Lavastorm Analytics, a leading global analytics software company, announced today the availability of version 4.6 of its award-winning Lavastorm Analytics Engine, the company’s powerful, visual and versatile analytic development environment. The latest version of the Lavastorm Analytics Engine adds a range of functions and benefits for business analysts, including new support for QlikTech QlikView and Microsoft Excel desktop data visualization tools to help analyze data and publish results, streamlined data integration capability, support for VMWare 5 virtual machines, and more.

The Lavastorm Analytics Engine has long provided native facilities for data visualization, and, through a partnership with QlikTech that was formalized in 2012, also offered the ability to export analytics built in the Lavastorm Analytics Engine to compatible QlikView file formats. Release 4.6 builds on these abilities by allowing users to use QlikView and Excel as their default data viewer and visualization tools to analyze or publish data sets from any point in an analytic model created with the Lavastorm Analytics Engine. Coupled with Lavastorm’s powerful data management, analytic, ETL and data integration software capabilities, as well as the visual approach to the data modeling process that brings transparency to the underlying analytic logic, the Lavastorm Analytics Engine gives business analysts a comprehensive, powerful, and easy to use environment to develop complex analytics, completely trust their data, discover insights, and publish results for information consumers.

“Data discovery and visualization are hugely important for business users who want a self-service, agile business intelligence environment,” said Robin Bloor, founder of Bloor Research. “Getting this right requires business and IT groups to equip teams with the appropriate tools, skills and processes, but it’s important to avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach. This integration by Lavastorm is a great example of how to marry effective data integration and analytic capabilities to serve the needs of both information producers and information consumers so that a broader user group within organizations can quickly understand and derive value from their data.”

The new QlikView and Excel integrations can be seen in action by viewing two new video demonstrations:

• See the QlikView integration here: http://bit.ly/Y2gl6E
• See the Excel integration here: http://bit.ly/VtdDq9

In addition to these new visualization options, Lavastorm Analytics Engine 4.6 also adds a number of other beneficial capabilities that help make it even easier to learn and use, some of which include:

• Drag-and-drop file acquisition so that data files can be dropped directly into the Lavastorm Analytics Engine interface and automatically configured.
• Virtual environment support for server-based versions of the Lavastorm Analytics Engine through new compatibility VMWare 5 and Red Hat Linux 6 virtual machines.
• Excel node enhancements for full support of the .XLSX format, allowing for direct, automatic updating of existing Excel sheets from within the Lavastorm Analytics Engine analytic flow, as well as for appending Lavastorm Analytics Engine data to existing workbooks.
• Simplified license administration whereby all users now receive the same software package, with access to features controlled by the software license.

Lavastorm has also updated the Lavastorm Analytics Engine’s help system so that users can learn and leverage the Lavastorm Analytics Engine faster and more effectively. The help system now uses a unified browser window and features improvements to the HTML renderings that make it easier to navigate. Additionally, Lavastorm has added a series of multimedia tutorials, including technology notes, graphs, data, and video content.

“Every enterprise BI team endeavors to make data and analytics more easily accessible to the people who need to make decisions quickly, and Lavastorm Analytics Engine 4.6 is all about making this self-service analytics notion a bigger reality,” said Drew Rockwell, CEO, Lavastorm Analytics. “Stronger visualization abilities let business analysts work with data more intuitively, and support for virtual environments enables IT teams to grant these enhanced capabilities to their business partners more flexibly. In combination, Lavastorm Analytics Engine 4.6 will help teams improve their analytic agility and find the value in their data even faster.”

For more information on the Lavastorm Analytics Engine, visit http://www.lavastorm.com/products/lavastorm-analytics-platform/lavastorm-analytics-engine. Business analysts looking for a flexible way to start using the LAE are invited to download the completely free-for-life Lavastorm Desktop Public version at http://www.lavastorm.com/desktop-public-request.

Tags: Analytics, Data, Business Intelligence, BI, Visualization, Data Visualization, QlikTech, QlikView, Excel, VMWare, Red Hat, Virtualization, Lavastorm, free analytic tools

About Lavastorm Analytics

Lavastorm Analytics is a global analytics software company that enables a new, agile way to analyze, optimize, and control data and business processes. The company’s products provide analysts with programming powers previously limited to IT to rapidly unify disparate data, easily construct complex analytics, and effectively deliver actionable insight and results. Analytics built in Lavastorm can easily be deployed as persistent solutions and applications, providing continuous analytic monitoring across multiple systems and complex, data-intensive processes. Lavastorm’s solutions have identified business improvements worth billions of dollars for some of the largest corporations in the world. For more information, please visit: www.lavastorm.com.