forrester open source bi

8/2/2019 Forrester Open Source BI

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Making Leaders Success ul Every Day

August 10, 2010 | Updated: August 12, 2010

The Fo este Wa e: Ope SouBusi ess I te ige e (BI), Q3 2010b Bo is E e so a d Jef e S. Ha o d

o Busi ess P o ess P o essio a s
http://www.forrester.com/


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2010, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. In ormation is based on best availableresources. Opinions refect judgment at the t ime and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar,and Total Economic Impact are trademarks o Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property o their respective companies. To purchase reprints o this document, please email clientsupport@ orrester.com . For additional in ormation, go to www. orrester.com.

Fo Busi ess P o ess P o essio a s

ExEcUTIvE SUmmAryComparing open source BI technologies is o en an apples-to-oranges comparison: 1) not all vendorsinclude the same unctionality in the ree community versions o the so ware versus commercial opensource versions that carry license and/or support cost, 2) some tools o er ull BI suites, while otherso er just reporting and analytics. However, by rolling up the scores to high-level aggregates, providing

customizable weights to each evaluation criteria, and drawing a clear distinction between community and commercial editions, we have achieved as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as possible.Using this approach or Forresters 157-criteria evaluation o open source BI vendors, we ound thatActuate BIR led the pack because o richness o reporting unctionality. Jasperso Enterprise, SpagoBI,Pentaho Enterprise, and Pentaho Community are close behind and also o er much uller and broaderBI stack than Actuate BIR , including extract, trans orm, and load (E L) and advanced analytics

unctionality. Te community versions o BIR and Jasperso mostly o er individual BI componentsthat can be used or embedding BI unctionality into applications, but these rameworks are yet notenterprise-grade ully unctional BI plat orms or suites.

TABlE O F cOnTEn TSWh Ope So rce BI Ma ersOpe So rce BI Eval a io Overview

Ope So rce BI Choices Di er Vas l BVe dors A d Edi io s

Ve dor Profles

S ppleme al Ma erial

nOTES & rESOUrcESFo este o du ted p odu t e a uatio s

o no e be 2008 th ough Ju e 2010a d i te iewed ou e do s a d eight use

o pa ies: A tuate, Jaspe so t, Pe taho, a dSpagoBI.

Rela ed Research Doc me sOpe Sou e So twa e Goes mai st eaAp i 7, 2009

BI Be t Tighte i g I A Tough E o o i c i ateFeb ua 20, 2009

Best P a ti es: I p o e De e op e tEfe ti e ess Th ough St ategi Adoptio O Ope Sou eFeb ua 2, 2009

The Fo este Wa e: E te p ise Busi essI te ige e P at o s, Q3 2008Ju 31, 2008

August 10, 2010 | Updated: August 12, 2010

The Fo este Wa e: Ope Sou e Busi ess I te ige e (BQ3 2010A tuate BIrT leads, With Jaspe so t E te p ise, SpagoBI, Pe taho E te p ise, A d Pe tahoco u it c ose Behi db Boris Evelso a d Je re S. Hammo dwith co ie moo e, ra ph vitti, a d cha ie coit

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2010, Fo este resea h, I . rep odu tio P ohibitedAugust 10, 2010 | Updated: August 12, 2010

The Fo este Wa e: Ope Sou e Busi ess I te ige e (BI), Q3 2010 Fo Busi ess P o ess P o essio a s

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WHy OPEn SOuRCE BI MAttERS

Open source so ware (OSS) and BI are two related market segments where Forrester seescontinually increasing interest and adoption levels. BI speci cally continues to be one o the toppriorities on everyones mind. Te main reason? Enterprises that do not squeeze the last ounceo in ormation out o their data stores and applications, and do not ocus on getting strategic,tactical, and operational insight into their customers, products, and operations, risk alling behindcompetition. And when it comes to open source, 2009 could best be described as the year Ipro essionals realized that open source runs their business. Te reason is simple: Over the past ewyears, weve seen that developers adopt open source products tactically without the explicit approvalo their managers. Tis has shown up in numerous surveys where the actual adoption o opensource ranks higher than what I managers report. 1 Well no longer: Forresters Enterprise And SMBSo ware Survey, North America And Europe, Q4 2009 shows that management has caught on tothe act that developers increasingly use open source to run key parts o their I in rastructure (see

Figure 1). And management has grown increasingly com ortable with it. In act, throughout 2009,most client inquiries Forrester received regarding open source were ocused on how to move romtactical adoption to strategic exploitation.

