Database Reference
In-Depth Information
value in zooming out and seeing the full picture, which you can only do by
pulling in data from many sources.
IBM InfoSphere Data Explorer (formerly known as Vivisimo Velocity Plat-
form—for the remainder of this chapter, we'll call this Data Explorer for
short) represents a critical component in the IBM Big Data platform. Data
Explorer technology enables users to access all of the data that they need in a
single
integrated
view, regardless of its format, how it's managed, or where
it's stored. Being able to retrieve data from all available repositories in an
organization is a key part of doing analysis involving Big Data, especially for
exploratory analysis. (We talked about this in Chapter 3—search and discov-
ery is listed as one of IBM's five strategic ways to get started with Big Data.)
Data Explorer includes a framework to easily develop business applications,
called Application Builder. The customizable web-based dashboards you can
build with Application Builder provide user and context-specific interfaces
into the many different data sources that Data Explorer can crawl and index.
Data Explorer makes searching across your Big Data assets more
accurate
.
The underlying indexes are smaller (compressed), don't need to be main-
tained as often as other solutions, and you can request more granular index
updates instead of having to update everything. The efficient index size,
coupled with the ability to dynamically expand the number of index servers
makes this a highly
scalable
index and search solution. Data Explorer also
includes a powerful
security
framework that enables users to only view docu-
ments that they are authorized to view based on their security profiles in the
data's originating content management systems.
Data Explorer is a productivity boost for your organization at a time when it
needs it the most: the dawn of the Big Data era. This technology has helped a
large number of our clients unlock the value of Big Data by providing a number
of techniques to locate, secure, and personalize the retrieval of business data.
Consider today's jumbo jet airplanes—typically each plane has support staff
that are dedicated to it for years—like it's one of their children. In the same
manner you get calls from the principal's office when your kid is sick (or in
trouble), if something goes wrong with a specific airplane, a call goes out to its
“parents.” Now think about the last time you sat in a plane sitting at the gate
for an extended period of time because there was a mechanical problem (some-
thing the authors of this topic can relate to all too often). The airline calls that
specific plane's support team. The worst thing an airline can do is keep that
