Quite a high number of different analytics solutions make it truly difficult to decide on each, especially because most of them seems extremely expensive. Pentaho Analysis - in its community edition known as Mondrian - is an open source and rightfully considerable alternative to these paid solution.

Today's companies' data dependency is unbelievably high. Business users are analyzing data constantly, trying to answer a few vital questions - if the company is on or off track, why the situation is the way it is, and - finally - how to improve it. Data analytics in case of organization management isn't only about solving the problems of ineffectiveness, for instance. It's also about enhancing the positive trends to the maximum, to gain as much profits from them as possible. However, none of these things would be possible without special tools which Pentaho Analysis - and its community edition, known also as Mondrian - is one of.

In a very few words, the idea of Pentaho Analysis (or any other analytics solution, by the way) can be boiled down to answering successively more and more detailed questions about the organization performance. These questions could be: what is a problem, where is it, does it apply to one product or to the whole family, is it a matter of one region or a whole distribution area, when has the problem occurred and is it going deeper with the time, so on and so forth. By using special tools and methods for data analytics, Pentaho Analysis help get to the core of the problem as fast as possible. Then, this core may be analyzed from different perspectives and dimensions, so that one could - besides seeing the whole - dive into the details, including the roots of the problem, the consequences, duration, course, so on and so forth. Only on business users and their creativity depends how deep they dive. Regardless of what exactly they're trying to do, Pentaho Analysis provides them with quite a comprehensive set of diverse analytics options. As a result, they can answer the problematical questions thank to:

• numerous data analytics capabilities which allow to drill into the details of data interactively and without any special efforts nor the need for waiting long. Additionally, an easy crosstab preparation allows presenting illusorily unconnected data quickly and transparently.
• practically no need to wait for the responses to complex queries - Pentaho Analysis provides users with the answers as fast as thought so that they could quickly test different options (even those less probable as querying itself doesn't take a lot of time).
• ability to watch data from multiple perspectives and dimensions
• seamless integration with other tools and products which Pentaho Business Intelligence Suite consists of. Mondrian, if followed with other open source products of the family, doesn't lack any functionality which could be a reason to turn to paid solutions instead.

Open source

Mondrian - as an open source software - is evolving faster and more vastly than any other paid solution in the market. Changes are introduced frequently and very well described. The newest release, for instance, focuses on native performance enhancements. Additionally, a lot of attention was paid to parameter support improvements, XMLA compatibility, olap4j support, and others.

Pentaho Analysis - community and enterprise editions

Along with Mondrian, Enterprise Edition of Pentaho Analysis is provided. Their functionality - more or less - are the same, nonetheless this second one bases on professional spread at most.
Particularly, the difference apply to support, maintenance, and some enhancements. Paid solution is followed with professional support via phone or e-mail, for instance. In case of Mondrian, what one can count on is an open-source community. The matter of software maintenance also seems to be similar. The two versions differ also from the enhancements point of view. Even though Pentaho Analysis Enterprise Edition is advertised to be the one with better functionalities, professional add-ons, and certified extensions, Community Edition also is being expanded. Moreover, it isn't anyhow restrained, therefore these "unauthorized" enhancements may lead into totally different directions what's another point for Mondrian.

Pentaho Analysis - Mondrian resources:

http://www.pentaho.com/download/asset_container.php?durl=pentaho_analysis.pdf&furl=540000 - here is a document devoted to Pentaho Analysis as a whole, with an attention paid to both its editions at once. Even though more weight is attached to the Enterprise Edition (being the only profitable or - at least - more profitable to the company), what one can get there is a whole picture of Pentaho Analysis as a comprehensive analytics product.

- here is a part of Pentaho official website where one could find all documents and files connected anyhow with the open source edition of Pentaho Analysis. What it means in practice is that one can download there Mondrian itself, patches, and other attached files. Additionally, there is quite a lot of technical documents which every advanced developers could consider useful. However, beginners - besides downloading the product - should rather start with checking the forum threads for instance instead.

http://forums.pentaho.com/forumdisplay.php?79-Mondrian-Pentaho-Analysis-Services - here is a Bible and the help desk for the followers of the free open source edition of Pentaho Analysis. In point of fact, this is the official forum of Mondrian, where everyone can share experiences, ask and solve problems, and discuss about everything what is connected with Mondrian. No matter what they say about professional support, this "unprofessional" one works at least the same efficient.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrian_OLAP_server - an article in Wikipedia is one of this few which the very beginners could understand something about Mondrian from. Thereupon, there is a very short beginning introduction and - then - example appliances which Pentaho Analysis may be used for. What's important, there are links to the explanation of terms associated with Mondrian so that one could quickly check what he is currently reading about.

http://etl-tools.info/pentaho-tutorial.html - Pentaho step by step tutorial for beginners