Components

The elements listed below are Nectari's components. Since these components are used to retrieve and analyze data, it is important you particularly pay attention to their roles in order to benefit from the most efficient configuration for faster query requests.

The image below illustrates the Nectari architecture and how the components communicate.

Client Layer

Excel Add-in Client

The Excel Add-in application, as the name indicates, is an Add-in for Excel that enables users to build Excel reports using data provided by Nectari. The Excel Add-in requires Microsoft Excel 2016 or later.

Web Client

The Nectari application is the main Business Intelligence application. The application is one responsible to handle requests from the web browsers and different clients. The Web Server interface is typically used by end users for inquiry and reporting purposes.

Web Central Point Configurator

This application enables to modify the Central Point configuration (such as the Description, SMTP, and Databases) after installing Nectari. For example, the configuration may have to be edited if there is a change on the SQL Server hosting the Nectari database or the SMTP server.

Server Layer

Web Server

Web Server consists of multiple components that are used to extract, transform and load data. It contains components to be able to query data for end users to view and inquire for reporting purposes. It also has the components to be able to schedule jobs to synchronize data and the possibility to send reports to end users. Some modules of the Nectari application are deployed and hosted on Microsoft IIS. The application can be installed on one or multiple servers depending on the chosen installation scenario. Refer to Installation scenarios to determine which installation type applies to you.

The Nectari application could be installed on any web server, but we strongly recommend having a dedicated server for Nectari. It could also be installed on the DMZ if you want to do your BI analysis from the outside of the organisation/network to Nectari.

Persistence Layer

Central Point

The Nectari Central Point is a repository configured as a Windows Shared Folder (by the installation package) that should be accessible in Read and Write mode by the user running the Nectari Web Server.

The Central Point configuration (Nectari) database contains general configuration data such as user access data. It is usually installed on the same server as the Web Server.

License DB

The License Server is a database, BI License, that stores the license number that was activated and the concurrent users who can be connected.

A License Server can be used for several Central Points.

Data Warehouse

The OLAP Database, NectariCube, contains the OLAP Cubes with the extracted data from external data sources used to produce reports.