Ope So rce Has S ar ed Movi g up the It S ack

When you look at how open source is actually adopted, one thing becomes clear: Adoption inthe core layers o I in rastructure (e.g., programming languages, operating systems, applicationservers) is higher than at the upper layers o the I stack (o ce productivity, packaged applications).It makes sense. When developers lead the adoption o a technology, they tend to ocus on the thingsthat matter to them the building blocks they use to create custom applications. But as more I

shops shi rom tactical adoption to strategic exploitation o open source, dont expect decision-makers to ocus solely on the bowels o I in rastructure. Weve already seen adoption move romprogramming languages to operating systems to IDEs, and then to databases and app servers. Nowwere seeing interest in open source portal solutions and Web content management. As you moveone click out, whats next? BI.

Te advantages open source o ers in the BI space are similar to what weve ound in other segmentswhere OSS adoption has taken o :

Lower initial capital costs (capex). Lets be honest, the rst quality o open source solutionsthat attracts decision-makers is that the so ware is ree! Well, not quite: While its true that

OSS is available without paying or the cost o a so ware license, that doesnt mean its ree. Youshould still expect to incur support costs, either rom a third-party vendor or systems integrator(SI) or in the orm o higher internal labor costs, which come rom needing to hire top-notch Ipersonnel. 2 It is air to say, though, that open source solutions generally save companies money up ront, and its o en a substantial sum when large deployments are involved.


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2010, Fo este resea h, I . rep odu tio P ohibited August 10, 2010 | Updated: August 12, 2010


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Fig re 1 IT ma age e t Awa e ess O OSS Is now O Pa With De e ope Adoptio

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.46490

Which of the following OSS infrastructure tools does your rm currently use?

Programming languages (e.g., PHP, Ruby, Python, Java)

Operating systems (e.g., Red Hat Linux, SUSE, OpenSolaris)

Development IDEs (e.g., Eclipse, NetBeans)

Databases (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite)

Web servers or networking components(e.g., Apache, Samba, RADIUS)

Application servers (e.g., JBoss, Glasssh, Tomcat)

Application frameworks (e.g., Spring, Rails, Zend)

Content management systems (e.g., Alfresco, Drupal)

Business intelligence tools(e.g., BIRT, JasperReports, Spago)

Business applications (SugarCRM, Bravo)

Portals or mashup servers (e.g., Liferay, Dapper)

Other, please specify

Application developmentand program professionalsSoftware decision-makers*

Base: 1,298 application development and program professionals*Base: 1,900 software decision-makers at North American and European enterprises and SMBs

Source: Forrester/Dr. Dobbs Global Developer Technographics Survey, Q3 2009*Source: Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q4 2009

57%55%

48%61%

46%24%

45%58%

45%58%

28%

35%22%

13%

10%12%

7%6%

4%7%

3%4%

7%6%

Flexible support sourcing. When you purchase commercial so ware licenses, its normal tobudget 20% to 25% or an annual support agreement, which does two things: It gives you the rightto call or support and the right to upgrade to newer versions o the product. Tese two rights are

linked, and even i you dont get timely, valuable support, you still pay the yearly contract to keepyour upgrade options open and avoid renewal penalties. Open source so ware severs this link.Not getting value rom a support contract with an independent so ware vendor (ISV)? ake themoney, and use it to get support rom an SI instead. Or take the money and invest it in buildingyour own sta , or hire a committer on the open source project that youre using. 3


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Extensive integration options. What i you want to integrate a commercial so ware productwith one o your own systems? I there are good APIs, you might be able to do it, but what i theAPIs arent su cient? Open source is exactly that: open and available or integration in whatevermanner needed. While di erent open source licenses carry di erent implications when youchoose to extend and integrate the code, theres no denying that you can take it and integrate itas deeply as you want to into your own applications and in rastructure without depending on athird party to give you that right.

