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Pentaho Business Analytics vs SSIS comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
Pentaho Business Analytics
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (20th), Cloud Operations Analytics (4th), Reporting (16th)
SSIS
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Data Integration
 

Q&A Highlights

PS
Apr 10, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
Sayan König - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to understand, and simple to set up
The repository should be improved. There should be the possibility to have versioning, to make it combinable with some Git repositories or something like that, to check out the processes and make sure it has a traceable history. The solution could really be improved. There are too many bugs in our version.
Sakiru Dosumu - PeerSpot reviewer
Its ability to transform and transport data is extremely valuable
he ability of SSIS to transform and transport data is extremely valuable to me. It allows for intelligent extraction and manipulation of data during the process. Improved error handling would enhance ETL processes further. I haven't directly utilized the data flow components but they seem capable of supporting complex data integration needs.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"I use the BI Server, CDE Dashboards, Saiku, and Kettle, because these tools are very good and highly experienced."
"It is robust, offers market intelligence, and utilizes modules effectively."
"We were able to install it without any assistance from tech support."
"The most valuable feature of Pentaho is the Tableau report."
"Pentaho is an analytics platform that can be used when an organization has a lot of big data storage systems already installed and needs to manage and analyze that data. It has a specific use case for unstructured data, such as documents, and needs to be able to search and analyze it."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"Pentaho Business Analytics' best features include the ease of developing data flows and the wide range of options to connect to databases, including those on the cloud."
"Easy to use components to create the job."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
"It's a competent product."
"We can connect with multiple data sources easily using an external connector in SSIS."
"SSIS' best feature is SFTP connectivity."
"The interface is very user-friendly."
"With this solution, there is the potential to expand, so that you can immediately write code onto the SQL server."
"The most valuable features for our company are the flexibility and the quick turn around time in producing simple ETL solutions."
"The most valuable feature of SSIS is that it can handle real complex transformations."
 

Cons

"The charts and graphics are weak."
"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"Deployment is not simple. It is not simple because we are dealing with a lot of data; we are dealing with a lot of storage. So, it's not a simple process."
"We did not achieve the ROI. The work delivered to users had lesser value than the subscription cost."
"Pentaho, at the general level, should greatly improve the easy construction of its dashboards and easy integration of information from different sources without technical user intervention."
"The repository should be improved."
"Version control would be a good addition."
"Logging capability is needed."
"Another concern is that Pentaho is not customizable or interactive."
"The tool is very good, and yet it has some problems as it relies heavily on Java."
"I have a tool called ZappySys. I need that tool to cut down on the complexity of SSIS. That tool really helps with a quick turnaround. I can do things quickly, and I can do things accurately. I can get better reporting on errors."
"When I compare Talend and SSIS, Talend provides more features. With Talend, we can handle a large volume of data. Talend is usually used to treat a large volume of data, which makes it better than SSIS on the data side. Talend also has a very good Talend Management Console to schedule the jobs and do other things. It can also be easily connected to version control tools such as GitHub or SVN. The last time I used SSIS, it was connected through TSS for the Windows Console version. I am not sure it has been improved or not. If it is not improved, Microsoft should improve it. They should change the product to provide another console."
"SSIS is stable, but extensive ETL data processing can have some performance issues."
"I would also like to see full integration with our BI because then our full load of data will be available in our organization. They should incorporate an ATL process."
"Options for scaling could be improved."
"I come from a coding background and this tool is graphically based. Sometimes I think it's cumbersome to do mapping graphically. If there was a way to provide a simple script, it would be helpful and make it easier to use."
"Tuning using this solution requires extensive expertise to improve performance."
"It should have other programming languages supported as well from a scripting perspective. Currently, only C# and VB.NET are supported, which limits it to .NET. It should have Java support as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"The solution is affordable."
"The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"We were lucky enough to find a Pentaho OEM partner who offered a data warehouse model and the ETL software for about 60K SGD per year."
"Free and commercial versions are available."
"Pentaho is expensive ."
"SSIS is a cheaper option compared to the cost of other ETL tools."
"This solution has provided an inexpensive tool, and it is easy to find experienced developers."
"If you don't want to pay a lot of money, you can go for SSIS, as its open-source version is available. When it comes to licensing, SSIS can be expensive."
"This solution is a free of charge addition to our SQL licence. However, the only way this tool can be utilized is as a feature of the SQL licence, which may make it unattractive to organizations who don't wish to purchase the wider-ranging licence."
"It would be beneficial if the solution had a less costly cloud offering."
"This solution is included with the MSSQL server package."
"It comes bundled with other solutions, which makes it difficult to get the price on the specific product."
"SSIS' licensing is a little high, but it gives good value for money."
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Comparison Review

