Learning Open Source Business Intelligence

Traditionally, business intelligence tools have been a high-cost part of any enterprise's software inventory. Recently, options have emerged that allow architects to build a credible business intelligence stack out of entirely open-source components. In this brief overview, we will demonstrate ETL, reporting, and analytics tool that can be deployed free or at low cost. Learn how to turn your company's transactional database into a rich data asset with a business-friendly user interface that integrates into your existing software infrastructure.

We begin this session talking about the differences between a transactional database and a data warehouse, describing the many benefits of creating the latter. Then we'll see how to take a transactional database and convert it into a warehouse star schema using the Eclipse-based Talend ETL. Next, we'll demonstrate how to enable business analysts to build reports with Jasper iReport, an open-source visual report designer. We'll talk about ways to integrate these report designs into your Java- or Groovy-based application. Finally, we'll look at more sophisticated options for analysis using tools from Pentaho.

This is a mile-wide, ankle deep view of an open-source business intelligence stack. Through this whirlwind overview, you'll learn the basic principles of business intelligence, how to think architecturally about the components of a BI stack and how to integrate them into the enterprise, and what specific tools you can employ to get the job done.

About Tim Berglund

Tim is a teacher, author, and technology leader with Confluent, where he serves as the Vice President of Developer Relations. He is a regular speaker at conferences and a presence on YouTube explaining complex technology topics in an accessible way. He tweets as @tlberglund, blogs every few years at http://timberglund.com. He has three grown children and two grandchildren, a fact about which he is rather excited.

More About Tim »