Denodo, the leader in data virtualization, on 15 Sep 2020 announced increased adoption of its Coronavirus Data Portal (CDP), an open, cooperative effort that utilizes data virtualization to unify critical datasets originally exposed in different formats from multiple sources and countries. Originally developed in March during early onset of the pandemic, Denodo has combined and unified COVID-19 related intelligence and made it available to data consumers such as data scientists, analysts, and researchers who are leveraging the information to find solutions to this global disease. For more information, and to participate in the effort, visit https://www.coronavirusdataportal.com.

Mahendra Parasmal, Sr. Information Architect at Spectrum Health says, “Denodo provides us with the ability to connect self-purported health data provided by employees via an online survey with employee demographics, employee hierarchy, badge system & Active Directory data virtually. This delivers wellness information in near real-time without having to Extract, Transform & Load the data physically from source systems or run batch incremental loads. As a result, we have been able to speed up our overall build time by at least 3x and deliver the end result in weeks instead of months.”

Free of charge to participants, the Coronavirus Data Portal enables organizations and institutions to share their individual data sets that Denodo integrates and offers to the broader community for consumption via the data platform. It also allows members to integrate and curate these data sets so they can augment their own COVID-19 initiatives. As of today, there are 64 sources, 220 datasets, and 441 views offered on CDP.

“I can personally attest to how our company was able to leverage Denodo’s Coronavirus Data Portal having developed a COVID-19 virtual hub that provides reports based on data science and pmOne Share,” said Dr. Norman Bernhardt, Head of Digital Solutions R&D, pmOne. “pmOne Share Cockpit aggregates existing and established reporting solutions and provides advanced filtering capabilities, which data scientists can use to develop algorithms to analyze global news flows, the results of which are displayed in a dashboard.”

More specifically, Denodo’s CDP is being used to:

• Search the Curated Datasets: Coronavirus Data Portal offers a catalog of the curated data sets - both uploaded and curated by Denodo data stewards and those contributed by users of the data portal. This allows users to search the available data sets and find the data relevant to them such as details about the spread of the disease, school closures, financial impact, etc. It also enables them to drill deeper to view details about a particular data set and its relationship with other ones.
• Enhance Dashboard BI Tools with Integrated Data Portal: CDP supports BI tools such as Power BI, Tableau and others so participants can connect to the data portal and generate smart visualizations. Users can use these tools to easily create new customized reports of the integrated data.
• Extend Data integration Using API Service/Downloadable CSV Datasets: Lets users further integrate their application with the Coronavirus Data Platform, utilizing it as an API service layer. This enables users to access the curated data sets in a variety of views and is an option that is growing significantly as more and more multi-faceted data is added from across the globe.
• Contribute to the Initiative: The Coronavirus Data Portal is an open platform, which permits users to contribute their own data sets to the initiative. It suggests data sources that should be added to the Data Portal and Denodo’s data steward team will review the data and usage permissions to determine if it’s appropriate to be uploaded. Alternatively, they can create new data sets by combining the Coronavirus Data Portal data with their own data and share this new data set with other Data Portal users.

“While our data stewards and data engineers have been working away behind the scenes to add more data sets to the Coronavirus Data Portal, we have also been getting some great suggestions from the user community. Based on suggestions, we’ve added COVID-19 forecast data, real-time information about how many are infected and where, school closures, global news as they are published, and much more,” said Angel Viña, CEO and Founder at Denodo. “Contributing data sets - either through suggestions or by creating derived data sets - will continue the growth of the Coronavirus Data Portal and enhance the value that fellow users are getting from using the data. This continued growth will provide more varied and richer data for all of us to use and share in our efforts to combat this deadly pandemic.”