Since 2013 , we have been working as a data decision analysis system for the unit.I have been in contact with many domestic and foreign business intelligence tools, and I have compiled and reported to the leaders many reports on the comparison of tools. Here I will summarize and share them.
Traditional business intelligence tools:
1. SAP BO :
Business Objects is a product acquired by SAP in the past few years. It is one of the representatives of traditional business intelligence tools. It has established a strong and comprehensive partner community in the industry and has many partners. China was once the best promotion of this product. s country.
The main customers of SAP BO are SAP ERP users. Others use OEM or cooperate with integrators. The price is higher and it is not suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises.
From the perspective of product architecture, SAP BO is composed of a series of acquired tools, and different BI functions are suitable for different scenarios, rather than a unified architecture. Although BO has a relatively powerful OLAP function, the display method is more like excel , the operation is intuitive, and it is easy to get started, but the report effect is poor and single. BO lacks a real OLAP server and has no MLOAP function. If you want to implement this function, you must connect to a third-party MLOAP server. BO needs to be authenticated separately in different tools and cannot be synchronized between different tools.
二、IBM Cognos
Cognos is a leader in traditional business intelligence tools. Since it was acquired by IBM for $ 4.7 billion, it has become even more powerful. It claims to be the only business intelligence platform in the industry that fully integrates all BI functions. Cognos occupies a large share in China, with comprehensive functions and many learners, but its status has declined in recent years, which can be seen from the number of visitors and the number of posts in the Cognos Business Intelligence Community, its official forum in China.
Cognos has a low level of integration, each application corresponds to a separate user interface, but the SDK is not open enough, many functions cannot be re-developed, the provided web API is quite limited, there is no real web customization capability, and it cannot be embedded into existing in the system. Cognos ' fast user-created report capability is not very powerful. You can add headers to form reports on the basis of analysis, and you can save the analysis results as reports under B / S . The OLAP function of Cognos is very powerful, and the operation response is fast, but it is difficult to get started for the first time, and the operation is inconvenient when accessing the conditional query report on the web page. For rotation, slicing, and drilling operations, Cognos supports a lot and has powerful functions, but it is difficult for users to accept and the ease of use is not strong. Of course, after skilled use, there are many analyses that can be done, and analysis operations from any angle are supported. Cognos has few chart styles, and cannot make lists in OLAP mode, and can only perform simple filtering and query operations.
三、Oracle BIEE：
BIEE is a well-established traditional business intelligence product with no distinctive features and no prominent defects. The entire business intelligence solution is tightly bound to the Oracle product line and is not open enough. BIEE is composed of a series of independent products acquired. Different BI functions require different tools, usually have different operation interfaces and relatively opposite back-end platforms, and users often need to switch between different tools. There are also slight differences in the operating style between different tools, and it takes time for users to learn and adapt.
Since BIEE itself does not have an OLAP Server , when the user needs to perform OLAP analysis, the system needs to completely extract the data from the database server and extract it to other OLAP Server servers for processing. In addition, BIEE needs to be sent to the database server for the operation of dimensional summary analysis, and when the amount of data is relatively large, the efficiency of processing such summary requests in general relational databases is relatively low. Therefore, when performing the operation of dimensional summary analysis, BIEE will exert great pressure on the database.
In terms of charts, BIEE can support common charts to meet the needs of daily charts of enterprises. From the point of view of the function and ease of use of the WEB interface, BIEE reports can be made beautifully, but for complex reports, BIEE is not well supported. In addition , some functions of BIEE itself require third-party integration, which will increase the number of enterprises in Costs in terms of network security and client maintenance.
New self-service business intelligence tools
In the Gartner business intelligence and analysis platform reports in recent years, the new self-service business intelligence tools represented by Tableau are highly praised, mainly because such tools solve the problems that traditional BI cannot solve: long project implementation cycle, flexibility Insufficient, when the requirements change, the bottom layer must be changed, requiring IT personnel to remodel or modify the existing analysis model. The user's data needs are no longer met. The new self-service business intelligence tools are different. Without modeling, IT can quickly provide data to users, users can self-help analysis, and a data analysis can be done in a few minutes. The following self-service BI tools all have these characteristics and will not be explained separately.
四、Table ：
Tableau is the simplest business intelligence tool software in the desktop system. Users only need simple configuration, drag and drop, and data analysis can be made. Tableau 's philosophy is that the easier the data is on the interface, the better a company will be able to understand whether it's doing right or wrong in its area of business.
Overall, Tableau has the following advantages: first, the learning cost is low, and you can get started quickly; second, for those who do not master the principles of statistics, they can also complete very valuable analysis, which can only be done by IT and data analysis experts. . Third, it is rich in functions, unique in data visualization, and very fast in processing big data. Although Tableau has powerful analysis functions, its data capture function is weak and its data processing ability is poor. It needs to prepare data, so it can be considered as a front-end tool for data analysts.
5. FineBI
FineBI was launched by Fanruan a few years ago. It has a good reputation and development in China. Sometimes it is combined with FineReport to form a complete business intelligence solution for enterprises and push it to users. It can provide solutions for different levels of enterprises, which is quite competitive.
Through the big data engine FineIndex , FineBI can automatically model and operate foolishly. Users can create rich and diverse data visualization information by simply dragging and dropping operations in Dashboard , and perform operations such as data drilling, linkage and filtering. analyze data. FineBI is aimed at enterprise IT departments and business personnel, providing self-service data analysis for business personnel under enterprise-level management and control, helping IT to manage and control data downwards, and making full use of underlying data upwards to support front-end business data applications.
Different from Tableau for data analysts, FineBI is for ordinary business personnel, the data analysis process is more user-friendly, simpler and easier to use, and provides enterprises with comprehensive data management and user management strategies. But officially because of this positioning, the data analysis function is comprehensive and practical, but it is quite satisfactory, and there are not so many highlights.
6. Qlikview :
Qlikviw has been the fastest growing BI product in the world for seven consecutive years, and Gartner has listed it in the Leaders quadrant and Tableau as a Magic Product . Unlike Tableau 's focus, Qlikview is a complete business intelligence software that enables IT and business people to build and deploy powerful data analysis applications.
The main feature of Qlikview is that it is easy to develop and use, but compared with Tableau and FineBI , its operational performance is inferior. In general, it allows self-service data analysis and all information to have a flexible and intuitive display. While Qlikview provides flexible and powerful analytical capabilities through the AQL architecture, the AQL architecture changes the need for OLAP cubes.
The defects of Qlikview are also obvious. Limited by the number of users (that is to say, the price) and the complexity of designing reports, it can only be used for a few management personnel, and the report problem of the majority of middle-level cadres has not been solved. It is difficult to solve with QlikView .