"Key cost factor with legacy takedown is data migration / conversion [Enterprise Architect]"
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Business Intelligence Tools - Pros & Cons
| Product: CRYSTAL REPORTS |
| Vendor: Business Objects |
| One of the most familiar tools for developers, through it's long association with Microsoft and Visual Studio. |
| PROS | CONS |
| Stores the data source properties within each report. Each data source can also have its own connection information. |
Scalability, for large-scale app need to either purchasing additional licenses or change app to work with Crystal Enterprise to get the needed performance |
| Veteran in the field and supports almost every conceivable reporting requirement there is. |
Limited object model |
| Supports connecting to DataSets and reporting from XML files without writing any additional code. |
Arcane proprietary language for formulas and formatting. |
| Has versions for developers as well as business users. |
Not well integrated with programming. |
| Single point of entry architecture to pull data from the data source. Connects to a myriad of data types and join them together to form a single result set. |
Inability to do real dynamic run-time code-created reports |
| Product: MS SQL SERVER REPORTING SERVICES |
| Vendor: Microsoft |
| An add-on to SQL Server, a native reporting tool for SQL Server. Report designer runs within Visual Studio .NET Targeted primary at the .NET developer. |
| PROS | CONS |
| Cost: Cheapest enterprise BI solution if you are using MS SQL Server as a back-end. |
Report designer is a little rough on the edges especially when it comes to selecting the tables, joins etc from data source. |
| A single report can retrieve data from multiple heterogeneous databases and render it to make it look like it's from a single source. |
Very resource intensive, can consume large amount of server memory. |
| Open architecture in terms of developing custom data sources. |
It has no end-user applications that would make it easy for non developers to create a report. |
| Reports can share a common data source. |
By sharing a common data connection, you lose the granularity of being able to control individual reports. |
| Multiple delivery methods and formats. You design a generic report and reporting server takes care of exporting it into HTML, Excel, PDF, war, TIFF, CSV and XML format. |
Doesn't have some of the formatting features found in other reporting tools. For example, SSRS reports can't have more than one type of text in a single text box. |
| Uses ADO.NET, which includes, out of the box, drivers for Oracle, Jet (Access), OLEDB and ODBC |
Individual reports don't have the flexibility to have the data source modified during runtime |
| Product: COGNOS |
| Vendor: IBM |
| Delivers complete range of BI capabilities: reporting, analysis, scorecarding, dashboards, business event management as well as data integration. |
| PROS | CONS |
| Easy to use and flexible with easy reports formatting. |
Lack of out-of-the-box source control integration. |
| Robust with a good performance |
Inadequate Error Handling: Error messages are nearly impossible to decipher. |
| FrameWork Manager: One of the best-in-class meta-data repository. |
Model Bias: Report development requires universes -- basically a data model. |
| Can work with both Unix data server and MS Windows out of the box. |
Poor Parameter Support: Parameter support is terrible in BOXI WebIntelligence reports. |
| Product: ORACLE BI |
| Vendor: Oracle |
| Oracle's set of business intelligence tools consisting of former Siebel business intelligence and Hyperion business intelligence offerings. |
| PROS | CONS |
| Completely Web-based authoring tools. |
Unintuitive tasks and interface in both Answers and the Administrative Tool. |
| Interactive and integrated dashboards |
Prompting capabilities are limited and cumbersome. |
| Strong administrative capabilities. |
Lags pure-play vendors on recent innovations such as Office integration, BI Search, and Vista Gadgets. |
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