Abstract: The subject matter herein provides a method, apparatus and computer program product that combines, in one intuitive interface, visualization user interfaces (UIs) as used for descriptive analytics, with workflow UIs as used for predictive analytics. These interfaces provide a visual workspace front-end. The workspace is coupled to a back-end that comprises a data processing engine that combines progressive computation, approximate query processing, and sampling, together with a focus on supporting user-defined operations, to drive the front-end efficiently and in real-time. The processing engine achieves rapid responsiveness through progressive sampling, quickly returning an initial answer, typically on a random sample of data, before continuing to refine that answer in the background. In this manner, any operation carried out in the platform immediately provides a visual response, regardless of the underlying complexity of the operation or data size.

Abstract: The subject matter herein provides a method, apparatus and computer program product that combines, in one intuitive interface, visualization user interfaces (UIs) as used for descriptive analytics, with workflow UIs as used for predictive analytics. These interfaces provide a visual workspace front-end. The workspace is coupled to a back-end that comprises a data processing engine that combines progressive computation, approximate query processing, and sampling, together with a focus on supporting user-defined operations, to drive the front-end efficiently and in real-time. The processing engine achieves rapid responsiveness through progressive sampling, quickly returning an initial answer, typically on a random sample of data, before continuing to refine that answer in the background. In this manner, any operation carried out in the platform immediately provides a visual response, regardless of the underlying complexity of the operation or data size.