October 18, 2016

Looker Releases Looker 4 Data Platform

Looker today introduced its Looker 4 data platform that allows companies to integrate, transform, govern, explore, visualize, and deliver data anywhere, in virtually any application.

Looker also announced the Looker Blocks Directory that contains more than 50 pre-built, re-usable analytic templates created by Looker, Google, Segment, Stitch and many others, plus 12 data applications to accelerate the time-to-value when deploying Looker.

"Since day one Looker has focused on building a platform for data analysts so they can bring a completely different data experience to their business," said Frank Bien, CEO of Looker, in a statement. "Looker 4 is the result of years of work and ushers in a new generation of BI/analytics, addressing the fragmentation of self-service dashboards and data preparation tools to fully unleash the power of data in organizations."

Looker 4 enables users to do the following:

Extend the data platform with a new full, RESTful API to create custom experiencesand push data almost anywhere. In addition, with the new Actions and Webhooks functionality, users can pull data, charts, or analysis from virtually any application and take action on the analysis.
Control the data supply chain and build data metrics with a refreshed LookML and a new, in-browser IDE (Integrated Development Environment).
Simplify content discovery with improved methods to discover content and make it meaningful.

Looker also today introduced the Looker Blocks Directory, a centralized directory with more than 50 Looker Blocks and 12 data applications built by data experts from Looker, Google, Segment, Datasticians, Parse.ly, Stitch, Fivetran, Transform, and more; the Looker Partner Ecosystem, with more than 100 technology and consulting partners, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, HPE, IBM Cloud Services, Snowflake, Segment, Microsoft Azure, Cloudera, Oracle, Das42 Slalom, Tectonic; and Looker Data Analyst Certification, which verifies that data analysts can develop in LookML.

"Modern enterprise data-management models have traditionally relied on a centralized IT operations model," said Toph Whitmore, principal analyst for big data and analytics at Blue Hill Research, in a statement. "Looker's data platform, Looker 4, democratizes the data prep, giving data-munging capabilities to analysts throughout an organization and removing process bottlenecks. But it also has the potential to democratize the analysis itself. I look forward to seeing how LookML-certified data developers extend Looker capabilities into new applications."