Kettle, also known as PDI, is mostly used as a stand-alone application. However, it is not an isolated tool, but part of the Pentaho Business Intelligence Suite. As such, it can also interact with other components of the suite; for example, as the datasource for a report, or as part of a bigger process. This chapter shows you how to run Kettle jobs and transformations in that context.
The chapter assumes a basic knowledge of the Pentaho BI platform and the tools that made up the Pentaho Suite. If you are not familiar with these tools, it is recommended that you visit the wiki page (wiki.pentaho.com) or the Pentaho BI Suite Community Edition (CE) site: http://community.pentaho.com/.
As another option, you can get the Pentaho Solutions book (Wiley) by Roland Bouman and Jos van Dongen that gives you a good introduction to the whole suite.
