Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Data Sources
We've completed the "Seeing is Believing" phase with big success. We've shown
HighCloud Airlines the potential value that QlikView can bring to their business
and how they will be able to give their raw data the meaning their business requires
to make everyday decisions. Now, the natural question that arises after seeing
what QlikView can do on the frontend is: What type of database does QlikView
require to work?
The straight answer to this question is, simply, that QlikView does not necessarily
requires a specific database or
Data Warehouse (DWH)
to pull data from. It could
benefit from using a DWH, but it is not required. However, the data must reside
somewhere, in order to be able to pull it into QlikView, visualize it, discover patterns
in it, and build all kinds of charts with it. That somewhere can be almost any
standard database, flat file (for example,
.xls
or
.csv
), web page, and so on, or even
any combination of the above.
When building the data model for the application created in the previous chapter, we
used tables stored in a
QlikView data
format
(QVD)
. However, as pointed out, this
data can be stored and managed in a wide range of different systems. Therefore, it
requires different methods for extraction. That's where
Data Sources
come in. In this
chapter, you will learn:
• How to load data from different sources
• How to extract data using the built-in wizard
• What QVD and QVX files are
• How to load data from disparate sources
