Bens Blog

Recently I got a change to download Palo Worksheet Server 3 , I was planning to build a small test case and impress some people at work with what Palo can do. But I'm not sure if I should really show too much of the Worksheet Server during my presentation after I started playing with it a bit more. Here is why: Pros: The frontend of Worksheet Server looks nice. The Charts and Micro Charts look nice. Many people won't think of Palo as a full BI tool if it doesn't provide it's own frontend Cons: Why did Jedox release a software that is so unstable? I'm always worried to do too much in a worksheet because I don't know whats gonna happen next. Will i get lots of "value?" Will my session end and I loose my data? (Just happened) If you are used to Excel & Google Docs you get impatient, some of the context menus are too slow. After working with it for half a day I wouldn't let a client create his own reports, the frustration level would proba...

The last weekend I discussed in a forum what my thesis is about. I spent some time in the answer, so why not posting it in my blog to give people a better idea what I'm working on: When users first see Palo and Pentaho, they don't really know there is such a big difference, both claim to be a BI suite. It was the same for me, when I first started my thesis. In my thesis I'm working with Palo OLAP Server, Palo Worksheet Server and also with Palo ETL Server compared to the Pentaho BI Suite (without Weka), otherwise it wouldn't be a good comparison. I created a test scenario, and try to provide a solution with both Palo and Pentaho. The focus of my thesis is not to say, Palo is good, Pentaho isn't or the other way around. the result might be "if you focus on planning, you better use Palo, if you do lots of reporting, Pentaho provides more options,... The scenario is more the practical side of an implementation: How to get data into the system (ETL), how can you de...

UPDATE : Nach neusten Infos scheint das Release der neuesten Version des Palo OLAP Servers auf Januar 2009 verschoben. Am Donnerstag & Freitag durfte ich dank einer Einladung der Jedox AG auf der Palo User Conference und dem Partner Tag sein, wo die neue Version des Palo OLAP Servers und der neue Palo Worksheet Server vorgestellt wurde. Während es beim OLAP Server hauptsächlich Verbesserungen in der Perfomance (unter anderen dank Multiprozessorunterstützung) gibt, hat sich beim Worksheetserver enorm viel getan. Der Server wurde komplett neu entwickelt (die Core in C++) und das Look & Feel lässt einen fast vergessen, dass es sich um eine Webanwendung handelt und nicht um Excel handelt. In der neuen Version kann man sowohl die Modellierung der Palo OLAP Datenbank als auch die Reporterstellung durchgängig im Server durchführen, sodass Excel gar nicht mehr benötigt wird. Auch ansonsten wurde sich bemüht, alle relevanten Funktion von Excel zu übernehmen, von der Zellenformatierung ...