Suitable platform for Dashboard: Pentaho, Liferay, RapidMiner or J2EE (JSF, EJB)

Question

I'm evaluating platform for build dashboard using Java technology only and I want to know the best suitable to this.

I'm looking for solution in these categories:

• Easy to develop, programming, extend and integrate with databases MySQL and DB2.
• Good layout features, customization, chart graphs and themes support
• Complete documentation and tutorials dedicated for dashboard apps.
• A solution with a DRY way to apply observer pattern out of the box (or similar approach) for real time sync and visualize information between source (database table) and target (graph or table) in the the view instantly when data change in the source.

I don't want in principle to develop all features and deal with all issues related with dashboard interface, but I'm considering to implement a J2EE application by my self if If I don't see good resource or complete tutorial for this.

Answer 1

CDE/CDA has good dashboarding support in Pentaho. You can manage the cache life of your data using something called CDA - The data access layer. It doesnt have support for real time as such other than a regular e.g. 30s refresh.

Drop into ##pentaho on Freenode there's lots of people there who can help. Webdetails offer comprehensive training in the C** tools which make up the basis of Pentaho dashboards - but it's not too hard to get started from scratch. They do have some online tutorials, but the doco isnt fantastic.

(Obviously Pentaho is java based, so you can access any database that has a jdbc driver)

CDA is extendable with components too - so you could use the excellent layouting and formatting and data tools- but implement the realtime component your self.

Whether or not you use Pentaho, it seems to me that implementing from scratch yourself would seem to be OTT.