Improved sta engagement. Long-term users o open source report a curious phenomenon intheir shops. When the black-box barrier o commercial compiled code that separates Idevelopers rom ISV developers is removed, the I developers behave di erently. Tey are nowable to ollow a de ect as deep into the core o the product they are using as they want. Tey canadd the eatures and extensions that they want. In a sense, the distinction between developer type

and class no longer exists. Open source shops report that over time, they become more engaged not just in the technologies used, but in the business problems they are trying to solve.

naviga i g the Ope So rce BI La dscape O e Leads to Apples-to-Ora ges Compariso s

Alas, even with all o the potential bene ts o adopting open source technologies, navigating theopen source BI landscape is as challenging, and sometimes as con using, as evaluating and pickinga commercial source BI vendor and products. 4 Be ore plunging into a tool evaluation and selectionprocess, ask yoursel the ollowing questions, and make sure you are doing a like-to-like comparison:

Do you understand the categories o BI and BI-related open source tools? Are you lookingor a product that supports only partial BI unctionality or are you seeking an entire BI suite

with broad capabilities? Focused tools include Apatar, CloverE L and Enhydra Octopus,Jetstream, Jitterbit, Pentahos Kettle, SnapLogic, alend, or data integration, and alend andOpen Source Data Quality and Pro ling project or data quality jobs. Reporting tools includeBIR , iReport, JasperReports, JFreeChart, OpenI, and OpenReports, while OLAP tools includeMondrian, JPivot, and Palo. Advanced analytics tools include R and data mining tools likeOrange and Weka. For geospatial analytics and location intelligence, SpagoBI is sponsoring aGeoBI project with partners like Spatialytics and OpenGeo. I you seek a ull BI suite, then theoptions are BEE, Jasperso , Pentaho, and SpagoBI. Some critical components o enterprise-grade BI capabilities like integrated metadata management are not even ully addressed by theopen source community at this point.

Are you clear on the di erences between community and commercial versions o the tools? Dont be misguided: Open source does not always equal ree so ware. In some cases it is, butyou will get what you pay or: just certain components rather than entire suites, or productsand suites that lack the unctionality required or large enterprise operations like GUI-basedadministration, robust integrated security, scalability tools (load balancing, etc.), connectivity topopular data sources, and many others. In most cases, youll have to get a commercial version o the product to get such capabilities.


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Are you looking or a community, commercial version, or a mix? Once you map yourBI requirements to a speci c BI suite, youll need to understand what portion o the ully

unctional suite comes rom a community version versus a commercial version. Vendorsevaluated in this Forrester Wave di er drastically in the amount o unctionality they includein the two versions (see Figure 2). Eclipse BIR o ers mostly components; to get enterprise

eatures, one must go with the commercial version, Actuate BIR . Jasperso o ers a ew morecommunity-based components, but still, getting the Jasperso Enterprise commercial version isa must or most enterprises. Pentaho takes it up yet another notch with the availability o evenmore components in its community version, and all o SpagoBI components are on hand in thecommunity edition.

Fig re 2 The va i g BI Fu tio a it A ai ab e F o The co u it Editio O The So twa e

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.46490

Vendor/productEnterprise suitefunctionality available from

the free community version

Actuate BIRT

Jaspersoft Enterprise

Pentaho Enterprise

SpagoBI

Little

Some

Most

Full

A Word O Ca io

Open source BI suites are su ering rom the same syndrome as their larger commercial BIcousins that acquired multiple technologies and are struggling with integrating them. But whilea commercial vendor can prioritize integration, open source projects are mostly independently governed and have little to no incentive to prioritize tight integration with BI components romother projects. As a result, common graphical user inter ace (GUI), common data access methods,and integrated metadata are mostly nonexistent across open source projects. While the commercial

versions o suites like Jasperso and Pentaho are slowly but surely bridging that gap, and SpagoBIhas uture plans or integrated metadata in the community edition, the ull integration and common

components may not happen soon enough in the community versions.

Scalability is also o en an issue with open source BI, with the exception o Actuate BIR , whichleverages its battle-proven, highly scalable iServer (not included in the community edition). Butin most other cases, Forrester ound only a ew open source BI clients using these tools on multi-terabyte data warehouses.


