Open Source BI (OSBI)

Visit nggsolutions.com Property of NextGen Global Solutions © 2015 — www.nggsolutions.com — Proprietary and Confidential

We Share in Your Vision

Solutions that work for Today and Tomorrow

NEXTGEN GLOBAL®

RUN • GROW •TRANSFORM

Property of NextGen Global Solutions © 2015 — www.nggsolutions.com — Proprietary and Confidential

Property of NextGen Global Solutions © 2015 — www.nggsolutions.com — Proprietary and Confidential P a g e | 1

NextGen Global Solutions ® We Share in Your Vision | RUN • GROW • TRANSFORM • Your Business

Open Source Business Intelligence (OSBI) Friend or Foe Published: June 6, 2013 - Fru Louis

WHAT IS FREE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (FOSS)

For a solution or product to be considered as open source software

by the software development industry, certain criteria must be met:

1. The program must be freely

distributed (It can be part of a package

that is sold though, such as Red Hat has

done with Linux in the example below).

2. Source code must be included.

3. Anyone must be allowed to modify the source code.

4. Modified versions can be redistributed.

5. The license must not require the exclusion of other software

or interfere with the operation of other software.

WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE BI (OSBI)

It is hard not to be impressed with the growth of

open source platforms. Obviously the open

source philosophy has come a long way from

the early days of computing delivering stable

indispensable solutions like (Hadoop, Apache, Linux, Redhat,

MySQL, Mongo dB, etc.). The fields of Business intelligence (BI)

has also matured tremendously, now reaching the point where it’s

finally delivering huge return on investments (ROI) to companies

who invest in BI solutions. With FOSS and BI both growing, it

makes perfect sense to ask if a merging of the two to result in Open

Source Business Intelligence (OSBI) would be beneficial to

companies.

HOW DOES OSBI WORK?

OSBI is, technically, free business intelligence (BI)

software. Instead of selling traditional software

licenses, OSBI vendors charge for support,

documentation and code that have been fine-tuned

for specific audience or implementations.

A handful of open-source business intelligence

platform vendors have gained visibility and developed technology

platforms to be heard over the general market noise. Examples of

some popular OSBI vendors include (in no specific order):

Pentaho CloverETL

ApatarForge Eclipse BIRT RapidMiner

JasperSoft Actuate SpagoBI OpenL Jedox



IS OSBI RIGHT FOR YOU?

OSBI software has a lot going for it,

between access to source code, freedom

from licensing issues and the right to

modify the software to fit your needs—

not to mention the price tag of FREE.

Free can be hard to pass up, particularly

for IT leaders under pressure to do more

with less and this explain why OSBI

stays as a very appealing alternative to

traditional commercial software’s.

Unfortunately, while righteous in its premise, OSBI has long been

dogged by financial unsustainability issues and a ton of additional

cost that could pose great problems for adopters.

This challenges result from the fact that people usually gravitate

towards OSBI with the notion that there is ZERO cost associated

with the choice.

Sometimes this expectation is indeed true, with OSBI solutions

offering better quality and lower in long-term costs than

commercial BI alternatives. However, it is a fallacy to think that

Open Source BI means – WITHOUT COST.

Just like you receiving a FREE dog from a shelter doesn’t mean the

dog won’t cost you anything in its life time, downloading and using

OSBI software for free doesn’t mean that the cost of

implementation and maintenance of the software has been waived.

You would have to evaluate your options and make sure any

solution you pick, be it OSBI or not is right for you.

Fundamental questions like these must be asked and answered.

1. What BI Solution currently exists for your company?

2. What is needed?

3. Do you want to Host or not to host any solution?

4. What are you ready to spend to get it working?

5. Is there enough technical knowhow to implement and

support the OSBI solution?

6. Do the OSBI solutions available meet all your business

needs? Etc.

These are tough but very important questions that must be

asked/answered in order to maximize the chances of making a

successful decision on which solution use.

The summary matrix below provides of some the key attributes that

stake holders can consider when making their decisions.



KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR OSBI

Stake Holder

Key Attribute

Considerations

Business Requirements

Cost From a business perspective the purchase cost of software is only one factor; total cost of ownership (TCO) is what really matters. OSBI software are generally free to download, for example, but the actual costs of successfully implementing the software once staff time and consulting costs are taken into account can vary dramatically.

