If you are new to BIRT, or are unfamiliar with Eclipse, you may be asking "What exactly is BIRT?" The first thing that comes to mind is a fuzzy puppet with a uni-brow. Well, this BIRT isn't related, although some may consider it fuzzy and cute. Others may think of it as mustached rouge on a race to win money, running from the law. Well, this tough guy also isn't what we are talking about.

So, what exactly is BIRT? This is a complex question to answer. Some would tell you that BIRT is a report designer built on top of Eclipse that provides users with a visual WYSIWYG design interface for rapid report development. Others may tell you it is a plugin for Apache Tomcat that allows you to view reports from J2EE web portals. And there are some who may tell you that it is a report engine that can be imported into Java applications. There is also a chart engine that may come up in some peoples answers.

Truth be told, all of these answers are correct. BIRT, which stands for Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools, is actually a development framework. Adding the word "Tools" to the title acronym is appropriate, as BIRT is in fact a collection of development tools and technologies used for report development utilizing the BIRT framework. BIRT isn't necessarily a product, but a series of core technologies that products and solutions are built on top of, similar in fashion to the Eclipse framework.

The focus of this book will be on the most visible and familiar product built with the BIRT framework, which is the BIRT Report Designer. The BIRT Report Designer is an Eclipse perspective built using a set of plugins, utilizing BIRT technologies that allow users to design reports in the BIRT XML-based document format. Inside this application, the Design Engine API, the Report Object Model, the BIRT Report Engine, the BIRT Chart Engine, and a number of other BIRT technologies are utilized to deliver a robust and capable report design environment.

Another product built with BIRT is the AJAX-based Web Viewer that comes with the report engine runtime download. This is a product that is plugged into a J2EE application container such as Apache Tomcat or BEA Weblogic that utilizes the BIRT Report Engine to run reports and output to various formats including HTML and PDF. Several other applications are built with BIRT as well. Actuate BIRT Report Designer and Actuate 9 platforms are centered around BIRT technology.

By looking at the earlier examples, we can see that the core BIRT technologies can be leveraged to build a number of business intelligence products. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what exactly BIRT is. For shorthand, we will refer to the BIRT Report Designer as BIRT throughout the book.