Smart decision-making with BI tools

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By gathering an arsenal of powerful Free Software Savoir-faire Linux enables smart decision making with heterogeneous and often unorganized data.

A health system specialist and former Quebec governement minister, Michel Clair, once commented: « We have much data, but little information... » By this, he meant that it is useless having large amounts of data if it's unorganized and thus unable to inform important decisions, allowing, for example, reduced production costs or enhanced customer service.

Strategic orientations, investment decisions, marketing strategies, offering new products or services... such important decisions must be grounded in rigorous information. To obtain such information, enterprises have Free Software for BI (business intelligence) at their disposal.

These tools are used by Savoir-faire Linux's consulting team and cover all stages of the transformation from raw data to useful information. In a nutshell, we distinguish 3 major stages: 1. The consolidation of heterogeneous data in a unique « warehouse » or « cube »; 2. the conception and activation of analytical tools and the production of reports; 3. the diffusion of information and results in an enterprise portal type of environment.

In these three stages we have three groups of tools: 1. ETL tools (Extract, Transform, Load) such as Talend; 2. Analytical tools such as SpagoBI, Pentaho BI and reporting tools (reporting) such as JasperReports or BIRT; 3. Web tools such as Liferay (Applications portal).

The 250 blades of Talend's swiss army knife

Talend is an open source data integration solution provider. Thanks to the economic model of Free Software – and notably, the lack of a need to pay for licenses – Talend provides a data integration solution for all businesses, large and small. Talend solutions, Talend Open Studio and Talend Open Profiler amongst others, can be downloaded and used for free!

Talend's solutions manage data integration. With Talend Open Studio, one can extract, transform, load, consolidate and analyze data flow. The tool can be used on any source or target (input/output), whether a database or an Excel file, ODS (OpenDocument), CSV, plain text, web service, email, etc.

Talend Open Studio generates code in Perl or Java to transform data originating from different sources in order to connect different software platforms within a single information system. In chronological order, Talend's data integration solutions consist of: 1. extracting data from one or more sources; 2. analyzing, handling and transforming data in order for it to be compatible with the system towards which one wishes to send it; 3. sending data towards the targeted system.

This data integration « swiss army knife » is a true marvel for any type of enterprise. Its 250 connectors provides you with the opportunity to interconnect numerous Free or Proprietary applications (CRM, ERP, etc.). For example, the business solutions CentricCRM database, Microsoft AX Server, SAP system, SugarCRM, OLAP cube, FireBird database, etc., etc.

With Talend Open Profiler, it is possible to examine existing sources of data (databases, applications, files...) and collect statistics and information on this data. This process of « profiling » allows the user to evaluate the quality of data based on parameters and objectives. Users are then able to ascertain the nature of data at a glance through reports and sophisticated graphics.

Examplary applications

Once the data has been consolidated, we move on to the next step, which consists of producing and activating analytical and report producing tools. Savoir-faire Linux's consulting team uses numerous tools available in the BI platforms SpagoBI and Pentaho BI (see below).

In addition to analytical functions, these tools have the ability to integrate report generators such as JasperReports or BIRT. These programs are capable of linking a report model (an XML file) and a data source. The result is a report that can be published in different formats (PDF, Excel, ODS, text, HTML, etc...).

These reports can be collected on a powerful and user-friendly collaboration portal such as Liferay, which offers services similar to Igoogle and Netvibes. Using Igoogle, a user can access his favourite Internet and Google services through a custom Web page. Dictionaries, headlines, horoscopes, calendars... these gadgets are easily usable and, most importantly, movable on the screen with a simple drag and drop.

With its portlets, Liferay is very similar. Portlets are applications that can be placed in a web portal. A portlet manages task or service queries and generates dynamically Web content for the user. Portlets supply all kind of services (personal agenda, search engine integration, weather, etc.).

Liferay comes with 60 portlets allowing the user to build an Intranet or a Web site in a flash while managing access permissions. Instead of starting from scratch, it is a lot easier to use an existing portlet (supplied by Liferay or by another Open Source application editor). In the BI case, the user needs to use portlets or applications such as SpagoBI and Pentaho BI. « In other words, » explains Sven Werlen, Director of Enterprise Solutions at Savoir-faire Linux, « SpagoBI and Pentaho BI are mini-applications which can be integrated to the enterprise's portal to enrich it with BI functionalities ».

Sven adds: « Thanks to the Free and Open Source Software we use we can save time, benefit from powerful applications and retain an unbelievable management flexibility. These examplary applications enable decision makers to make wise choices. »

Business Intelligence, is the possibility to have or produce...

information to make decision
transform information in strategic ressource for the enterprise
precise and automated reports on elements or precise periodes of time
transform a lot of data in precise informations
extract partial data
smart decision making based on solid information
reduce the complexity or the degree of uncertainty of business decisions

Talend: The ETL Master

Talend can be defined as « the leader in open source data integration solutions ». This is not just a slogan since the « open source model offers data integration solutions to enterprises of all sizes, with different technical expertise, and different budgets. Talend's solutions connect to all sources and targets and can be downloaded for free off the Internet. Talend also offers data quality management solutions, complementary to these data integration solutions. » Data migration, data sync and dat integration, Talend offers Free solutions for all these essential functions.

talend.com/index.php

SpagoBI: totaly Free

SpagoBI: a fully Open Source BI platform, which means fully Open Source and Free with no commercial edition. Developed for enterprises, SpagoBI offers numerous free tools to facilitate decision making. These tools relate to all major BI functionalities: ETL, queries, reports production, etc. SpagoBI is compatible with propriatory solutions such as Business Objects or Microsoft Analysis Services. One of SpagoBI's strength are the queries for which the plateform offers graphic components « with the graphic components the user can select data that has to be extracted from the data wharehouse and sort it, group it, select it and export the result. The graphic interface uses portlets to display graphics, indicators within the portal. Some indicators and graphics are capable of updating data without the help of the user. »

spagobi.eng.it/ecm/faces/public/guest/home/solutions/spagobi

Pentaho BI: two versions

Pentaho BI: another BI platform, Pentaho BI also offers numerous tools (ETL, reports production, analyzes, dash-board, etc.) Relying on a community known as very active, Pentaho BI can be downloaded in two versions: open source and commerciale... Obviously, the second one pffers more functionnalities such as Single-SignOn authentication, diagnostical tools, auditing and monitoring tools...

www.pentaho.com

Liferay: portail collaboratif

« Liferay, as explained on Wikipedia, was created in 2000 by Chief Software Architect Brian Chan to provide an enterprise portal solution for non-profit organizations. In 2006, the company was incorporated under the name Liferay, Inc., formalized its Germany subsidiary Liferay GmbH. In 2007, the company opened a new Asian headquarters in Dalian, China and the Spanish subsidiary Liferay SL. In March 2009, the company opened a new office in Bangalore, India.. »

« The company's enterprise portal product has been acknowledged by several notable organizations. It was recognized by EContent magazine in its "EContent 100" list of industry leaders and in 2007, InfoWorld named it a "Technology of the Year." In July 2007, they announced a partnership with ICEsoft Technologies for developing AJAX technology for their enterprise portal software. In January 2008, the company hired the lead engineer for jQuery UI, to exclusively work full-time on the JavaScript library. Gartner recognised Liferay as visonary leader in a September 2008 Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products. »

Here are some available portlets: wiki, blog, surveys, calendar RSS...

In addition to all these functionalities Liferay offers syncing with LDAP and SSO (Single Sign On) systems.