It's time to take a break from the world of analysis and visualization and learn something about the Spotfire environment. So far, the focus has been on the detailed work of the analyst, or report author, but Spotfire is much more than an analysis tool for individuals; it is an enterprise application with multiple components. Although you can use the Spotfire Professional Client in an independent, offline mode, you need to log in to the Spotfire system to access the full enterprise functionality of the product. There is also a desktop-only version of Spotfire called TIBCO Spotfire Desktop, which has no enterprise or server-side component. This chapter has no direct relevance for users of TIBCO Spotfire Desktop.

You will find comprehensive architecture and administration documents online (https://docs.tibco.com/), but this chapter will introduce the main components of the Spotfire analytics framework. You will learn about the main Spotfire administration...