As packaged enterprise business systems increase in price, scope, and complexity, the popularity of open source software continues to explode within the IT community. With open source software, technical professionals can obtain access to an application’s underlying code, and use, modify, or improve upon it as needed to address the unique and specific needs within their own environment in a faster and more cost-effective manner.
Many experts believe that business intelligence (BI) is a logical target for this approach. The growing need to embed reporting and analysis capabilities into automated business processes and core operational activities requires tighter integration between BI functionality and the back-end systems they retrieve information from – something that open source BI components can provide more rapidly and affordably than packaged applications. Additionally, companies are looking for greater flexibility and customizability in their BI environments than what traditional vendors offer today.
However, although open source is viewed by most as an established, legitimate model for many kinds of technology implementations, the BI market has been rather slow to embrace it. Database, decision support, and analytical tool vendors have just finally begun to leverage the use of open source software in the past year, as customer demand for greater control over application development, as well as software designed to run on Linux and other open source operating systems, rises.
The primary appeal of this method is most obvious for developers, who can use open source reporting and analysis components to tightly incorporate robust business intelligence functionality into the custom applications they write – instead of purchasing a third-party tool and attempting to integrate it into their operational systems after they have been developed. Other IT teams can choose a “hybrid” approach, using open source BI components as a means of accelerating the design and deployment of their own in-house reporting systems. The existing code serves as a foundation upon which technical staff can create a fully-customized solution from end to end.
So, what is the state of open source BI today? Open source databases and reporting applications are slowly, but surely, gaining traction in the BI landscape. But, although the early technical building blocks do exist, most of the available options are somewhat immature and are not quite ready for use in large scale, enterprise-class implementations. However, the Data Warehouse Institute is keeping an eye on several promising projects in progress, as well as a handful of active open source developer communities focused on reporting and analytics. The organization’s consultants predict that, in the coming years, open source BI tools could emerge as viable alternatives to commodity analytical applications or low-end reporting tools.