We have been a BOE XI-R2 shop for the past 5-6 years. We're currently at a fork in the road--pay up to renew support with BO--and upgrade to their latest stuff (Edge?)--or switch over to SSRS for "free".
We have quite a few reports in BO/WebI. These would have to be redone.
But forgetting the whole cost-to-upgrade thing, do you guys happen to see any *current* comprehensive comparison between BOE/Edge and SSRS?
I know beans about SSRS. Is it closing in on maturity? How "self-serve" is it? Can my unsophisticated users build their own reports?
What about user management in SSRS? Everyone needs an AD account, I guess?
One of the things I hate about BOE XI-R2 is that its installation model is astraddle SQL Server and a bunch of cryptically-stored .WID files in that crazy hashed-folder-labyrinth in the InfoStore folder. I just question our ability to recover from a catastrophic event on my BO server.
Maybe BOE is now totally SQL-driven? I'd like to know that restoring BO is as easy as restoring a SQL database.
Anyway, what I'd really like is a good run-down of the two suites -- what will I lose with SSRS? Your anecdotal experience and advice is also welcome.
Thanks.
Just want to subscribe to the question :)
I use only SSRS so I cannot make comparison but here are main points I like about SSRS.
1) Rather easy to master and plenty of options available for building reports. (both T-SQL and MDX are easy to develop)
2) R2 has Maps and even easier to use row level graphs (sparklines etc)
3) Report Builder is used for Self-Service and I haven't used it much but it seems to be very intuitive and can be used it with OLAP cube straight away but also ReportModel can be developed using Relational Database.
4) Security seems to be flexible I think (This is not my strong point). I have used ReportViewer on my website and some .net code to do authentication and that worked fine.
Regards
Emil