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OPEn SOuRCE BI EVALuAtIOn OVERVIEW

o assess the state o the open source BI market and see how the vendors stack up against each other,Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses o top open source business intelligence vendors.

Eval a io Cri eria: C rre O eri g, S ra eg , Marke Prese ce, Ope So rce Comm i

A er examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, wedeveloped a comprehensive set o evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 157 criteria,which we grouped into three high-level buckets:

Current o ering. o assess product strength, we evaluated each o ering against our groups o criteria: architecture, development environment, and unctional and operational capabilities.

Strategy. We reviewed each vendors strategy and considered how well each vendors plansor product enhancement position it to meet uture customer demands. We also looked at thenancial and human resources the company has available to support its strategy, and its go-to-

market pricing and licensing strategy.

Market presence. o establish a products market presence, we combined in ormation abouteach vendors nancial per ormance, installed customer base and number o employees acrossmajor geographical regions, partnership ecosystem, as well as horizontal and vertical industry applications.

Another key long-term predictor that we use to judge the staying power o an open source so wareproject is the vitality and size o the community that has grown up around it. Its the community thatdrives new innovations into a project, tests early releases, provides eedback, and is o en the sourceo new project committers. o determine the vitality o each projects community, we combinedin ormation about communication mechanisms and bandwidth, downloads, number o committers,project road map, and community structure.

Eval a ed Ve dors M s Mee Archi ec re, F c io ali , A d Scalabili Cri eria

Forrester included seven vendors and open source projects in the assessment: Actuate BIR , EclipseBIR , Jasperso Community, Jasperso Enterprise, Pentaho BI Suite Community Edition, PentahoBI Suite Enterprise Edition, and SpagoBI. Each o these vendors has variations between community and commercial editions (see Figure 3):

At least three out o the our major unctional BI components. We only included vendors thathave at least three o the ollowing major components that are necessary or large enterprise BIenvironments: production/operational reporting, ad hoc querying, OLAP, and dashboards.

Te ability to query databases using SQL and/or MDX. While other querying technologiessuch as XQuery and DMX are available, SQL and MDX are used most widely in large enterprises.


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A sel -contained, complete, ully unctioning BI environment. We ocused on generic BItools, not technologically or unctionally tied or limited to particular unctional/horizontalapplications (ERP, SCM, etc.). Tese tools must be sel -contained, complete BI environmentsor plat orms that do not necessarily have to be embedded in other applications. Community editions o the open source projects, which o en provide mostly components, rather than ullsuites, are an exception to this rule.

Su cient market presence and interest rom Forrester clients. We included vendors with atleast 80 in-production customers present in more than one major geographical region, with morethan 10% enterprise-grade, cross-line-o -business installations with more than 100 users. We also

ocused on vendors Forrester clients requently mention or ask about in the context o BI.

Fig re 3 E a uated ve do s: P odu t I o atio A d Se e tio c ite ia

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

Vendor

Actuate

Actuate

Jaspersoft

Jaspersoft

Pentaho

Pentaho

SpagoBI

Product(s) evaluated

Actuate BIRT

Eclipse BIRT

Jaspersoft BI Community

Jaspersoft BI Enterprise

Pentaho BI Suite Community Edition

Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition

SpagoBI

Product versionevaluated

11

2.6

3.7

3.7

3.5

3.6

2.5

Versionrelease date

July 2010

June 2010

January 2010

January 2010

August 2009

June 2010

April 2010

Vendor selection criteria

At least three out of the four major functional business intelligence (BI) components. Vendors musthave at least three of the following major components that are at the very least necessary for largeenterprise BI environments: production/operational reporting, ad hoc querying, OLAP, and dashboards.

The ability to query databases using SQL and/or MDX. While other querying technologies such asXQuery and DMX are available, SQL and MDX are used most widely in large enterprises.

A self-contained, complete, fully functioning BI environment. We focused on generic BI tools, nottechnologically or functionally tied or limited to particular functional/horizontal applications (ERP, SCM,etc.). These tools must be self-contained, complete BI environments or platforms that do not have to benecessarily embedded in other applications. Community editions of the open source projects, whichoften provide mostly components, rather than full suites, are an exception to this rule.

