Oracle Data Miner 11.1

Oracle Data Miner is the user interface to Oracle Data Mining. Oracle Data Miner allows data analysts to build, test, and apply (score) models using mining activities that guide them through the data mining process.

Oracle Data Miner 11.1 supports the new features of Oracle Data Mining 11g Release 1 (11.1), as described in What's New in Oracle Data Mining?.

Oracle Data Mining 11 g supports two programmatic interfaces, a Java interface compliant with the Java Data Mining (JDM) standard and a PL/SQL interface. The Java and PL/SQL interfaces are compatible. Oracle Data Miner builds models and creates results that are also compatible with those built using either of the interfaces. Oracle Data Miner can be used with mining objects created using the either interface. For example, you could build a model using the PL/SQL interface, test it using the Java interface, and apply it using Data Miner.

Oracle Data Miner supports Predict and Explain, which make data mining possible for a broad audience of non-expert users.

For a description of new features in Oracle Data Miner 11.1, see What's New in Oracle Data Miner?.

The following topics summarize features and functionality of Oracle Data Miner:

Types of Mining Problems

Oracle Data Miner can be used to solve the following types of mining problems:

For more information about these problems, see Oracle Data Mining documentation in Where to Find More Information.

Mining Algorithms

Oracle Data Mining provides state-of-the-art algorithms for solving common data mining problems. Oracle Data Miner uses these algorithms in the activity guides that build models. The algorithms used to perform data mining tasks are as follows:

Mining Activities

A mining activity is a smart automated checklist that ensures that all required data preparation is performed and that mining steps are performed in the correct order. An activity ensures that you perform required data preparation with appropriate defaults for the algorithm that you are using.

You can choose to let the algorithms and the activity guides optimize the settings internally; in that case, you need only identify the data (and target, if required), and specify the data mining algorithm. An expert user, however, can gain access to each of the parameters and can modify the operations manually.

There are three mining activities: build, test, and apply. Activities can test and apply both models created using Oracle Data Miner and models created using either of the Oracle Data Mining programmatic interfaces.

For more information, see Mining Activities.

Data Exploration and Preparation

Oracle Data Miner permits you to perform the following data preparation and data management tasks:

Mining Object Management

The Oracle Data Miner supports viewing and managing the high-level objects defined by metadata in Oracle Data Mining schemas. You can view and manage

Oracle Data Miner maintains a repository consisting of all data mining objects and their related metadata. Data Mining objects (test metrics, apply output, predict results, explain results, or models) in the repository are the only objects that are displayed in the Navigator pane. If you add objects to the repository, such as models built using one of the Oracle Data Mining programmatic interfaces, you must synchronize the repository in order to see them.

Oracle Data Miner permits you to perform the following data preparation and data management tasks:

PL/SQL Code Generator

You can generate PL/SQL code for a mining activity. The generated code can be saved in a file from Oracle Data Miner. The Oracle Data Miner Code Generation Extension to Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle SQL Developer generates the code and allows you to incorporate it into programs. For details, see Oracle Data Miner PL/SQL Code Generator. The detailed information includes an example of how to generate and execute PL/SQL code for an apply activity.

Oracle Data Miner User Interface

The Oracle Data Miner user interface consists of two primary panes: a navigator pane and a viewer pane; there are also an Active Tasks pane and an Activities pane. For more information about the user interface,including a brief description of the menus, see Oracle Data Miner User Interface.

Documentation

Oracle Data Miner is documented in the online help and README file distributed with the code. For details, see Where to Find More Information.

Compatibility with Previous Versions

Oracle Data Miner 11.1 supercedes Oracle Data Miner 10.2, 10.1, and the Oracle Data Mining Components (also called Data Mining for Java (DM4J)). Oracle Data Miner 11.1 supports models built using Oracle Data Miner 11.1 and the Oracle Data Mining 11g APIs.

Limitations

Oracle Data Miner 11.1 has the following limitations: