Business Intelligence Architecture

Lets understand how Cognos product works internally

Most of BI product Architecture are almost similar internally.
BI Bus: Enterprise service Bus which surrounds all the services/servers which tool provide.
Typical ESB from Oracle BEA Aqualogic Stack engulfing many Web services looks like:
Now you can compare this popular ESB with BI internal Architecture.
you can read more about ESB at : http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E13171_01/alsb/docs20/concepts/overview.html
Under 4 tier system: A client connects the Web server (which is protected by firewall) using dispatcher. Dispatcher connects to Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) which surrounds all the application server services (Web services). ESB in case of cognos is Cognos BI Bus surrounds Web services Servers (like Report Server, Job server, Content Management server etc ). Mediation Layer Cognos BI Bus interacts with Non Java , C++ code which could not to converted or purposefully kept in C++ for may be more flexibility and speed
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/cbi/v10r1m1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.crn_arch.10.1.1.doc%2Fc_arch_themulti-tierarchitecture.html

In case of SAP Business Objects (BO) ESB was not properly developed so an intermediate layer was created which works for interfacing between multiple servers like Job server, report server, page server etc. BO XI R2 came in pervius version was more in C++ to C++ to java bridge was created in ESB layer. Since Java was preferred language for coarse grain interoperability provided by web services. Each server was developed using web services.
interaction between web server was routed through BI Bus.
In latest version here u find a pipe connecting all components call Business Objects XI 3.1 Enterprise Infrastructure. Earlier version had different names. here you can see its connecting all server like Crystal report server, IFRS input file repository server( storing template of reports), OFRS Output file repository services, Program Job server(storing all programs which can be published on Portal (Infoview) ). This ESB does mediation between different server and achieves interoperability yet control of different components of products. This is in competitor product Cognos is called Cognos BI Bus.
http://bobi.blog.com/2013/06/02/sap-business-object-architecture-overview-and-comparatice-analysis/
For latest BO uses in memory product SAP HANA more about its competitors follow:
https://sandyclassic.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/architecture-and-sap-hana-vs-oracle-exadata-competitive-analysis/

In Micro-strategy there are two important server Intelligent server which creates cubes

More I will cover in later issues:
Oracle BI Architecture:
http://www.rittmanmead.com/2008/02/towards-a-future-oracle-bi-architecture/

Implementation OF BI system is not related to these product Architecture :
A typical BI system under implementation haveing componets of ETL, BI, databases, Web server, app server, production server, test/development server looks like:
More details: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/patterns/bi/product-s390-web.html
Big Data Architecture:
From components perspective of ETL to BI implementation Aspect is little different