Open Source Business Intelligence Offers Benefits

By Sherman Wood

The promise of business intelligence - the ability to dig into the reams of corporate data to extract the nuggets of truth, the knowledge that will help companies navigate a wide swatch around the pitfalls of business - is very alluring. But the reality provided by most proprietary BI solutions is much different.

Bloated software clings to cumbersome architecture. Pulling out any usable information requires a sophisticated understanding of how data fits into the broader picture for the organization to construct the appropriate reports. More often than not, enterprises are forced to develop custom BI applications to suit their data and their specific business requirement, sucking IT resources away from the core business mission. And what about those smaller companies who need sophisticated reporting and business intelligence, but lack the internal IT team and/or the funds to pay for expensive commercial offerings? This costly customization work goes on while unnecessary software features languish and reports never quite deliver the relevant data.

Excellent functionality, ultimate flexibility and a price any accounting department could love: welcome to the world of open source business intelligence. It’s no wonder that business users are becoming less willing to put up with the status quo. Fortunately for them, a revolution is happening in the world of business intelligence software.

Today’s business demands require BI solutions that are agile, adaptable, accessible and still deliver the deep intelligence on which solid business decisions can be based. Easy integration with any data source and a reporting function that can support on demand report creation are must-have features, so too is a dashboard interface that makes the data accessible across business divisions. And, considering the uncertainties of the economy, today’s budget constraints cannot accommodate a hefty price tag.

One of the biggest problems with proprietary software is that all the costs are borne upfront by the customer before there is any benefit, while open source software is free or low cost, with completely optional payments for support, services and add-on functionality. This dynamic is one of the key reasons for the move toward open source BI. While open source software is better in many ways than proprietary/commercial software - secure, flexible and modern - it is most often chosen for its superior price/performance ratio.

With open source BI, almost all of the investment in implementing and maintaining open source software is spent configuring and customizing the solution to match the individual business needs, not the high upfront cost of buying licenses for a proprietary system that still needs to be customized just to work.

A major theme for organizations using BI is how to extend the use of BI from the “anointed few.” Because of the high cost of proprietary BI solutions, the use of BI has traditionally been isolated to specialist roles in the organization (the business analyst) and to larger organizations, who can justify the investment. Surveys have found that organizations currently using a BI solution reach only 15 percent of their employees with their chosen platform. With organizations drowning in data and the need to make better business decisions, the promise of “operational BI” is to extend this reach to more people in the organization - “the right information to the right person, at the right time.” BI tools and views need to be easy to use and embedded in the processes and applications that people use day to day to achieve the broad use envisioned for operational BI. Open source BI is a natural operational BI solution in terms of affordability and embeddability. Proprietary BI products are both high cost and difficult to embed, due to their history of standalone deployments and legacy technology.

Beyond these tactical benefits of open source BI, there is the less visible aspect of the software that is no less important: a dedicated, impassioned community working every day to make the tools even better. Because of the nature of open source software, a community of developers working with the software delivers constant improvement and support. Viva la revolution!

About the Author:

Sherman Wood is the technical architect and project lead for JasperSoft's open source and professional report server products, including JasperServer and JasperAnalysis. He also heads up the development of Jasper4Salesforce, a leading application for advanced Salesforce.com reporting on AppExchange. For more on JasperSoft, go here.