Additional Resources Required

Some open source software packages are easy to get started with, but others expect you to have someone technically savvy to get them up and running. And though a constellation of consultants and vendors tend to support most open source packages, support costs can be as high as or higher than those for traditional software.

Available capabilities for Business Needs

Do all the available OSBI solutions meet all your business needs? For organizations looking to build a customized solution on an existing platform of functionality and features, the lack of restrictions on modification also makes open source software attractive because it reduces TIME TO VALUE as few customizations would have to be built.

Legal Constraints Traditional software requires that organizations not only track licenses, but also the type of license agreement that applies to each piece of software. For instance, one package might require each user to have a license, while another requires only enough licenses to cover simultaneous or “concurrent” users. Some require licenses per machine, or per processor within a machine. It’s easy even for conscientious organizations to end up in violation of license agreements, leaving them vulnerable to legal action and fines. OSBI gives companies more flexibility, since it can be installed on as many systems as needed without tracking licenses.

Technical Requirements

Reliability and Availability

Consideration of factors such as uptime requirements, downtime costs, failover and disaster recovery capabilities



Manageability and Serviceability

How easy is the environment to manage? What sorts of skills, training, additional tools, custom development is needed to provide monitoring for problems, deployment of applications, configuration management, problem diagnosis

Maintainability and Supportability

Patch management, application deployment, product support costs and capabilities, ability to substitute alternatives

Security Not just for the application, but infrastructure and connectivity to databases, other application, proxies, cluster peers.

Performance and Scalability

How do supported applications behave when the transaction volume and dynamic load change needs? Will the addition of capacity be predictable and cost effective?

Extensibility How easy is it to add new features / functions without disruptive and expensive efforts?

TAKE AWAY POINTS FOR DECISION MAKERS

At the end of the day, OSBI could be useful, but it isn’t necessarily

the best solution

just because it’s

open source.

Whether or not

open source

software is a good idea for you can also depend on the culture of

your organization. Some organizations tend to stick with established

technology brands, and prefer Microsoft’s software and all the

support and brand recognition that comes with it over a smaller

provider’s competing releases. If that’s the case at your organization,

then you may find it convenient to stay the course. For decision

makers who have an open mind and are ready to try new solutions,

then it’s important to weigh the needs of your organization against

the core characteristics (good or bad) provided by OSBI such as

compatibility, interoperability, ease of use, availability of support,

legal and all associated costs. When all this is done, then you can

safely make your decision based on how well a given solution fits

your needs—not whether that solution is open source.

RECOMMENDED READ

A book by Lindsay Wise is definitely worth reading for those considering or just curious about OSBI. http://www.wiseanalytics.com/book/book.php

Visit nggsolutions.com Property of NextGen Global Solutions © 2015 — www.nggsolutions.com — Proprietary and Confidential

About NextGen

NextGen Global Solutions, LLC. (NGG: IT) is an information technology consulting, research and advisory company. We deliver the technology-related

insight necessary for our clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders, to business leaders, Engineering and Service

professionals. Information is power in this digital age, and we try to research and provide the resources and solutions that would help decision makers

run, grow and transform their organizations.

Get a Different

Perspective Are your competitors talking about you in

their boardrooms? Does your strategy guide

how you allocate resources? Can every

employee articulate your strategy and are

they empowered to execute on it?

At NGG, we see strategy as much more than a

plan. We work with companies in every

industry to develop strategies that deliver

results. We conduct surveys, interviews, and

observations for comprehensive needs

analysis.

Track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to

ensure the success of your Business Programs

by making appropriate adjustments

X-Ray your Business Potentials

New technologies create new

opportunities. But having too many choices

makes prioritizing them difficult.

At NGG, we partner with our clients to

produce the broad IT transformations that

are necessary to extend IT’s capabilities

and create an organization that is better

able to respond to new opportunities.

Create comprehensive Road-maps to

efficiently align your Business Goals and

Objectives with your Business and

Technology Capabilities. And help monitor

your projects implementation process from

start to finish.

Because the Bottom-line Matters

Focusing on the core customer base enables

a company to cut through product complexity

and other nuances. If you know exactly what

your primary customers most want—if you

know what their sweet spot is—you can

concentrate on giving them exactly that.

At NGG, we help our clients follow the time

honored principle: Delight the few to attract

the many.

By focusing on their core customers,

customers can tailor offerings that are exactly

what the core customers want, and hence are

likely to appeal to large numbers of other

customers.