Sufficient market presence and interest from Forrester clients. We included vendors with at least 80in-production customers present in more than one major geographical region, with more than 10%enterprise-grade, cross-line-of-business installations with more than 100 users. We also focused onvendors Forrester clients frequently mention or ask about in the context of BI.


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OPEn SOuRCE BI CHOICES DIFFER VAStLy By VEnDORS AnD EDItIOnS

Te evaluation uncovered a market in which (see Figure 4):

Actuate BIR leads the pack. Tis is a prime example where one needs to clearly understandwhat they are getting, as Actuate cannot really be directly compared with the other vendorsin this Forrester Wave. As we mentioned earlier, other than a ew basic reporting components

rom the Eclipse BIR the community edition o the product Actuate BIR is mostly acommercial o ering. Also, Actuate BIR is a traditional or pure play (reporting, analytics,and dashboards only) BI suite that does not o er advanced analytics, and it only o erslimited data integration unctionality. But BIR s advanced and highly interactive reporting

unctionality, made highly scalable and unction-rich with Actuate commercial extensions,propel Actuate BIR to the leadership position. Actuate is also expanding its o ering into end-to-end document management (or ILM in ormation li e-cycle management) capabilities.

Producing reports o en starts a report li e cycle, where a report needs to be distributed, stored,secured, and archived. With that approach in mind, Actuate acquired Xenos and is currently integrating Actuates and Xenos document management capabilities.

Jasperso Enterprise, SpagoBI, and Pentaho (both editions) o er competitive options. Tese vendors dont just o er competitive options. Unlike Actuate BIR , they o er nearly ully

unctional broad BI suites that include reporting, OLAP, data visualization, dashboards, anddata integration unctionality. Rather than comparing them with Actuate BIR , a much bettercomparison is to leading commercial source ull BI suites rom vendors like IBM, In ormationBuilders, Microso , Oracle, SAP, and SAS. While Jasperso , Pentaho, and SpagoBI still do notstack up, eature by eature, to these larger, much more mature commercial vendor o erings,ask yoursel whether you actually need all o the bells and whistles o BI. In conversations withBI customers, Forrester consistently nds that only some requested BI eatures are used o en,while all requested BI eatures get used very seldom. So i your I culture calls or an 80/20 rule(where 80% o requested unctionality is mostly good enough) and your budget is limited sure, Jasperso , Pentaho, and SpagoBI o er very respectable options.

Eclipse BIR and Jasperso Community editions lack enterprise BI suite unctionality. Tese community editions o open source projects cannot really stand on their own asenterprise BI suite plat orms or solutions; however, you may still get lots o mileage out o them.Tese community editions especially attract developers, as the source code is reely available.

Access to source code that makes the so ware easy to embed in other so ware solutions, andlower variable costs (no need to renegotiate royalties or each copy they ship), also makesit popular with ISVs or embedding BI unctionality into other enterprise applications.Additionally, OSS has become increasingly popular with SIs when requiring so ware to wina deal without the headache o dealing with packaged applications, or as a di erentiator romcompetition. And or enterprise buyers, i you have a tech-savvy I department and strugglewith a BI buy-versus-build decision, Eclipse BIR and Jasperso components may just be theright answer or a compromise best-o -breed solution.


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Tis evaluation o the open source BI market is intended to be a starting point only. We encouragereaders to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to t their individualneeds through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool.

Fig re 4 Fo este Wa e: Ope Sou e Busi ess I te ige e, Q3 10


Go online to download

the Forrester Wave tool

for more detailed product

evaluations, feature

comparisons, and

customizable rankings.

RiskyBets Contenders Leaders

StrongPerformers

StrategyWeak Strong

Currentoffering

Weak

Strong

Market presence

Actuate BIRT

Eclipse BIRTJaspersoft Community

JaspersoftEnterprise

Pentaho Community

PentahoEnterprise

SpagoBI


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Fig re 4 Fo este Wa e: Ope Sou e Busi ess I te ige e, Q3 10 (co t.)


