To do a good job, he must sharpen his tools. With the rapid development of the Internet industry, more and more enterprises have realized that BI tools can greatly promote the business development of enterprises, making the work efficiency higher and stronger. At present, there are absolute differences between data analysis BI tools in the market, no matter in the application scenarios or applicable groups. At present, there are a wide variety of BI tools on the market, and customers are confused and at a loss when choosing BI tools. Below, we can make a simple classification of BI tools on the market from the technical sources for easy understanding.
1. Report tool based on directly connecting business system to report (OLTP application)
The representative manufacturer is rundry report, and later sail soft FineReport.
The advantage of this kind of report tool is that the development is more flexible, and at the same time includes data filling and filling function; The disadvantages of non-OLAP-based BI report tools lead to the inability to support multi-dimensional report operations. For example, if a table is drilled based on the same dimension, multiple tables need to be made, which can be achieved by linking. At the same time, the performance of the database cannot be fully used because the source data for analysis must be locked and loaded through SQL statements before making tables. Therefore, the computing performance under large data volume and the performance under high concurrency are its biggest weaknesses.
Because of these deficiencies in such reports, Rungan’s new generation of product aggregator is positioned in the middle layer between source database and reports, and is committed to solving the computing performance problems from database to reports. Fansoft launched FineBI in an attempt to solve related problems through BI technology, but due to the short accumulation time based on OLAP technology, the realization of its directly connected database was not released until the beginning of this year, and has yet to be further verified.
2. Traditional BI tools based on DW/BI theory
Foreign representatives: Cognos acquired by IBM, BIEE acquired by Oracle and BO acquired by SAP
Domestic representative manufacturers: yixin huachen’s yixin ABI, SmartBI
This kind of analysis tool solves multidimensional report manipulation problem and performance problem well. However, foreign tools are in a weak position in the implementation of Chinese-style complex statements. At the same time, due to the BI tool’s partial application layer, some customization and secondary development requirements are inevitable in each project, and foreign companies are basically unable to respond to such problems. Based on OLAP technology, BI tools themselves cannot provide data modification and supplement related functions, and foreign tools are struggling in this scenario.
Yixin Huachen is one of the earliest BI manufacturers in China. Its customers cover the government, banks, power, taxation, leasing and other industries, serving the State Administration of Taxation, Export-Import Bank of China, State Grid, Haier Group and many other government and enterprise users, showing its influence in the industry. Exin ABI was born out of the stand-alone data analysis system released in 2003. From BI@Report, exin BI, and now Exin ABI, it has gone through four architecture leaps, more than 20 major version updates, and more than ten years of technological precipitation. The product functions and performance can basically compete with similar foreign tools. At the same time, it has natural advantages in supporting Chinese-style complex reports, secondary development support and localized services, and integrates data modification and backfill functions to help users easily complete the supplement, modification, review and approval of report data, summary and report, and ultimately achieve the generation of reports and business confirmation.
There is a typical representative of this kind of tool manufacturer in China, Smite (SmartBI). Smite team has a lot of practical experience in DW/BI, but due to some historical reasons, the product eventually developed into a report tool based on Excel as a designer and a self-service analysis tool for business use. To make a report designer based on Excel, firstly, online design and sharing cannot be realized; secondly, it does not meet the development direction of independent security and controllable which is required by the state in some fields. Meanwhile, due to the FineReport calibration, the inherent shortcomings of report tools cannot be solved well.
Agile BI tools for business people
Foreign representative manufacturer: Tableau
Domestic representative manufacturers: Fan Soft FineBI, Yixin Huachen PEA BI
As technology and markets evolve, there are many companies that are developing agile BI tools directly for business users. The representative foreign product is Tableau. At the beginning, Tableau’s product positioning is to replace Excel. Single users can complete all kinds of fast design and analysis operations locally, with emphasis on the interaction with data and the operation interaction of various analysis methods. Such tools are naturally inadequate in producing complex statistical reports due to their positioning problems.
There are also many domestic manufacturers doing agile BI, such as FineBI of Fansoft and Pea BI of Yixin Huachen. Since the first version of FineBI relies heavily on FineReport technology, the first version of BI would like to be positioned as a traditional BI tool, focusing on the ability to solve multidimensional analysis. However, in terms of market feedback, it cannot be clearly differentiated from FineReport, so the subsequent versions of BI gradually tend to be agile BI tools. However, due to its little experience in OLAP technology, it still needs to package the analysis data into special packets, and THEN BI tool conducts analysis based on the special packets. The role of this special packet is equivalent to that of Fansoft’s own data analysis model (similar to the role of OLAP database or Cube). Manage and maintain the data analysis model by yourself. Only recently has it released an engine that can connect directly to OLAP databases, and this capability needs further verification on the project.
Million they Chen on the common core of OLAP engine technology used independently developed a business-oriented personnel of peas BI, positioning for more simple and easier analysis of self-service BI, which adopted many intelligent technology for the automation of product, let users more convenient operation, such as data table import automatic modeling technology, data portrait function, Multi – table automatic correlation technology, intelligent chart recommendation technology, and dynamic chart automatic correlation technology.
4. Entrepreneurial BI based on Internet technology and resources
Representative manufacturers: QuickBI of Aliyun, Netease Count, Haizhi BDP, Shence Data, etc
As many people are optimistic about the market and application scenarios of BI, some Internet companies have developed BI products based on their own applications, such as QuickBI of Aliyun and Netease, etc. These tools are lightweight tools, and their business status is marginal business of the company, so they are not valued and developed.
There are also companies founded by entrepreneurial teams from Internet companies, such as Haizhi BDP and Shence, whose products focus on BI applications based on saas or certain business application scenarios. Therefore, more time is needed to verify the versatility of such BI tools.
Summary: The above classification is based on the product development process and technical route of each manufacturer, for reference as appropriate. The situation of each enterprise is different. When choosing BI business intelligence tools, it is necessary to combine the advantages and disadvantages of all kinds of BI tools above, find a balance between requirements, cost budget, business deployment and development cycle, and then make the final decision.