Here is a sneak peek of GoodData’s REST API. You can read more about it on Zdenek’s blog here (Zdenek is GoodData’s vp of products).

The GoodData BI platform is accessible through the stateless REST API. This HTTP-based API can be simply used from any 3rd party application as well as from a plain browser. The API provides the full power of our platform (we actually use it as the backend for our web frontend).

In fact the GoodData application consists of a handful types of services. Instances of these services can be dynamically added or removed (via simple HTTP load-balancing) on as needed basis. Add the Amazon EC2 cloud that allows us to add or remove a new machine and only pay for the CPU ticks that we really use. The net result is the great flexibility, scalability and cost efficiency.

The demo video below points at the fundamental architecture differences between our approach and some other on-demand BI vendors who simply deployed an existing BI package (e.g. Pentaho or MS Analytics) on the web (which unfortunately does not prevent their marketing from using the multi-tenant, SaaS mambo jumbo).