KNIME (pronounced “nime”) is a free and open source data analytics platform. It was originally developed at the University of Konstanz in Germany. It allows users to visually create data pipelines called “workflows”. There are over 2000 KNIME modules (called “nodes”) that can be linked together.

The Market Simulation nodes developed by Scientific Strategy run on KNIME.

KNIME is independently developed and can be downloaded from the KNIME website. Select your operating system (Windows, Linux, or Mac) then select either 32-bit or 64-bit. The 32-bit installation is fine for most applications.

The “plain vanilla” KNIME is all you need for Market Simulation – you don’t need any of the thousands of additional nodes available as plugins.

But if you are interested in adding more functionality to KNIME then there are a couple of plugins that you might be interested in.

Run KNIME, select the [Help] menu, then select [Install New Software…]. You need to select the [KNIME Analytics Platform Update Site] from the drop-down menu. Click the image to the left for step-by-step help.

Interesting plugins include:

• JFreeChart (used by Market Simulation workflows)
• Data Generation (recommended)
• KNIME Expressions Labs (recommended)
• Interactive R Statistics
• Python Integration
• JavaScript Views

You can find lots of great free resources to learn KNIME on the KNIME website (www.knime.com). Some highlights include:

• YouTube KNIME-TV
• Introductory Course to Data Science
• KNIME Blog
• NodePit Node and Workflow Search Engine

But a detailed knowledge of KNIME is not required to learn Market Simulation. The Market Simulation blog articles posted on the Scientific Strategy website don’t assume you have a deep knowledge of KNIME. You can learn as you go.

If you are serious about getting to know KNIME then the €19.95 electronic book “KNIME Beginner’s Luck” is highly recommended. It will take you about a day to go through the most important concepts and included workflows.

After KNIME has been installed, you need to get the additional plugin called “Market Simulation nodes by Scientific Strategy”. This plugin is found in the “KNIME Partner Update Site” alongside the regular KNIME plugins.

A separate guide has been developed to explain how to install these Market Simulation nodes.