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What is IBM Watson Explorer?

Have you been thinking about diving into the world of IBM Watson Explorer (WEX) but you're just not quite sure if it's the right solution for you? I'm going to try to explain to you a little bit about what Watson Explorer is.

IBM Watson ExplorerThe IBM Watson Explorer software is actually a bundle of two different applications: IBM Watson Explorer Foundational Components and IBM Watson Explorer Analytical components. There are major differences between the two packages. You can buy IBM Watson Explorer Foundational Components on their own but you must buy the Advanced Edition to get the IBM Watson Explorer Analytical components.

IBM Watson Explorer Foundational components is a search engine based solution for ingesting and indexing structured and unstructured data from various data sources. It has connectors for different data repositories built in such as common databases, file systems, web, MS SharePoint, email, etc. The search engine application is known as Watson Explorer Engine. WEX Engine ships with it's own legacy search engine display. This display has been largely replaced with a component known as IBM Watson Explorer Application Builder or WEX AppBuilder for short. AppBuilder allows you to easily configure and display different entities based on your search engine data and build custom widgets for each entity page using a combination or Ruby, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

IBM Watson Explorer Analytical components is another separate software package that was acquired later on.  It's important to distinguish that fact; that IBM Watson Explorer Foundational and IBM Watson Explorer Analytical components are really two separate pieces of software that IBM Bundles as a single "product".

IBM WEX Analytical components can crawl and ingest data into indices and then perform advanced text analytics functions using custom annotators. These annotators can be written in a java eclipse-like environment.  This allows you to get insights from your unstructured text and can be a very powerful enterprise data analysis tool.

If you are thinking about deploying Watson Explorer or already have an IBM Watson Explorer system in place, it's important to get the right guidance to ensure your project runs smoothly. That's why we always recommend reaching out to an experienced Watson Explorer Consultant. There are very few consultants in the marketplace that have years of real world experience. You want to find an IBM Watson Explorer Consultant that has at least 10 years of experience under their belt.

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