it_user6978 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 10, 2013
Jaspersoft vs. Pentaho – Which one to use & is there any need to purchase the commercial edition
Any company (be it technology, manfucaturing, human resource, ecommerce, SME etc) always has the need for Business Intelligence to some or the other extent. If cost is one of the consideration factor, then the 2 BI tools which are at the forefront are Pentaho and Jaspersoft. But, often the same…
 

Answers from the Community

PS
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020
Product recommendation depends on the business requirement and use case. Both are good products and well established in the market. Parameters to look for at the time of product selection : 1) License cost 2) Type of data to be handled and integration with source database 3) Are we looking for cloud implementation or on-premises 4) Volume of data that we are looking at with possible transfo...
See 2 answers
Rahul Sahay - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 18, 2020
Product recommendation depends on the business requirement and use case. Both are good products and well established in the market. Parameters to look for at the time of product selection : 1) License cost 2) Type of data to be handled and integration with source database 3) Are we looking for cloud implementation or on-premises 4) Volume of data that we are looking at with possible transformations 5) Data Quality framework 6) Scalability 7) Customer experience ie support. I am from MS background and have worked both on cloud version and on-premises version. I was able to achieve my solution using MS.
RS
Apr 10, 2020
MS SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a part of the commercial MS SQL Server product. It is not a freeware. Probably Pentaho offers an open source/ freeware edition. Below may be useful: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/13199248-e246-47aa-bab3-b2b73112d991/ssis-as-a-etl-tool-related-query?forum=sqlintegrationservices https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/47aeed76-8466-4e9f-bb48-b912c07145df/ssis-tool-evaluation?forum=sqlintegrationservices Nowadays SSDT (SQL server data tools) is also getting popularity: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/sql-server-data-tools?view=sql-server-ver15 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/release-notes-ssdt?view=sql-server-ver15 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/sql-server-data-tools?view=sql-server-ver15
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
55%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...
What do you like most about IBM Cognos?
The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pentaho Business Analytics?
For those starting to use this tool, there is a free version available which is beneficial. The company also finds th...
What needs improvement with Pentaho Business Analytics?
The tool is very good, and yet it has some problems as it relies heavily on Java. The platform works with Java, and i...
Which is better - SSIS or Informatica PowerCenter?
SSIS PowerPack is a group of drag and drop connectors for Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services, commonly called ...
What do you like most about SSIS?
The product's deployment phase is easy.
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
SQL Server Integration Services
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.
Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
1. Amazon.com 2. Bank of America 3. Capital One 4. Coca-Cola 5. Dell 6. E*TRADE 7. FedEx 8. Ford Motor Company 9. Google 10. Home Depot 11. IBM 12. Intel 13. JPMorgan Chase 14. Kraft Foods 15. Lockheed Martin 16. McDonald's 17. Microsoft 18. Morgan Stanley 19. Nike 20. Oracle 21. PepsiCo 22. Procter & Gamble 23. Prudential Financial 24. RBC Capital Markets 25. SAP 26. Siemens 27. Sony 28. Toyota 29. UnitedHealth Group 30. Visa 31. Walmart 32. Wells Fargo
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