A Comparison of Open Source Reporting Tools for the Enterprise

Rod Cope, CTO OpenLogic www.openlogic.com

Agenda
Introduction Background BIRT, JFreeReport, OpenReport, DataVision OpenReports Pentaho Jasper Summary Conclusion

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Introduction
OpenLogic, Inc.
SLA support, security updates, and indemnification for over 400 Open Source packages Dozens of Global 2000 customers

OSS Census (osscensus.org)

Global, community effort to catalog enterprise use of open source

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Background
Comparison of leading Open Source reporting tools Focus on enterprise caliber utilities Free webinar, not a deep dive whitepaper Attributes of interest:
license, functionality, compatibility, technology, ease of use, performance, export formats, web capabilities, report designing, report retrieval, security, schedulability, clusterability, installation, configuration, integration, and footprint

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Other Reporting Tools

BIRT (Business Intelligence Reporting Tools)
Part of Eclipse project, initially donated by Actuate Focus is on report designer, debugger, and end-user tools Enterprise deployment only available through proprietary iServer product from Actuate

JFreeReport
Now the foundation of Pentaho, to be covered later

OpenReport and DataVision

Low level tools for developers, not enterprise ready

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OpenReports
oreports.org (not OpenReport at openreport.org) Version tested: 3.0, December 2007 Wraps other report engines
Jasper, JFreeReport (Pentaho), BIRT, JXLS

Provides scheduling, security, admin Interesting, but not updated since January 2008

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OpenReports
OpenReports License Commercial Options GPL 2 OpenReport Professional (proprietary)
Dashboard, drilldown charts, stats $500/server

Report Compatibility Technology Functionality Ease of use Performance Export formats

Jasper, Pentaho, BIRT J2EE, Hibernate, Quartz, Spring OLAP (Mondrian) N/A N/A PDF, HTML, CSV, XLS, RTF, Image

Web capabilities
Report designing Report retrieval Security Schedulability Clusterability Installation / Configuration / Footprint Integration

Admin, report retrieval, parameter support

Relies on other reporting tools Web, email N/A High Yes, through standard app server clustering N/A SOAP API

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Pentaho
Sponsored by Pentaho
Name: 5 founders want to retire in Lake Tahoe

Version tested: 1.7, May 2008 Good feature set, well-supported, UI's need work Business Intelligence suite includes
Reporting (Report designer and viewer) Analysis (OLAP) Dashboards (Portal, metrics, alerts) Data Mining (Relationship and trend discovery)

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Pentaho
License Commercial Options Several components: GPL 2, LGPL, MPL (Mozilla Public License) Pentaho Professional SSO, LDAP, MSAD Clustering, report versioning, audit trail Pentaho (should work with Jasper and BIRT, but not officially supported) J2EE, CAS, ACEGI, JBoss Portal Audit trail, performance monitoring, web-based ad hoc reporting wizard, conditional report distribution, OLAP (Mondrian) Medium, occasionally disjointed and non-intuitive Good PDF, HTML, XLS, RTF, text Admin, report retrieval, parameter support, drill-through, hypertext links Visual report designer, stand-alone client Web, email, web service, task bar notification User/group/role, restrict access to reports Yes, but admin can only edit existing schedules, not create new ones Yes, through standard app server clustering Easy / Difficult / 325MB Web service API

Report Compatibility Technology Functionality Ease of use Performance Export formats Web capabilities Report designing Report retrieval Security Schedulability Clusterability Installation / Configuration / Footprint Integration

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Pentaho: Report Designer

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Pentaho Server: Solutions Page

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Pentaho Server: Report View

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Jasper
Sponsored by JasperSoft Version tested: 3.0.0, June 2008 Mature, fairly robust, well-supported Business Intelligence suite includes
JasperReports (Report designer and viewer) JasperServer (Admin, scheduler, ad hoc queries) JasperAnalysis (OLAP) JasperETL (Data integration)

Most modern reporting web application

Still a bit rough around the edges

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Jasper
License Commercial Options GPL 2 JasperReport Professional End-user ad hoc querying and reporting Easy end-user dashboards and mashups JasperReports J2EE, iReport, Liferay Drilldown charts, I18N, L10N, OLAP (Mondrian), audit trail, email distribution, report versioning, Hibernate queries, custom expressions in Java or Groovy, crosstabs High best user interface of the group Good if attention is paid to optimization (e.g., http://www.javalobby.org/articles/hibernatequery103/) PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV, RTF, TXT, XML, Flash Admin, report retrieval, parameter support, drill-through, hypertext links Visual iReport designer, stand-alone or NetBeans plug-in Web site, email delivery of scheduled reports SSO, external auth via LDAP/MSAD/custom, user/group/role, row and cell security for OLAP (part of Mondrian), User/group/role, restrict access to reports High and easy to configure through UI Yes, through standard app server clustering (note that you may have to use pinned sessions): http://www.jasperforge.org/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&func=view&id=39248&catid=10 Easy / easy / 500MB SOAP API, any J2EE server, any JDBC driver OpenLogic Company Confidential

Report Compatibility Technology Functionality Ease of use Performance Export formats Web capabilities Report designing Report retrieval Security Schedulability Clusterability Installation / Configuration / Footprint Integration

Jasper: Report Designer

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JasperServer: Home

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JasperServer: Report View

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Pentaho and Jasper

The Mondrian project (OLAP tool) is used by both Pentaho and Jasper Both support integration with Mondrian
OLAP schema design tool JPivot for interacting with Mondrian through a web UI

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Pentaho and Jasper: OLAP Schema Tool

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Pentaho and Jasper: OLAP Schema Tool

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Pentaho and Jasper: OLAP Web View

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Pentaho and Jasper: OLAP View with Chart

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Summary
Jasper
Heavy focus on reporting and analysis Better server UI (web 2.0), easier to use Better marketing, sites, and documentation Easier to research and find what you need Paid version: ad hoc query web UI, dashboard creation web UI

Pentaho
Better data integration, ETL, and workflow automation Very powerful, but harder to use Weaker documentation Bonus: data mining and iPhone integration Paid version: LDAP integration, SSO, auditing

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Conclusion
If your focus is core reporting and analysis, ease of use
Jasper

If your focus is enterprise integration, data transformation, workflow

Pentaho

Competition driving Jasper and Pentaho hard

Look for rapid improvements in functionality, ease of use They've leapfrogged each other in the past, it may happen again

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Contact Information
For more information, please visit:

www.openlogic.com
Call us at 888-OpenLogic Send an email to:

info@openlogic.com

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