Exploring Key Decision Factors for SOA-Based Business Intelligence Architecture

Business intelligence (BI) architecture plays an important role in the integration and consolidation of information from multiple sources. Over the years, BI architecture has evolved from a simple client-server architecture to n-tier architecture which balances the processing load of different servers and thus is more scalable than conventional two-tier architecture. However, the key decision factors for implementing a SOA-based BI architecture from technical perspectives have not yet been systematically investigated. Therefore, this study focuses mainly on technical side of implementing a SOA-based BI architecture. We conduct comprehensive literature review and put forward several key factors which are believed to be critical in influencing the implementation decision of enterprise BI architecture based on service-oriented concept. Each of the proposed factors is discussed in detail.