Approaches for connecting to SQL databases

Create a server-side script that returns data from the database in a JSON or CSV format. Then connect Flexmonster to your server-side script by following our guides:

• Connecting to JSON
• Connecting to CSV

You might consider this approach for the following reasons:

• Database-independent. Since your server-side script is responsible for fetching and processing data, you can connect to any database.
• Simple. This approach requires creating only a single server endpoint that loads the necessary dataset and returns it as JSON/CSV data.
• Easy to integrate into existing logic. You can adjust the script to fit into an existing server API, as the only requirement for the script is to return data in JSON or CSV format.
• Customizable. You can adjust how data from a database is loaded and preprocessed to make it efficient for your use cases.

However, this approach has some downsides:

• Only for small data. Using this approach for datasets larger than 100 MB will significantly increase the component's loading time.
• Uses browser resources. All calculations are performed in the user's browser. If your component usage involves complex calculations, the application's performance might drop.

The custom data source API is our communication protocol designed to retrieve aggregated data from a server to Flexmonster Pivot. The server is responsible for fetching, aggregating, and passing your data to Flexmonster Pivot in a ready-to-show format.

This approach is especially useful if you already have a server that can work with data. You may also consider this approach because of the following advantages:

• Database-independent. You can connect to any database since your server is responsible for fetching and processing data.
• Full control over data. The custom data source API allows you to implement custom methods of loading, caching, and aggregating data. For example, you can create a new aggregation or change how an existing aggregation works.
• Easy to integrate into existing logic. The custom data source API is a set of requests and responses, so it's easy to integrate into an existing server API.
• Saves browser resources. All manipulations with data are performed by the server, resulting in faster data visualization and more efficient use of the browser's resources.

The custom data source API might not suit you for the following reasons:

• Implementing completely new logic. If you don't have a ready-to-use server that can retrieve data from the database and process the data, you will need to develop such a server from scratch.
• Requires more time and effort from developers. While developing your server allows you to create logic tailored for specific usage, it also requires more resources. The developers will need to read more documentation, create the new logic, and test this logic for bugs and errors.