A c t u a t e

B I R T

E c l i p s e

B I R T

J a s p e r s o

f t C o m m u n

i t y

J a s p e r s o

f t E n t e r p r i s e

P e n t a

h o

C o m m u n i t y

P e n t a

h o

E n t e r p r i s e

S p a g o

B I

CURRENT OFFERINGArchitectureDevelopmentFunctionalOperationalOpen source community

STRATEGYCommitmentLicenseMultiple sourcesPublic road mapGovernanceExpanding adoptionDevelopment planNew featuresPricing and licensingProduct direction

MARKET PRESENCECompany nancialsGlobal presencePartnership ecosystemInstalled baseFunctional applicationsProduct ecosystemTraining and publicationsUser adoption/downloadsVendor adoptionCommercial supportUbiquity

3.423.284.252.883.054.26

4.314.205.005.005.005.005.003.004.003.204.00

3.122.204.502.001.301.405.002.405.005.003.005.00

F o r r e s t e r s

W e i g

h t i n g

50%25%20%30%15%10%

50%30%

5%5%5%

10%5%5%

10%0%

25%

0%20%15%

5%15%

5%5%

10%10%

5%5%5%

1.691.262.351.430.324.26

4.314.205.005.005.005.005.003.004.003.204.00

3.273.104.502.001.301.405.002.405.004.403.005.00

1.501.542.000.540.844.27

3.923.405.003.002.005.005.005.004.004.144.00

2.971.504.002.002.601.803.002.405.005.003.004.00

2.612.353.052.311.954.27

3.923.405.003.002.005.005.005.004.004.144.00

2.971.504.002.002.601.803.002.405.005.003.004.00

2.012.222.401.620.843.63

3.693.803.003.005.003.003.003.004.003.844.00

2.961.504.002.002.300.003.003.405.004.405.003.00

2.542.373.102.122.213.63

3.693.803.003.005.003.003.003.004.003.744.00

2.961.504.002.002.300.003.003.405.004.405.003.00

2.602.223.052.422.653.08

3.714.203.003.005.001.003.005.004.004.604.00

1.612.202.001.001.001.000.002.701.000.003.002.00

All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).


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VEnDOR PROFILES

Other than Actuate, with its long history o commercial source BI experience, Forrester did notuncover any other Leaders in the space. Tis nding is a testament to the act that open source BI isstill an evolving market, with multiple opportunities or existing vendors to grow and newcomers totake advantage o existing unctionality gaps and opportunities.

Leaders

Actuate BIR inherits the Actuate legacy o large-scale production reporting. I all you arelooking or is traditional, pure-play BI application (that mostly relies on other vendors or dataintegration) and highly scalable and unction-rich reporting unctionality, Actuate BIR is theright option. Actuate leveraged technology and experience rom its commercial source productssuch as eReports and iServer in Actuate BIR . As a result, Actuate BIR reports can be used ormass (millions) report distribution and or highly complex (with scalability and load balancing

challenges) BI applications like interactive online customer statements. In the most recentedition, Actuate also added BIR Data Objects, which can be used or disk- or memory-basedOLAP-style analysis. But you will have to rely on other vendors or broader BI capabilities suchas E L, data quality, or advanced analytics. Actuate is also investing heavily into mobile BI withBIR iPhone application and BIR Mobile virtual appliance, which can deliver BIR content tomost popular mobile devices. Additionally, as BIR is part o the Eclipse project, Actuate BIRis also highly attractive to developers using Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

S ro g Per ormers

Vendors in these categories o er real competition to commercial, closed source BI suites. While

Forrester rarely sees Jasperso Enterprise, Pentaho (both editions), and SpagoBI in competitivesituations against each other, we do nd them competing with and sometimes replacing moreexpensive and more complex closed source BI plat orms and suites.

Jasperso Enterprise o ers an open source BI suite with the broadest range o capabilities. Forrester evaluation and customers we spoke with nd JasperReports comparable to BIRin terms o scalability and richness o unctionality . Jasperso also owns and controls itsJasperReports and iReport tools or core reporting and JasperServer or the repository, security,dashboarding, ad hoc, and in-memory data analysis capabilities. But Jasperso also uses best-o -breed components rom other vendors and open source projects, and that approach carries aprice. For example, Jasperso OEMs alend, a leading open source E L and data quality vendor.It integrates R, an increasingly popular advanced analytics development environment, o eringa respectable alternative to SAS and IBM SPSS. It also integrates Mondrian (JasperAnalysis) orOLAP, in addition to its own in-memory analysis o ering, JasperServer.

