Differences between Informer 4 and Informer 5
Informer 5 is a ground-up rebuild, so much of what you know from Informer 4 has a new and usually more capable equivalent. This page compares the two feature by feature, and lists the Informer 4 terms that changed names in Informer 5.
Feature comparison
| Area | Informer 5 | Informer 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Technologies | JavaScript, Node.js, AngularJS, HTML5, Docker, PostgreSQL, REST API, HTTP caching, Redis, an indexing engine | Java, GWT, GWT RPC, Derby DB |
| Datasources | U2, SQL, and anything else that can produce a JSON stream of data; plugins connect to other sources | U2 or JDBC-compliant database connections |
| Datasets | Optimized for large numbers of records, indexed for fast processing, refreshed on a schedule, shared to Teams, with a single source of truth and reduced load on the production database | No equivalent |
| Workspaces | A personal Datasource you create by dragging in one or more files | No equivalent |
| Content Server | Connects to your data and generates external links to Informer content (Reports, Queries, Visuals, Dashboards) in a governed way, without requiring an Informer 5 login | Java over RMI, remote Java connectivity |
| Interacting with your data | Datasets, Data Flows, and Filters let you filter, pivot, and interact with your data without querying the production database every time | Queries with run-time parameters |
| Servers and clustering | Stateless server, easy to run in a cluster for load balancing and faster performance | Stateful server, user session tied to one server |
| Queries | Datasets persist results (accessed with a simple HTTP call, owned and shared); Ad hoc Queries give real-time, temporary result sets that can convert to Datasets; both work with Jobs or the API to push and pull data | Query results are temporary and in-memory; imported reports become Ad hoc Queries that can convert to Datasets |
| Cancel queries | Cancel a query mid-stream | Not supported |
| Flow Steps | Control the order of data modification, run multi-pass calculations, and extend logic with JavaScript libraries and plugins | Limited options, no control over order |
| Plugins | Add Features, customizations, Datasources, input forms, authentication schemes, Flow Steps, Mappings, Datasets, and Visuals, typically without a full system upgrade | Harder, limited, and the system had to be redeployed |
| Visuals | Many more visual types (charts, graphs, maps, pivot tables, data grids), embeddable outside Informer with a token and backed by a Dataset, and created automatically via Discover | A good set of homegrown Visuals |
| Discover | Suggests Visuals automatically based on the fields you select, so you can visualize data without building Visuals by hand, then save or pin them | No equivalent |
| Dashboards | Dynamic, showing data from the most recent Dataset refresh; embeddable outside Informer; Comparison Boards provide side-by-side comparison by criteria and filter | Dynamic, showing data from the most recent refresh; embeddable outside Informer |
| Scheduler (Jobs) | Schedule Dataset refreshes and delivery with multiple attachments, push data via FTP or direct-write, with multiple actions and multiple Datasets or Ad hoc Queries per Job | Only reports and data providers could be scheduled, with limited actions |
| Formatted output | A wide set of formatted output types | A good set of formatted output types |
| Big data | Supports large volumes and unstructured data | No row limit on the reporting side; the Dashboard side could handle large sets given enough memory, but not unstructured data |
| Security | Teams and Users, with row-level, field-level, and role-based security | Securing Informer 4 was time-consuming |
| Teams | Model your organization's departments, own and share content for data governance, with predefined roles within Teams | Groups with no fixed security roles |
| Usability | Activity feeds, pinned reports on a personal home page, links on the fly, hotkeys, and a mobile-responsive interface | Limited |
| Collaboration | Team members comment on content (Reports, Datasets, Datasources); the Informer feed shows relevant comments, activity, and ownership changes | No formal collaboration |
Term-name changes
If you read an older support ticket or document that does not say which Informer version it refers to, these Informer 4 terms map to Informer 5:
| Informer 4 term | Informer 5 term |
|---|---|
| Schedules | Jobs |
| Dashboards | Visuals |
| Multi-Context | Multi-Tenant |
| Reports | Ad hoc Queries |