LBI Alternatives

LK,

Have you looked at the cost of Cognos,SAP/Business Objects or any others? Last price I saw for LBI, it was extremely competitive compared to the industry leaders. The fact that you get Crystal Reports included is a huge plus, since a comparable system from BOBJ will run you in the upper 6 digits, at least last time I checked but I will have to admit I havent been involved with software purchases or resale for quite some time so I could be wrong.

It seems to me that 1 instance of Reporting Services should be able to handle your 150 users given the concurrent requests algorithm supplied by BOBJ:

(((Concurrent active users × % of Heavy Users) / 100) * (1)) + (((Concurrent active users × % of Active Users) / 100) * (0.25)) + (((Concurrent active users × % of Moderate Users )/ 100) * (0.12)) + (((Concurrent active users × % of Light Users) / 100) * (0.06)) = Calculated Simultaneous Users (rounded up)

Concurrent User base is defined by 10-20% of potential users:
@ 10%: 1000 potential users = 100 estimated concurrent active users

Concurrent Requests is defined by 10% of concurrent users
100 estimated concurrent active users * 10% = 10 simultaneousness requests

Category of users is defined as follows:
Heavy Users 15 concurrent active users 15%
Active Users 45 concurrent active users 45%
Moderate Users 25 concurrent active users 25%
Light Users 15 concurrent active users 15%
Total 100 concurrent active users 100%

using these formulas you should be able to determine your load and compare it to BOBJs recommended load for each RAS instance:
1 Processor = 25 - 75 Maximum Simultaneous Report Jobs.

Even if all youre users were heavy users and we assumed on the high end of activity at 20%, your load requirements would be:

(((20 × 100) / 100) * (1)) = 20

You arent even going to bump up against the minimum threshold for one CPU. If youre already experiences latency issues there are many things to be done with LBI as well as the Crystal engine to performance tune, even if 100% of your users are running 100% of your reports on-demand and adhoc.

See this link for more details keeping in mind this is for the BOE platform and you are only using the RAS or Crystal Report Server XI R2 engine:
https://websmp204.sap-ag....CRS_Sizing_Guide.pdf

Sometimes providing a good Business Intelligence solution comes down to educating the user on what the tools are best for. Crystal Reports is not an adhoc analytic tool. Its meant to be a static reporting tool with parametrization and historical caching. If you want to deliver the real analytic tools look at SmartNotes and Xcelcious (in the LBI tool set) or some other more traditional tools.

Having said all that, I realize I havent answered the actual question. Aside from the majors (Cognos, SAP/BOBJ, Oracle/Hyperion), check out Pentaho (open source, not free but they offer a nice sliding scale) and if you already own SQL Server 2005 Enterprise or later you have some great tools at your disposal that you already own in SQL Server Reporting Services. It takes a bit more of an advanced developer but they are very flexible, scalable and best of all free (again, IF you own MS SQL Server).

hth
matt

Matt,

Thank you for all the info. I broke out my calculator and at our size I agree we are definitely good with one Reporting Services instance as you note. The CRS_Sizing_Guide.pdf link is a great reference too. Thanks.

The issue at hand is cost, and as we are currently licensed for "named users" rather than "concurrent users", that is probably...I hope... the root of my cost issue. Besides looking at Crystal Report publishing options other than LBI (we are happy with Crystal Reports as our reporting vehicle), I'll definitely explore a foundational change to move to "concurrent user" licensing from "named user".

Do you know if Cognos's publishing options allow Crystal Reports to be published and run? Same question for Hyperion?
Thanks again!

At one point when we were using the LBI predecessor, LRS I think, the server was so unreliable I considered a fat client approach.  SAP has a free CR reader available, though I haven't actually tried it.  My thought was to put the viewer on all the user's machines, then make the reports available for download from a web server, similar to the way PDFs are made available.

Assuming the viewer works, the main issue I saw was maintaining the web pages where the reports were published.  Also, there no doubt would have been some user handholding required for the viewer installation.

Our provider moved to LBI before I moved forward with this.

I have been quietly developing DecisionPoint; it is based on both Crystal as well as SQL Reporting Services.  Now has scheduler/delivery/archive features as well as Lawson-aware on-demand reporting.   Please see attached screenshot, and let me know if you want to talk further.

LK,
Hyperion and Cognos have their own format for static transactional reporting so no you wont be able to integrate Crystal with those platforms.

Mike,
Im not too sure how long ago you attempted this but as far as I know the Crystal Report desktop reader was sunsetted after CR 9, maybe 8.5. Im not aware of any product that was released from BOBJ (or Crystal Decisions prior to BOBJ aquisition) that replaced that functionality.

mikeP, John, and Matt -

Thanks for all the great the info and background - very helpful. The fat client ID crossed my mind too but as noted I'll have to see if it is a viable option.

John, I'd appreciate any further documentation and pricing info on DecisionPoint. The more information I have on this topic the better. Thanks!

KelleyL@RanchoWater.com