You can create multiple Spotfire environments that share the same Spotfire database, including the library and user directory. These environments, which are called sites, can be configured to reduce latency for multi-geographic deployments. Sites also enable the use of a variety of authentication methods, along with different user directories, within the same deployment.

Each site includes one or more Spotfire Servers along with their connected nodes and services. A site's servers, nodes, and services can only communicate within the site, but because the Spotfire database is shared among the sites, all of the sites have access to the users, groups, and library in your Spotfire implementation.

If the site will contain more than one server, clustering must be enabled for that site; for more information, see Clustered server deployments.

You assign a Spotfire Server to a site when bootstrapping the server. You can change the assignment afterwards by following the instructions in Moving a server and its nodes to a different site. When you assign a Spotfire Server to a site, any nodes that are connected to the server are automatically included in the site.

The potential reduced latency occurs between the servers and the service instances within a site, resulting in quicker manipulation of data that is already present in the site. To optimize the end-user experience, a best practice when configuring sites is to create scheduled updates so that data and analyses are downloaded from the database before users request them. For more information, see Scheduled updates to analyses.

Administrators who oversee several sites can switch sites from the landing page of the administration interface.