Visualize Splunk Data in TIBCO Spotfire through ODBC



The ODBC standard has ubiquitous support and makes self-service business intelligence easy. Use the ODBC Driver to load Splunk data into TIBCO Spotfire.

This article walks you through using the CData ODBC Driver for Splunk in TIBCO Spotfire. You will use the data import wizard to connect to a DSN (data source name) for Salesforce and build on the sample visualizations to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Splunk as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

To authenticate requests, set the User, Password, and URL properties to valid Splunk credentials. The port on which the requests are made to Splunk is port 8089.

The data provider uses plain-text authentication by default, since the data provider attempts to negotiate TLS/SSL with the server.

If you need to manually configure TLS/SSL, see Getting Started -> Advanced Settings in the data provider help documentation.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Create Visualizations of Splunk Tables

Follow the steps below to connect to the DSN and create real-time data visualizations:

  1. Click Data -> Add Data ...
  2. Click Other -> Load data with ODBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET data provider.
  3. In the Data Source Type menu, select ODBC Data Provider and click Configure.
  4. Select the DSN.
  5. Select the tables that you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses DataModels. You can also specify an SQL query. The driver supports the standard SQL syntax.
  6. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

    If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

  7. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses Owner in the Numbers section and Name in the Categories section.

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can zoom in on high probability opportunities by applying a filter on the page. To add a filter, click the Filter button. The available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Splunk ODBC Driver to get started:

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Splunk Icon Splunk ODBC Driver

The Splunk ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Splunk, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Splunk like you would a database - read, write, and update Datamodels, Datasets, SearchJobs, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.