SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Datameer today unveiled an industry-first solution for instant, interactive visual exploration of entire datasets of any size. Being shown publicly for the first time at Strata Data Conference New York 2017, the new functionality will completely change the way analysts can work with big data directly within their data lake. Built on patent-pending dynamic indexing technology, Visual Explorer extends Datameer’s core big data platform beyond integration, preparation and governed democratization of big data for analyses, to now add unconstrained interactive visual exploration of extremely large datasets.
For the first time, data engineers and business analysts can use the same familiar spreadsheet-like interface to work with their data and with the click of a button, instantly generate a chart or graph that visually displays the desired dimensions of the entire underlying data set. The charts and graphs are entirely dynamic, allowing users the freedom to point-and-click drill down, filter and aggregate on any attribute and in any direction, to get instant visual feedback from billions of rows. This real time visual interactivity at scale makes it easier, more accurate and faster than ever for business analysts to prepare and refine massive analytic data sets according to their own needs. This functionality opens up a new world of ad-hoc analytics that further speeds time to insight and will ultimately foster greater adoption of the data lake.
A Flexible, Cube-less Architecture for Free-form Exploration
Traditionally, complex data modeling and rigid multi-dimensional schemas have been required for responsive data analyses. Analyzing raw data, meanwhile, has forced users into unwieldy, non-interactive data exploration environments. The result has been unacceptable latency between the raw data's availability and its readiness for analysis. Moreover, the modeling itself has required that business questions be known in advance. This has resulted in models inflexible to change, impeding interactive, ad hoc exploration and analysis. Together, these barriers have long hindered consumption from the data lake by business analysts, making it extremely difficult to deliver real value for the business.
Datameer with Visual Explorer was engineered to avoid these barriers and bring an entirely new, completely unconstrained visual exploration paradigm directly to the data lake. By leveraging dynamic, on-demand indexing, Visual Explorer enables analysts to explore the data in their data lakes directly and instantaneously, across any attribute and field, without data duplication or the limitations and latency of traditional fixed multi-dimensional schemas. Analysts can quickly see what matters in their data within a visual metaphor while exploring extremely large datasets in an ad-hoc fashion. All this takes place at the speed of thought, and generates analysis-ready datasets, which reduces typical dependencies on data engineering teams. The instant interactivity with entire data sets helps analysts to ‘fail fast,’ meaning they can explore paths in the data quickly, discover if there is meaning and, if not, quickly and easily move on to explore other paths.
“As organizations sought to gain value from their data lakes and drive adoption, they tried a number of approaches that have largely failed, including recreating their Enterprise Data Warehouse stack. While those approaches had familiar paradigms such as SQL and OLAP, they required many hops between different tools, duplicating data and creating latency, which limited data exploration and eroded the value of their data,” said Christian Rodatus, CEO of Datameer. “We’re excited to offer a solution to this common pain point with the only unified platform for big data ingestion, preparation and now, unconstrained visual exploration, to help organizations fuel their business with trusted data and finally get the value they need from their data lake.”
Adding More Value Across the Entire Data Lifecycle
As data engineers and analysts explore massive data sets, they need to prepare and curate the data based on the findings of their exploration, without hopping from one tool for preparing the data to another where they can explore it. Historically, this lack of interactive data exploration has created a separation between the business analyst and the data lake, introducing a complicated multi-step process, duplicated data and numerous processing steps to obtain an analysis-ready data set.
With the addition of Visual Explorer to the Datameer platform, data engineers can continue to focus on ingestion, preparation, security, governance and democratization of big data pipelines, now with even greater flexibility, speed and scale. Business analysts can then extend the value of those data pipelines by further preparing, refining and enriching the datasets that matter to them within a familiar, instantly interactive visual paradigm. Once analysts are satisfied with their customizations, Datameer will convert those explorations into repeatable and reusable data pipelines with the click of a button.
Analysts can then further their analyses in a completely ad-hoc fashion within the Datameer platform, as they now have the ability to ask and answer any question as it arises. Additionally, they are able to quickly and easily feed the output of their self-curated data pipelines into other BI and analytic solutions like Tableau or Power BI. Datameer Visual Explorer bridges the gap between data preparation and analysis, delivering the “last mile” functionality of interactive visual exploration the business analyst requires in order to explore extremely large data sets, as well as shape and tailor them to their needs to find answers faster and deliver results to business teams.
"The objective of big data is to put more of a business’ data to work," said George Gilbert, analyst at research firm, Wikibon. "As businesses gain more experience with big data, they must unify some activities and specialize others. Tools that accelerate the cycle time between data exploration, prep, and exploitation -- without breaking at scale -- are essential to the future of all businesses with digital aspirations."
Learn More
Datameer Visual Explorer is currently available as a private beta for select Datameer customers only. To see the first live demonstrations of Visual Explorer, be sure to join Datameer at booth #501 at Strata New York or register at https://info.datameer.com/Future-of-Interactive-Exploration-at-Scale_RegPage.html to join one of two webinar demonstrations on October 4, 2017 at 2 p.m. (CEST) and 11 a.m. (PT).
About Datameer
Datameer is the agile enterprise big data platform that fuels faster, trusted data-driven insights anywhere. Datameer’s advanced data preparation, exploration and governance functionality makes it easy to transform big data into curated data sets to feed any analytics initiative. Using a hybrid architecture that spans on-premises and the cloud, Datameer helps organizations deliver new insights in days and operationalize them immediately, increasing the agility and responsiveness of the analytics that drive the business. To learn more, visit: www.datameer.com.