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June 3, 2015

MongoDB Connects With BI, Visual Tools

MongoDB announced a batch of new business intelligence and data visualizations features along with a new way of linking its database to standard versions of the analytics tools.

The new capabilities along with a new database connector for business intelligence and visualization will become generally available later this year, the company said during a company event in New York this week.

The database leader said its version 3.2 release scheduled for later this year would include five new capabilities, including a new connector for BI and visualization tools such as IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, Qlik, SAP BusinessObjects and Tableau. Also included in the latest release are encryption for data at rest, support for dynamic lookups and a new graphical user interface.

The company said the connector is a response to expanded use of MongoDB when running new applications. Hence, “providing access to data using traditional tools and skills becomes increasingly critical,” the company said in a statement.

The new connector for BI and visualization includes SQL-based access to MongoDB, a capability the company said would open up data from modern applications to analysis using BI and visualization tools. The connector leverages MongoDB’s aggregation framework designed to process data within the database.

The at-rest encryption feature uses the Key Management Interoperability Protocol to secure keys. Encrypting data at rest is becoming a priority in regulated industries like healthcare and financial services, the company noted.

The new user interface to MongoDB, dubbed “mongoScout,” is intended to help developers get a handle on data structure. Among other uses, it analyzes datasets to visualize the existence of fields and their values.

MongoDB 3.2 is scheduled for availability during the fourth quarter of 2015. Limited beta testing will begin this summer, the company said.

The connector also responds to the emergence of new data sources like social media, mobile applications and networks of linked sensors and devices known as the “Internet of Things.” Hence, the connector would allow analysis of new datasets being managed in MongoDB along with traditional data in SQL databases and spreadsheets. The connector would then allow the use of emerging BI and visualization tools deployed on a growing number of enterprise devices to sift through new data sources.

MongoDB said it initially worked with joint customers of Tableau Software to define features of the connector along with validating performance and scaling of the integration of its BI and visualization tools.

The collaboration would “allow our mutual customers to explore their non-relational data using the same intuitive interface they use for all their other data,” Dan Jewett, Tableau’s vice president of product management, added in a statement.

In a demonstration at this week’s MongoDB event, the partners used U.S. Federal Aviation Administration flight data along with information about conference attendees to visualize how likely they would make it home on time after the event.

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