Database Reference
In-Depth Information
An App with a View: Creating Information
Dashboards with InfoSphere Data Explorer
Application Builder
In any medium-to-large-sized organization, there are multiple repositories
for business data, and employees invariably spend vast amounts of time
searching for information. This is especially the case for many customer-
facing roles, such as sales or product support, in which people depend heav-
ily on many systems that contain critical business information, such as CRM
data, product knowledge, and market data.
Data Explorer includes a compelling tool: the Application Builder application
framework. Application Builder enables you to build a multifunction dashboard
for the many relevant data sources that your employees need to access. While
Data Explorer provides the raw power to index many disparate data sources and
efficiently handle queries, you can use Application Builder to create front-end
dashboards that can be an interface for presenting all this information. Figure 7-4
shows the architecture of Application Builder and Data Explorer working
together. All of the powerful features of Data Explorer, such as its high-performing
search and the preservation of user-specific access to data, are harnessed in
Application Builder.
The options available for Application Builder applications are boundless.
For example, you can federate Internet-based data sources to pull in news
feeds, or stream financial data from securities markets or social media data
sources like Twitter. The social capabilities from Data Explorer also work
here: Users can collaborate through collective data tagging efforts, and share
knowledge through comments and recommendations that are applied to
data stored in sources aggregated by Application Builder.
Application Builder integrates with BigInsights and InfoSphere Streams
(Streams). BigInsights and Streams can both feed data to Data Explorer,
which can then syndicate it to Application Builder users. Alternatively,
Application Builder can consume data directly from BigInsights or Streams.
For example, a Streams feed can be surfaced as a live data source in Application
Builder. In addition to hosting content that is customized for its users,
Application Builder provides Data Explorer search interfaces. For example,
the faceted search, clustered search, and recommendation engines can all be
surfaced in Application Builder.
