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

Types of Essbase databases


Essbase offers two types of databases that can be created. The first and most important choice is the normal or standard database. This database will be used in 100 percent of the applications you build in Essbase.

The normal (non-currency) database

The normal non-currency database is the cube you have heard so much about. All data dimensions and members are defined in the outline of this cube. The normal Essbase database is widely used for most data analysis where conversion of currency values is not required. In our Esscar Motor Company example, we could track and forecast vehicle production, sales volumes, trends, stocks, and all quite nicely with a simple to use non-currency database.

Essbase currency database

The currency conversion database is a great tool for analyzing data across international markets, which employ differing currencies. The currency conversion database stores the currency conversion values for each individual country. When currency data...