Data management projects stand and fall with end-user success. They depend on effective delivery of data to the data consumers. Access to the right data in the right format is the foundation on which analytics and Guided Analytics applications are built.
Server-based Data Sources
By requiring your business users to perform their analysis off
of centralized data stores rather than mountains of Excel spreadsheets
and local flat files you can ensure that everyone is working
off of the same data and that corporate security policies and
access rights are not violated or compromised.
The Spotfire Analytics Server’s Information Services component
simplifies the process of getting data from corporate data stores
to the business users while ensuring that the source data retains
its integrity by:
Leverage Existing Data Assets
Information Services leverages your existing centralized, corporate
data and, whether it comes from isolated databases, flat or
XML files, or unified data warehouses. By centralizing access
to these data stores through the Spotfire Analytics Server,
the end business users do not require special rights or drivers.
The complexities of securely connecting to enterprise databases
are hidden from the end user and IT has only one configuration
and management point.
Spotfire leaves your existing data assets as they are. There
is no requirement to change the format of the data from its
original form or to allow Spotfire write access to any data
source. This allows business users to derive value from all
of the corporate data that can improve their decision-making
without jeopardizing the integrity or quality of those assets.
The Spotfire Analytics Server can retrieve data from any source
for which a JDBC driver is available or can be written, including
Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, MySQL,
SAS/SHARE, PostregSQL, Sybase and Informix.
Information Services can be configured to pass end-user credentials
back to the source database, ensuring that the existing data
security model in your database systems is not bypassed.
Apply Additional Structure
Information Services provides administrators and analysts a framework
and Information Modeler workbench for adding additional structure
and metadata to the raw data sources in order to adapt and simplify
it for use by business users in a specific process or context.
For example, the column names in the raw database maybe need
to be transformed into something intuitive and readable, columns
representing first and last name may need to be combined.
In addition to managing individual data fields, the Information
Model also stores the relationships between those fields… even
if the fields come from two different data sources. By breaking
down the silos between disparate data sources, Spotfire can
be used by business users generate valuable insights that would
never become apparent if analysis continued to be performed
within the individual systems that generates the data.
Transformation functions built-in to Spotfire to pivot, aggregate,
or organize data in hierarchies can be configured once on the
server and reapplied every time the data is accessed by the
end users.
In some cases additional pre-processing needs to be done to transform
the data by an existing statistical engine in order reduce the
quantity of data or add new values to the data. Spotfire natively
reads in SAS data sets processed by SAS and other data processors
can be integrated into a complete customized solution.
Modification and execution permissions can be administered at
any level of the Information Model.
Simplify Data Query Building and Retrieval
The complexity of data access, querying, and retrieval is hidden
from the end users behind the more familiar, contextual language
of guided Information Links.
The guided Information Links provide live, pre-defined server-based
queries that can prompt end users to select what data to retrieve
for analysis.
They are generated on top of the Information Model and stored
centrally on the server, so if the underlying data sources change
they can be updated without effecting the end user application.
Merge or Replace Contextual Data
The Spotfire platform makes it easy to add new contextual data
to enrich the analysis and keep the data current. The merging
of new rows or columns from additional data sources can be done
through the server, the client, or a combination of both.
Client-based Data Sources
Spotfire’s client data import capabilities allow your users to
dynamically import or merge additional data from local data
sources such as text files, Microsoft Excel files or the Windows
clipboard. The combination of central and local data sources
enables quick prototyping and it saves you both time and resources
by not having to centrally deploy all temporary data sources.
Spotfire’s interactive visualization and dynamic querying environment
is self-configured based on the data set imported (US Patent
6,014,661). It does not require any development or administration
for the data to be visualized and queried.
The Spotfire client is unique in its ability to combine the analysis
of both local and server-based data simultaneously.
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