Monday 18 May 2009

To Business Objects or not to Business Objects?

Just out of curiosity. How do others consider Business Objects? My former company, and my current employer use it as a reporting tool on top of their data warehouse. Basically, between the database layer and the end-user, there resides a Business Objects universe that acts as a semantical layer translating database-objects into business entities, which allows endusers without any knowledge of SQL whatsoever to quickly generate their own reports.

That's the theory behind it, anyway. In reality, expecially at my current employer, I have to develop the reports, even after the universe phase, because our client has all kinds of specifications for report layouts (that the Business Objects reporting suite was never intended to be used for, but the client already sold it to their client, and seeing THEY don't have to build it anyway, that's all fine and dandy). Add to that that the existing universe is plain unfit to be consumed by end-users, and I'm seriously wondering why on earth the company is paying top dollars every year for a product that greatly complicates even the most trivial tasks.

I present to you the following theory I came to develop over my time of working with Business Objects: "A properly desgined data warehouse (meaning star schemas using dimensions that make sense to business users) has no need for a translational layer like Business Objects provides". In other words, a proper star-schema makes the universe part of the BI implementation redundant, which will lead to the Business Objects reporting suite becoming at best a limiting (not to mention expensive) engine for making the data look pretty.


My main complaints with Business Objects:

* Pricing
* An engine that greatly complicates even the most trivial tasks
* Poor documentation and error messages
* Reliability is horrible. More than once I experienced things "magically" dissappearing or changing. At first I dismissed these as incidents or failure on my part, but I managed to be able to "reproduce" these anomalies.
* When you're working with a proper data warehouse, the universe layers adds extremely little value.

I'd be interested in hearing other people's opinions.


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