IT Research BIT
https://comm.sp.ford.com/sites/researchcomm/Pages/Briefs.aspx
Topics
Application Layer
Information Services
Advanced Analytics
Information /
Knowledge Retrieval
By Venkatesh Raman
vraman2@ford.com
..Frustration at
deployment cycles, costs
and complicated upgrade
processes, was driving the
trend. The use of SaaS BI
may lead to faster
deployment, insight and
value
Glossary
Cloud IT capabilities, like
Computing, Storage & Network,
made available over Internet or
Intranet
SaaS Software-as-a-Service -
ready to use software on a pay
per use model, hosted by a Cloud
service provider
Business Intelligence on the Cloud
Aug 5, 2013
___________________________________________________
One in three organizations will move to the Cloud to enhance
their Business Intelligence capabilities in the next 12 months
Gartner Research
___________________________________________________
Introduction
Slowly but surely, "Cloud" is gaining ground. With improvements in network
bandwidth, browsers and the web in general, more and more applications
and services are moving to the Cloud. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
delivery model is increasingly becoming the easy & preferred option for many
enterprises. Business Intelligence on the Cloud or Cloud BI is the new
delivery model that's catching up. Cloud BI is a platform or application hosted
on the public or private cloud and provides an organization with BI-related
services (like dashboards, business metrics, KPIs etc.)
Cloud BI promises reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increase
analytical capabilities of Enterprises.
Drivers & Challenges
Traditionally many organizations use a BI platform/tool to deliver internally
facing reporting and analysis applications, with a traditional relational
database (or data mart) as the primary data source. This requires
organizations to have resources, software licenses, and hardware to
implement the technology, and have appropriate budget for the operational
expenses and to support the overall BI capabilities lifecycle. Thus moving BI
capabilities to the Cloud cuts down on the above items.
Several operational and financial factors that work in favor of normal Cloud
based applications holds good for Cloud BI also, the key being,
Scalable and Elastic Like any other Cloud hosted application, Cloud BI
can be scaled as per the requirements. This pay per use & on-demand model
translates to direct cost savings.
Improved Time to Market The lead time involved in infrastructure
procurement, application development, deployment etc. can be avoided in
Cloud BI. A ready to use BI environment means, improved agility and
shortened deployment cycles.
BI for masses - Cloud BI allows business users to access information
anywhere, anytime & on any device and empowers them by providing access
to data in real time. Thus Cloud BI can make BI more pervasive.
Per Gartner Research, "... frustration at deployment cycles, costs and
complicated upgrade processes, was driving the trend. The use of SaaS BI
may lead to faster deployment, insight and value..."
But there are few inhibitors to adopting Cloud BI. Top few concerns and how
they can be addressed:-
Integrity, Confidentiality & Security of the data are the top most concerns
for any enterprise considering Cloud BI. Basic levels or security are provided
by use of SSL, user access controls and policies, vulnerability monitoring and
Certifications like VeriSign, Safe Harbor, SSAE 16 / ISAE 3402 etc. Emerging
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technologies like cloud encryptions gateways are continuing to add
capabilities
Integrating Cloud data with the in-house production applications & data in is
the next challenge, Cloud BI faces. Few Cloud data integration tools have
sprung up to address this challenge.
Performance of Cloud BI applications is a barrier as the cloud
infrastructure & its performance is sometimes beyond vendor's control. But
with improved SLAs and lower downtime, Cloud vendors are winning the
confidence of the enterprises now.
So, Enterprises should understand the limitations of Cloud BI and the
integration and customization challenges before deciding on a Cloud BI
solution.

Cloud BI Landscape
Cloud BI is available in the below categories of options

Traditional BI on Cloud

The big vendors in the BI space are hosting their products on the Cloud. In
this customers can use the full range of BI tools/technologies using a shared
public-cloud environment or a dedicated private-cloud. Popular vendors are
Actuate, IBM Cognos, Information Builders, Jaspersoft, MicroStrategy,
Oracle, Panorama Software, Pentaho, QlikView, SAS Institute and TIBCO

Native SaaS BI solutions

These are mostly new vendors offering BI solutions in the SaaS model. This
options involves subscribing to solutions/services on a Pay per use basis.
Key vendors include Analytix On Demand, Birst, BlinkLogic, GoodData,
HostAnalytics, Indicee, LiteBI, Deloitte Oco, and PivotLink BI

Native Cloud BI & DW platforms

In this option an enterprise can deploy a BI/DW system on a public cloud and
build their own custom BI applications on the cloud. This is sometimes
referred as Cloud BI/DW PaaS. Currently majority of the vendors use
Amazon EC2 as their platform. Key vendors in this space are 1010Data, IBM
Cognos, Kognitio, Teradata Aster, Talend, Vertica and Jaspersoft.

SaaS BI Analytic solutions

These vendors provide domain specific or some form of pre-built analytic

solutions. Vendors include many relatively new vendors (like, Cloud9
Analytics, Rosslyn Analytics, Lixto) and traditional mainstream vendors, like,
SAS, and IBM Cognos.

Cloud based Data integration tools

These are tools for integrating data on the Cloud with on-premise data stores
and vice versa. Key vendors include IBM Infosphere DataStage, IBM
CastIron, Informatica Powercenter, Snaplogic Dataflow, and Talend
Integration Suite

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Recommendations
Cloud is another area of BI that is getting lot of attention as it makes BI
affordable and easily available, although there is no real stampede to replace
traditional BI applications with Cloud BI alternatives. But traditional BI can co-
exists with Cloud BI and both can complement each other. For example
many enterprises are using SaaS based Social Media analytics and integrate
them with their on-premise applications to create innovative
dashboards/reports.

On the other hand organizations are considering uploading their big data sets
to cloud platforms, processing them and generating analytic reports out of
Cloud BI tools. Thus organizations are currently experimenting Cloud BI by
shifting part of their BI workloads to Cloud and the early adopters are
realizing the benefits. As the Cloud BI offering matures, large enterprises will
invent new BI architectures which will mix & match the traditional & Cloud BI
options to get the most out of both.

Ford should leverage its existing BI vendors' Cloud offerings and start trying
them out. For example WebFocus offers the same tools on the Cloud also
and Ford should get into exploring some of them and understand Cloud BI.
Also Ford can identify suitable SaaS BI Analytic applications and experiment
that.

Where to Learn More

BI head to the Cloud
Wisdom of crowd Cloud BI
Information Builders Cloud BI

Bottom Line
Cloud ecosystems continued maturation is encouraging many enterprises to
consider Cloud hosted applications & services. There is now a strong push to
get data analytics and business intelligence into the Cloud. Cloud BI is a
platform or application hosted on the public or private cloud and provides an
organization with BI-related services (like dashboards, business metrics,
KPIs etc.). Many traditional BI vendors have already hosted their products on
the Cloud and vendors offer full blown BI & DW platform on which enterprises
can build their custom BI capabilities. Most of the Cloud BI capabilities are
offered in SaaS (or Pay per use) model, which is already a widely adopted
model to consume Cloud services. Increasingly many enterprises are
considering Cloud/SaaS BI options to augment their BI capabilities. To start
with, Ford should leverage its existing BI vendors Cloud offerings and
conduct PoCs to understand Cloud BIs value & benefits.

Reviewed By:
Tony Bailey

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