As a result, while Jasperso o ers a BI suite that has the ullest and broadest capabilities amongthe open source BI competitors, it does not own or ully control some o the key BI components,


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which may make it more challenging or Jasperso to provide tighter cross-product integrationor infuence product road maps.

SpagoBI is the only ull BI suite that is entirely available in the community edition. SpagoBItakes a di erent approach rom Jasperso and Pentaho by leveraging its legacy and experiencerom OW2 open source middleware and application integration experience. Until recent

releases, rather than building or controlling major BI components, SpagoBI leveraged whatcame or ree rom the most popular community edition projects and provided its ownintegration. For example, the vendor o ers integration with alend E L, Mondrian and PaloOLAP engines, BIR and JasperReports or reporting, and Weka or data mining. In the latestreleases, however, SpagoBI also began to provide some o its own components, such as a KPIengine, QbE engine, Smart Filters, geospatial analytics GEO and GIS engines, and nally acomposite document engine that can pull objects rom multiple sources and multiple tools intoa single dashboard.

SpagoBI also o ers open source integration components or commercial BI products so that itscustomers could enjoy a more seamless experience rom multiple open source and commercialBI products. Also, SpagoBIs real strength comes rom consulting and systems integration. Unlikethe other vendors in this Forrester Wave evaluation that only o er basic so ware support services,SpagoBIs parent company, Engineering Ingegneria In ormatica, employs a ew thousandconsultants, more than 100 o whom ocus speci cally on BI. Te company o ers a wide range o BI strategy, architecture, system integration, and other management consulting services.

Pentaho Enterprise o ers an open source BI suite with nearly ull control o components. Contrary to Jasperso , Pentaho does control most o the open source projects that comprise itsBI suite: reporting based on JFreeReports (converted more than our years ago and now knownas Pentaho Reporting); E L based on Kettle; OLAP based on Mondrian (with a GUI based onJPivot and a more interactive component that it recently licensed rom Lucidera); and advancedanalytics based on Weka. Jasperso and Pentaho are also the only open source BI vendors (alsowith close to no competition in this unctionality in the commercial closed source BI world)that have recently announced plans to provide integration with Hadoop, which can potentially address some o the scalability issues o open source BI tools and perhaps even leap rog itscompetition in terms o scalability.

While Pentaho E L may not be as ully unctional as Jasperso E L (powered by alend), Wekamay not have as many advanced analytics unctions as R, and Pentaho reports may not be as

unction-rich as JasperReports, the entire plat orm is more integrated, o ering the additionalbene t o easier impact and data lineage analysis, and application debugging. For thoseenterprises that avor integration over speci c unctionality, Pentaho Enterprise may be theright choice.


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Pentaho Community is a capable project, but it needs more visibility. Pentaho Community is much more closely aligned to Pentaho as a company than other open source projects, likeEclipse BIR , or example. As such, it has a smaller team o core committers and not as much visibility. But that doesnt mean that the core Pentaho BI project isnt capable; in particular,the inclusion o the Mondrian server makes Pentaho Community particularly well suited toscenarios where OLAP capabilities are needed. Te Pentaho BI project also does a good jobat providing visibility into uture versions o the project and the direction the committersplan to pursue. Pentaho community is a good choice or organizations that are willing to diga bit deeper into the Web to nd the materials needed to get up to speed and that are not thatinterested in Eclipse integration, but rather in using other Java clients or in the deployment o solutions in a Web context.

Co e ders

Some o the pure open source versions o the BI products that we looked at may not be ready to gotoe to toe with the major commercial vendors on a eature-per- eature comparison, but thats notreally the point. Te real question is: Are these community solutions good enough to meet theneeds o individual project teams and BI initiatives? Sometimes basic unctionality is enough andin this case, the price is certainly right.

