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IBM DB2 Alphablox

DB2 Alphablox provides a set of analytic components and supporting services to make it easy to rapidly assemble analytic applications using Java™ Server Pages (JSP) tags. These components, known as "Blox" (as in "building blocks"), are based on the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture and are deployed on a Web application server. Visual Blox include highly interactive graphs, charts, and reports. These visual Blox work with data Blox to support analysis of both relational and multidimensional data.

DB2 Alphablox developers use Blox to connect to databases, retrieve information, and tailor the presentation to suit users' needs. Administrators deploy DB2 Alphablox applications into Web application servers, such as IBM's WebSphere® Application Server, BEA's® Weblogic, or the Apache Jakarta Project's Tomcat servlet engine.

Each of the major Blox enables users to interactively explore and analyze data. For example, users can export data to Adobe PDF files or Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets, hide columns in a report, create traffic-light style reports based on specified column values, alter the format of a displayed chart, and so on. The services Blox can be used to provide guided analysis, personalization, customization, and collaboration facilities. Blox users can customize these capabilities and services through JSP tags to provide the right function to a wide range of business users and analysts.