Book Image

Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide

Book Image

Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide

Overview of this book

The hot new data analysis trends involve business intelligence and analytics. The technology that supports business intelligence and analytics better than anything else is today's multidimensional OLAP technology ñ and there is none better than Oracle Essbase! Although storing data in a cube and developing analytical applications leaves many people grasping for understanding, especially if their experience is with relational databases, embracing OLAP technology will pay big dividends in the long run. It's easy to develop multidimensional analytic OLAP solutions when you have got this Oracle Essbase book to hand. It is a step-by-step guide to timeless Essbase fundamentals, which takes you from a basic software installation through to launching a fully functioning Essbase database cube. This book will guide you through every stage of installing Oracle's Essbase software on your analytic server, the Essbase Administration Services client, and the client software itself. You will learn, in easy-to-understand language, the concepts of multidimensional database technology as you are taken step by step through building an actual Essbase application complete with database, database calculation scripts, and database report scripts. Once you have your system built and functional, the next course of instruction covers the available automation features included in your Essbase software package and how to use them. These chapters alone are worth the price of admission! As an IT professional you quite rightly have a desire to understand multidimensional OLAP ñ this book gives you that understanding. Should you wish to embark on an exciting career as an Essbase developer/administrator, this book provides a fantastic foundation from which to grow. Best of all, this book is filled with the tips and tricks that you can only get from many years and countless hours spent playing with Essbase. You get them all in just the time it takes you to complete this book.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
Acknowledgements
Preface

Attribute dimensions


Attribute dimensions are dimensions associated with standard dimensions. Attribute dimensions are useful in describing a standard dimension member's attributes. For example, in our Esscar database, we have the Vehicles dimension. If we wanted to differentiate between a two or four door car of the same model, we could use an attribute dimension to accomplish this. We could also use an attribute dimension to track color.

Note

Attribute dimensions are always dynamically calculated, which means they do not store the data. This is always a benefit as they do not affect the size or performance of the database.

Attribute dimensions must always be associated with a standard dimension.

Earlier, we briefly saw the differences between standard dimensions and attribute dimensions. Sometimes, your data has attributes that make it desirable to perform further analysis on it. In the case of the Esscar Motor Company, it may be desirable to track a certain vehicle model by its color....