Defining the Architecture Model

A fundamental concept for all WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE products is the in-memory data model, which enables high-performance, insights, and analysis. A WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE application data pool is initially loaded from any combination of WebFOCUS procedures, database tables, queries, spreadsheets, and text files. However, in typical practice, data is loaded from a highly-condensed project file in a proprietary, encrypted format.

A WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE project or dashboard consists of a set of data sources, a set of data transformation specifications, and a set of chart specifications, including grouping on pages. The data sources are specified by path, file name or database server connection, and authentication details. It is also specified by lists of fields to load into the data pool, along with table and field name mappings, field type-conversion, and formatting specifications.

Data transformations that can be performed within the data pool include numeric and string calculations, logical expressions, keyed field copying and linkage, and table roll-ups. A project specification can be saved as an ADV file. When it is reopened, the data that currently matches the data source specifications is loaded and transformed in the same way. Charts are recreated, laid out, and configured with the same dimensions of data.

Once a WebFOCUS Visual Discovery ADV project file is opened, with the data loaded into memory, and the specified transformations calculated, the project can be saved in ADVM form. The project includes a compressed and encrypted copy of the data pool. This ADVM project file is self-contained and can be moved and reopened on another system without access to the original data sources.

Another important characteristic of ADVM project files is that they can be opened much more quickly and efficiently than the corresponding ADV project files. It is generally recommended that larger projects be opened from ADVM files. If the original data sources for a project are database tables that grow continuously, open the ADV version of the project to retrieve the latest database contents, since an ADVM project file contains a fixed data snapshot. New snapshots of a database can be created automatically by using the Adv2Advm utility in a scheduled task.

Adv2Advm simply opens an ADV project file, loads the data sources into memory, and calculates any transformations specified, and then immediately saves the project with the data in ADVM format. Optionally, the ADVM can be created without any data source definitions, to prevent end users from resaving the project as an ADV and directly accessing the data sources.


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