The Portable Database Image, also known as .pdi file, is a proprietary

Proprietary software

Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...

 loss-less format designed for analytics

Analytics

Analytics is the application of computer technology, operational research, and statistics to solve problems in business and industry. Analytics is carried out within an information system: while, in the past, statistics and mathematics could be studied without computers and software, analytics has...

, publishing

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

 and syndication of complex data

Data

The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...

. The .pdi format, generation process, and GUI, were invented by Dr. Reimar Hofmann and Dr. Michael Haft from Siemens AG

Siemens AG

Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....

 Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

/Machine Learning

Machine learning

Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...

.

The .pdi footprint is typically 100 to 1000 times smaller than the footprint normally found in structured data files or database systems, and is rendered without any loss of detail. The word portable in the name derives from the idea that the smaller footprint allows a .pdi runs in the main memory of a user's’ computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 without disk or network input/output

Input/output

In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system , and the outside world, possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it...

 (IO).

The .pdi is a digitally rights protected, encrypted data source that can be accessed by any ODBO (OLE DB for OLAP) compliant OLAP

OLAP

In computing, online analytical processing, or OLAP , is an approach to swiftly answer multi-dimensional analytical queries. OLAP is part of the broader category of business intelligence, which also encompasses relational reporting and data mining...

 tool, including Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...

  and the Panoratio's Explorer GUIhttp://www.panoratio.com/91.0.html.

The .pdi presents detailed discrete or binned data without pre-calculation or cardinality

Cardinality (data modeling)

In data modeling, the cardinality of one data table with respect to another data table is a critical aspect of database design. Relationships between data tables define cardinality when explaining how each table links to another....

 reduction. It allows for real-time correlation

Correlation

In statistics, dependence refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. Correlation refers to any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence....

 and relationship exploration of unrestricted bounds — throughout all dimensions. They (.pdi’s) have been tested in excess of 5,000 dimensions and 500 million rows of information, with query response times in the .1 to 8 second range.

Additionally, because of patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

ed techniques used in .pdi generation, patterns found in the data are summarily exposed, allowing for instant predictive and descriptive data mining. Yield optimizations, segmentation, outcome optimizations and simulations are all dynamically supported by the .pdi format. Users are constantly presented with the most changed and most highly correlated dimensions affected in every query as discovered in the patterns of the historical data.

External links

• Panoratio web site. Panoration provides the PDI related software.
• About PDI at computerworld.com