Data sources introduction

The Spotfire environment provides several ways for clients to connect to data. The most common ones are: opening a local file, connecting through the information services function of Spotfire Server, or using a Spotfire connector. Users can combine data from multiple sources in a single Spotfire analysis.

Using information services is an option for connecting to enterprise data. In this case, the Spotfire Server makes connections to data sources on behalf of the client, using information links saved in the Spotfire library. The raw data sets are loaded into the memory of the server.

The data sources available are Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Teradata, Sybase, SAS/Share, MySQL, DB2, and custom JDBC source types.

Spotfire connectors provide a mechanism for installed clients and service instances to make a direct connection with enterprise data. Depending on the connector, users can choose to load the entire raw data set in the memory of the computer where the client or service instance is installed, or only retrieve aggregated results and make new queries as needed for more detail.