-tab reports, and drilldown to reports or multidimensional analysis. Integration to other web content through frames or AJAX components is also possible. The Community Dashboard Framework (CDF), developed by senior members of Pentaho's community, makes it simpler to develop new dashboards by defining the various components using a fairly straightforward syntax, without programming the interface. Forum discussions indicate that Pentaho may integrate the CDF into its product.
The Closing Statement
Although open source BI solutions may not yet have the longevity or maturity of traditional BI solutions, the evolution of open source BI is gaining momentum as its credibility and relevance increase. With minimal risk, organizations can discover whether open source BI will work for them by building application prototypes. Components of open source BI software can also be integrated into existing BI implementations for additional functionality. There is significant transparency in terms of technologies and product roadmaps. Collaborations and partnerships between open source vendors are constantly being established. Committed user communities make it possible to benefit from experience across several companies and platforms.
Pentaho Dashboards provide the ability to define metrics that are important to an enterprise and deploy them using a variety of user interface features: spreadsheet-style grids, integration with Google Maps, cross-tab reports, and drilldown to reports or multidimensional analysis. Integration to other web content through frames or AJAX components is also possible. The Community Dashboard Framework (CDF), developed by senior members of Pentaho's community, makes it simpler to develop new dashboards by defining the various components using a fairly straightforward syntax, without programming the interface. Forum discussions indicate that Pentaho may integrate the CDF into its product.
The Closing Statement
Although open source BI solutions may not yet have the longevity or maturity of traditional BI solutions, the evolution of open source BI is gaining momentum as its credibility and relevance increase. With minimal risk, organizations can discover whether open source BI will work for them by building application prototypes. Components of open source BI software can also be integrated into existing BI implementations for additional functionality. There is significant transparency in terms of technologies and product roadmaps. Collaborations and partnerships between open source vendors are constantly being established. Committed user communities make it possible to benefit from experience across several companies and platforms.
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