Best way to generate report using multiple databases

Question

Hi All,

I am new to the reporting world. Wanted to know which is the right solution to about for generating a single report by querying for data from multiple databases. We are planning to use some reporting solution like Jasper Reports or BIRT. Generally the databases are going to be postgresql.

Please do feel free to let me know about any other better solutions as well.

Thanks.

Answer 1

In JasperReports if you are generating the report on the server, and streaming it back to the client as PDF or HTML, then you can use any datasources you want, being it:

• Multiple databases
• Objects, i.e. Java Beans
• Text files/XML
• Web services
• ... etc

Answer 2

With BIRT you can use as many data sources as you like; independently or together as joint data sets. A Joint Data Set is basically a join you create at the report level. The cool think here is that you can in effect create the join accross data bases, even instances.

All the expected sources are supported, even some not so expceted ones. Any JDBC DB, Web Servce, Flat File, POJOs (via a Scripted Data Source), XML, Native DB Driver (i.e. Oracle, SQL Server, etc...). You can even use on BIRT Report as a data source for a secondary BIRT report. That gets a bit beyond the scope of the question, but opens up a huge amount of options in terms of deployment and felxibility.