Eclipse BIR benefts rom the strength o two established communities. As noted above,BIR bene ts rom Actuates lengthy history o product investments in a core set o technologiesthat make up the core BIR libraries. But equally important is BIR s status as a popular top-level Eclipse project, embraced not just by Actuate but other top-tier ISVs, including IBM,InetSo , and Innovent Solutions. And BIR s integration into the popular Eclipse IDE makes itparticularly well suited or rich client applications based on the Standard Widget oolkit (SW ).Extensive online resources are available to developers looking to integrate one or more BIRsubsystems into their applications, and its easy to nd online code examples o how this is done.

Jasperso Community is a well-established project with multiple capabilities. JaspersoCommunity uses its own components as well as best-o -breed components rom other vendorsand open source projects, which creates a broadly based but loosely ocused community.Jasperso iReport and JasperReports projects are based on large communities and usage pro les.Furthermore, Jasperso Communitys use o the alend project or E L makes it particularly well suited to projects where integration with company proprietary data ormats is needed

teams can simply write dedicated cartridges to access the required data. Integration o R andMondrian adds statistical and OLAP capabilities, making Jasperso Community a good startingpoint or teams that need to provide a broad base o capabilities to a BI user community.


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14

SuPPLEMEntAL MAtERIAL

O li e Reso rce

Te online version o Figure 4 is an Excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailedproduct evaluations and customizable rankings.

Da a So rces used I this Forres er Wave

Forrester used a combination o three data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses o eachsolution:

Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the evaluationcriteria. Once we analyzed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls wherenecessary to gather details o vendor quali cations.

Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations o their products unctionality. Weused ndings rom these product demos to validate details o each vendors product capabilities.

Customer re erence calls. o validate product and vendor quali cations, Forrester alsoconducted re erence calls with two o each vendors current customers.

the Forres er Wave Me hodolog

We conduct primary research to develop a list o vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluatedin this market. From that initial pool o vendors, we then narrow our nal list. We choose these

vendors based on: 1) product t; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate

vendors that have limited customer re erences and products that dont t the scope o our evaluation.

A er examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we developthe initial evaluation criteria. o evaluate the vendors and their products against our set o criteria,we gather details o product quali cations through a combination o lab evaluations, questionnaires,demos, and/or discussions with client re erences. We send evaluations to the vendors or their review,and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view o vendor o erings and strategies.

We set de ault weightings to refect our analysis o the needs o large user companies and/orother scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave document and then score the vendors basedon a clearly de ned scale. Tese de ault weightings are intended only as a starting point, and weencourage readers to adapt the weightings to t their individual needs through the Excel-basedtool. Te nal scores generate the graphical depiction o the market based on current o ering,strategy, and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as productcapabilities and vendor strategies evolve.


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EnDnOtES1 Adoption rates vary by region and company size, but a consistent increase in interest points to a second

wave o OSS adoption, this time led by mainstream development organizations. See the April 7, 2009,Open Source So ware Goes Mainstream report.

2 During the past decade, OSS has become a orce or change that development shops can no longer a ordto ignore. In the early days o the ree so ware movement, it was easy to view open source proponents aslong-haired barbarians at the gates o enterprise I so ware, but its getting increasingly hard to nd anenterprise application plat orm vendor that is not incorporating OSS into its enterprise so ware strategy.See the February 2, 2009, Best Practices: Improve Development E ectiveness Trough Strategic AdoptionO Open Source report.

3 An open source project committer is someone who has authority and permission to modi y the source code.ypically, its one o the original code developers or someone whos been authorized by other committers.

4 Getting better insight rom in ormation based on richer data sets, more complex models, or even makingthe same decisions as everyone else but be ore everyone else makes them this is how most advancedenterprises compete in todays world. BI tools and technologies orm the major components o the

oundation that supports and enables such competitive di erentiation. In Forresters Q3 2008 151-criterionevaluation o enterprise BI plat orm vendors, we ound that IBM Cognos and SAP BusinessObjectsmaintain their leadership positions, while Oracle and SAS Institute move into leadership positions inenterprise BI thanks to the richness o their unctionality, ability to scale, and the completeness o theircorporate and product vision and strategy. See the July 31, 2008, Te Forrester Wave: Enterprise BusinessIntelligence Plat orms, Q3 2008 report.
http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54205&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46361&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46361&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44724&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44724&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44724&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44724&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46361&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46361&src=46490pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54205&src=46490pdf


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