Crystal Enterprise is the Business Objects

Business Objects (company)

SAP Business Objects is a French enterprise software company, specializing in business intelligence . Since 2007, it has been a part of SAP AG. The company claimed more than 46,000 customers worldwide in its final earnings release...

 server-based delivery platform for Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports

-External links:*****Reviews:****...

 and Crystal Analysis

Crystal Analysis

Crystal Analysis is an On Line Analytical Processing application for analysing business data originally developed by Seagate Software....

 originally developed by Crystal Decisions

Crystal Decisions

Crystal Decisions is the name of a company that was known for its Business intelligence products....

.

Crystal Enterprise is what is called a delivery platform in Business Intelligence terms. It provides an infrastructure for data access, which can store report templates. By using Crystal Enterprise, report designers can store report objects, instances of reports, schedule reports and request reports on demand through the use of clients, such as Web Browsers.

For example, an administrator could store a sales report on Crystal Enterprise, and schedule this report to be run at the beginning of every month. When the report is triggered, Crystal Enterprise would access the data sources specified in the report and save an instance of this report, which can be made available or automatically distributed to the relevant parties.

Supported platforms

Due to the complexity of the Crystal Enterprise, many factors must be considered for platform compatibility, such as Operating System

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

, Web server

Web server

Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....

, Application Server

Application server

An application server is a software framework that provides an environment in which applications can run, no matter what the applications are or what they do...

, database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s and a combination of these factors. On the Crystal Enterprise installation CD, there is a text file called platforms.txt which covers every platform supported by Crystal Enterprise.

As for Operating Systems, Crystal Enterprise can run in many different Operating Systems, such as Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...

, Solaris, Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, AIX

AIX operating system

AIX AIX AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive, pronounced "a i ex" is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM for several of its computer platforms...

 and HP-UX

HP-UX

HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...

.

Newer versions of Crystal Enterprise provide several add-on

Add-on

Add-on might mean:* Plug-in , a piece of software which enhances another software application and usually cannot be run independently** Browser extension, which modifies the interface and/or behavior of web browsers...

s such as integration with Microsoft Office applications (such as Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...

) and SharePoint Portal Integration kit.

Editions

Crystal Enterprise 10 was the last version, which was released a few months after the acquisition of Crystal Decisions by Business Objects. It had the following editions:

• Crystal Enterprise Express
• Crystal Enterprise Embedded Edition
• Crystal Enterprise Professional
• Crystal Enterprise Premium

After the merger, Crystal Enterprise components have been integrated into Business Objects Enterprise XI.

External links

• Crystal Enterprise Official Website