Cloud Business Intelligence

During the last two decades technology evolved in a way that resulted in massive data. Enterprises built expensive infrastructures to turn data into valuable information in support of the management's decision making, giving rise to Business Intelligence. Even though, the cost of such infrastructures has been significantly reduced, the economic crisis limited the business budgets, especially for small and medium enterprises, in ways that they could not afford setting up high performance infrastructures. The concept of cloud computing addresses the problem of scalability, agility and cost by allowing enterprises to access powerful tools and services without having to purchase the solutions or the infrastructure needed. This paper describes the concept of Cloud Business Intelligence and addresses the benefits, problems and challenges raised when applied in the real business world.