Components

Pentaho Client Tools

The Pentaho Client, a key component of the Pentaho suite, encompasses several user-facing tools designed for data management and analytics. These include the Data Integration tool (PDI), which is central to extracting, transforming, and loading (ETL) operations; Spoon, a graphical user interface for designing ETL processes; Designer for convenient pipeline design; Scheduler linked to Quartz for job scheduling; Repository Browser for managing ETL assets; and Database Explorer for database operations.

Additionally, it offers tools like Metadata Editor and Schema Workbench for advanced data manipulation. Together, these tools empower users to efficiently process and analyze data within the Pentaho ecosystem.

Data Integration

Pentaho Data Integration (PDI), also known as Kettle, is an open-source data integration tool that allows the extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) of data into databases, data warehouses, and business applications. It is designed to handle a wide variety of data sources including traditional relational databases, unstructured data formats, and cloud-based storage. PDI is composed of several key components that work together to provide a comprehensive ETL solution.

Spoon

Spoon is the graphical user interface (GUI) for designing and testing PDI jobs and transformations. It allows users to visually create, edit, and manage ETL processes without writing code.

Designer

Drag & Drop 'objects' to design your pipelines and workflows.

Scheduler

Connects to Quartz scheduler on server. Jobs and transformations must be uploaded to Repository.

Repository Browser

The repository is a central storage area for PDI resources such as jobs, transformations, and database connections. It facilitates collaboration among team members by allowing them to share and manage ETL assets efficiently.

These components collectively make PDI a powerful tool for data integration, enabling businesses to cleanse, integrate, and analyze data from diverse sources more effectively.

Connects to Apache Jackrabbit content Repository, pointing to a supported database:

PostgreSQL
MSSQL Server
Oracle
MySQL
MariaDB

DB Explorer

Database Explorer that enables you to conduct minimal database operations.

Pentaho Server

Pentaho Server acts as the central platform for hosting and managing all Pentaho applications and services. It provides a secure, scalable environment for deploying and executing Pentaho's analytics and data integration solutions. Key components include:

BI Server: Facilitates interactive reporting, analytics, dashboarding, and data exploration.
Data Integration Server: Supports the orchestration and scheduling of ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes.
User Console: Offers a web-based interface for accessing, creating, and managing content within the Pentaho suite.
Security: Integrates with enterprise security systems to provide authentication, authorization, and secure access.
Repository: Centralizes the storage of all Pentaho assets, including reports, dashboards, and ETL scripts, ensuring collaboration and version control.

The server enables organizations to leverage the full potential of the Pentaho suite by providing a comprehensive platform for business intelligence and data management activities.

Pentaho Server Reporting Suite

Analyzer

Pentaho Analyzer is an interactive analytics and data visualization tool that is part of the Pentaho Business Analytics suite. It enables users to explore and analyze data through an intuitive web-based interface, providing rich graphical representations of data including charts, tables, and heat maps. Users can create and customize reports and dashboards without the need for in-depth technical knowledge, making it accessible to a wide range of users. Key features include:

Ad-hoc analysis: Empowers users to quickly create and modify reports based on their specific questions and needs.
Drag-and-drop interface: Simplifies the process of designing reports by allowing users to easily select and arrange data elements.
Rich visualizations: Supports a wide array of visualization options to help users uncover insights from their data.
Collaboration and sharing: Enables sharing of reports and dashboards with other users to facilitate decision-making across teams and departments.

Pentaho Analyzer is designed to work seamlessly with the Pentaho suite, integrating directly with Pentaho's data integration, ETL, and data warehousing capabilities. This allows users to leverage the full power of the suite for comprehensive data analysis and business intelligence solutions.

Carte Server

Pentaho Carte is a lightweight web server for remote execution and monitoring of ETL processes created in Pentaho Data Integration (PDI/Kettle).

Carte is built on Java and uses the embedded Jetty web server. It relies on XML-based configuration and exposes functionality through a REST API, with a simple browser-based interface for monitoring.

The server enables remote execution of transformations and jobs, supports clustering for load balancing, provides real-time monitoring, and allows scheduling of ETL processes.

Carte can be deployed as a standalone server, in a master-slave cluster setup, or in a load-balanced environment for high availability. It's typically launched via command line with a configuration file containing server settings.

This component is crucial for Pentaho's distributed processing architecture, allowing organizations to scale data integration processes across multiple machines.

Kitchen

Kitchen is a command-line tool that enables the execution of PDI jobs. It supports batch processing and can be integrated into automated workflows, allowing for efficient data processing.

kitchen.sh -file=/PRD/updateWarehouse.kjb -level=Minimal
kitchen.bat /file:D:\Jobs\updateWarehouse.kjb /level:Basic

Pan

Similar to Kitchen, Pan is a command-line tool but is specifically designed for executing PDI transformations. It provides flexibility in running ETL transformations from shell scripts or scheduling systems.

pan.sh -file="/PRD/Customer Dimension.ktr" -level=Minimal
pan.bat /file:"D:\Transformations\Customer Dimension.ktr" /level:Basic

Pentaho Client / Server Architecture