Question

I am working on a project which involves using data from web services and creating visualizations/data analytics from them. I was wondering If I should use drupal for this? Also can someone recommend me any good available modules for creating a data driven site like this.

I’m new to drupal, I’m still confused on whether drupal accepts data from web services to create visualizations since I won’t be storing the data internally.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I have built similar sites, and so far I’ve found that it makes sense to actually record the data locally first.

That is, since Drupal is so modular, you’re likely to find modules that will help with 1/2 your problem (reading the values from services and storing them) and then other modules that help with the other half (making visualizations).

Drupal’s “Node” acts as a lowest common denominator, a storage mechanism that most modules deal with.

You could leverage already existing APIs (contrib APIs show up as modules themselves) and write a custom module to do visualizations on incoming data from scratch. But by then you probably don’t need Drupal 6’s crown jewel, the Node.