* Izenda Ad Hoc database reporter
One of the biggest challenges for IT comes when the company realizes that it needs to consolidate reporting that involves integration of records from multiple databases. Of all the concerns that raise their ugly heads, such as politics and the potential need for infrastructure enhancements, the biggest decision is whether to buy or build a solution.
In the area of database reporting, building your own solution has traditionally been the only effective way to get exactly (or thereabouts) what you want but there are some profound downsides: Design cost, time to implement, ongoing maintenance, and change management, not to mention other costs that can be enormous for even relatively simple projects. And if that sounds like a challenge consider a system that also requires Web access for both reporting and design!
Today I have a product that does all of the above for a fraction of the price that you could build a similar system in-house: Izenda Ad Hoc published by Izenda.
Essentially Izenda Ad Hoc provides a server-based report designer and generator that can be simultaneously accessed by multiple browser clients. The client-side user interface (see example) is driven by AJAX giving the user a slick, responsive local application-like feel.
Server-side installation is fairly simple, which the company claims can take as little as one hour. Once installed users can immediately connect and begin designing and creating reports from multiple databases and include pie, bar, scatterplot and trend charts. Generated reports can be exported to PDF, Excel, CSV, Word, Open Office, RTF or XML formats or e-mailed via the server or from the client.
On the server, Izenda Ad Hoc requires Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, or Windows 20003 Server with IIS and the ASP.Net server installed, at least the .Net Framework 1.1 (2.0 is preferred), and optionally Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or 2005 with the Northwind Database for testing. For live installations databases under MS SQL Server 2000+ and Oracle 9+, ODBC sources are supported (see the PDF of the Developer’s Guide). Client side requirements are either IE or Firefox.
There are four editions of Izenda raging from the free (!) Express version with five client access licenses (CAL) with no charting or report themes, to the $795 Standard Edition (with 5 CAL) that includes charts, themes, enhanced security and additional export formats. There’s also the $2,995 Enterprise Edition (also with 5 CAL), which adds additional mathematical functions and analysis features, enhanced support, developer support, and even same week minor feature requests, partial source code availability, and a source code escrow option. For a detailed comparison of the feature sets of the various versions go here.
Not only is Izenda very polished and flexible but it is definitely far cheaper and easier than building your own reporting system: At a per CPU price of $8,995 for the Enterprise Edition with unlimited users there’s no rational reason to get your hands dirty with code.
