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Bruno Ferreira edited this page Feb 10, 2017 · 5 revisions

What Is The Database Visualization Toolkit?

Reading and exploring a preserved database is not an easy task for a human. Taking, for example, a database preserved the SIARD format, the human would need to know the SIARD format specification along with XML and other standards, just to be able to get some information out of the format. Even then, it would still be troublesome to read through a relate data in hundreds of megabytes of XML files (because relational databases contain related data).

The Database Visualization Toolkit exists to make it easier to explore and search information in preserved databases. It is a lightweight web viewer for relational databases, specially if preserved in SIARD 2, that allows a non-tech-savvy person to browse, search and export database contents.

How Does It Work?

The DBVTK uses Solr as a data layer (to store and index the database contents), and uses the Database Preservation Toolkit to load relational databases (which can be in SIARD or any of the source formats supported by the DBPTK) into a Solr server.

The DBVTK is a web application that provides access to the database information stored in the Solr server.

Using this setup, it is possible for users to remotely access the database contents, and quickly explore and search them.

Setting it up

Basic setup instructions can be found in the README file.

Advanced options can be found in the Configuration page.

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