Principal characteristics of Pentaho

In the following section, we point out some of the characteristics of Pentaho 5 that we consider most important:

  • Pentaho is completely programmed in Java, and the web component, the platform, in JEE. This characteristic makes Pentaho scalable, integrable, and portable software.
  • Pentaho can run on any compatible application servers with JEE architectures, such as JBOSS AS, WebSphere, Tomcat, WebLogic, and Oracle AS.
  • Pentaho accesses the database via JDBC and can use IBM DB2, MS SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, NCR Teradata, Firebird, and Informix, among others.
  • Pentaho can run in various operating systems because it is programmed in Java. As long as there is a Virtual Machine (JVM) for the platform, it should function without complications.
  • The most important languages and technologies used to deploy the various Pentaho applications are Java, JavaScript, JSP, XSL, XSLT, XPath, and XSL-FO.
  • Pentaho's data repository is based on the JCR specification (Content Repository API for Java).
  • All the publication components are presented through web services; this facilitates integration with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). It uses Representational State Transfer (REST) services.
  • Pentaho can be accessed from a simple web browser embedded in portals (LifeRay), management systems (Alfresco), or web systems in general.

Downloading Pentaho BA Server

To download Pentaho BA Server, go to the link http://sourceforge.net/projects/pentaho/files/Business%20Intelligence%20Server. Then click on the folder 5.0.0-stable. This will show you a series of files.

  • In Linux, look for and download the file biserver-ce-5.0.0-stable.tar.gz
  • In Windows, look for and download the file biserver-ce-5.0.0-stable.zip

    Note

    Usually, the names of the files that are downloaded contain a series of commonly used abbreviations to indicate the version type; refer to the following examples:

    • GA (general availability) or stable (stable version)
    • RC-X or RCX (release candidate) indicates a beta or alpha version
    • Milestone X or MX indicates that the version includes a specific set of functions that have been tested previously

System requirements

To correctly execute the Pentaho BA Server, the requirements are as follows:

  • Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.7 or higher needs to be installed
  • The JAVA_HOME variable needs to be configured
  • The PATH variable entry is configured that points to [JAVA_HOME]/bin

If we pay attention, we can see that these are the same requirements for PRD that we configured in Chapter 2, Installation and Configuration. That is, in this case we do not need to make any modifications as Pentaho BA Server will use the established configuration.

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