Data Visualization - PopChart System Requirements

SKILL SET

Publishing a simple graph in a web page is not a complicated task. In fact, if you know how to install a basic software program, you already have enough skills to create a graph enabled web page using PopChart (with a little help from the Quick Start manual, of course).

Building a full-featured data visualization system with PopChart, however, is a different story. The exact skills required will depend upon the complexity of your project. You may need some or all of the skills mentioned below. You may find that one person within your organization posseses all of the necessary skills, or you may find it best to sub-divide PopChart development among different individuals:

Design When producing templates (appearance files), you may find it desirable to have a background in graphic design. Of course, this is for purely aesthetic reasons. If this task is assigned to a graphic designer, the graphic designer should have some knowledge of your data (or work closely with someone who does) so that the designer can create meaningful templates.

Data You must first be capable of deciding what data you need to visualize, and how that data should be presented.

You will also need to be able to provide PopChart (or your web developers) with the locations of the data to be graphed. Depending on how your data is stored, this may require a knowledge of database structures, SQL, and/or text-based data formats such as XML or CSV.

In some advanced implementations, you may need to be able write script in a language like VBScript, PERL, or Java, to translate a data result set into a format that can be interpreted by PopChart. This task may also be performed by a web developer.

Web Development At the very least, you will need to be able to upload files to your web server. Additionally, you should feel comfortable writing web pages with one or more of the following technologies: ASP, JSP, Java Servlets, ColdFusion Pages, PERL, PHP,.NET, or JavaScript.

Of course, you may want to assign tasks that require these skills to a designated web developer. In such cases, it is generally a good idea for the web developer to have some knowledge of SQL and data result sets, so that he or she can work closely with the person providing the data.

Administrative You will need to be able to install a basic software program.

If you are installing on a non-Windows system, or are using an Apache or Java application server, you may need to be able to install modules or libraries to your web server. Most web administrators should be able to perform this task for you. However, you may be able to complete this task without such knowledge by following the PopChart documentation.

For enterprise configurations, you will need someone with an understanding of network architecture and clustering.

Top of Page

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Hardware

• Processor - Equivalent of a Pentium 4 or higher
• Memory - Minimum 128MB dedicated to your Java Virtual Machine, 512MB recommended
• Hard Drive - 200MB free disk space

Software

• Operating System
  • Windows 2000 or higher
  • Mac® OS X 10.1 or higher,
  • Solaris 2.8 or higher
  • UNIX or Linux® compatible systems
• Java VM - JRE 1.5 or higher.
  
  • Server Install - JRE 1.4.2 with the full AWT package
  • Builder Install - JRE 1.5. On Windows, Linux, and Solaris systems, a Java VM (version 1.5) will be installed automatically if you do not have one. Mac OS X and non-Linux/Solaris UNIX compatible operating systems require you to already have an installed Java VM. On Mac OS X, we highly recommend that you install Java 1.5.
• App Server with your selected language modules installed (Java,.NET, PHP, PERL, ASP.NET
• Database - JDBC or ODBC drivers for database connectivity