Applied dimensionality

Pivot tables Pivot tables are by far most used data view in Oracle BI Answers, since they provide ‘multidimensional’ analysis capabilities, aka dimension drag&drop, filtering and some basic calculations. From server-side view — this component provides worst performance, since all future ‘cube’ data has to loaded into BI server, aggregations and formulas calculated and transformed [...]

“Okay, this column in our BI metadata was supposed to be named Sales, not Sals. But when we change it, what will happen to the reports that were created, using this name? And how many reports use this column anyway? Maybe we shouldn’t touch anything to keep things working…” Ever been in such situation? This [...]

As many of you already know I have a mixed attitude to Cognos BI DMRs (dimensionally modeled relational source) models: performance is allways a consideration, full-table scans are unpredictable there’s always ‘local processing’ vs ‘database only and some things not working’ dilemma using multidimensional functions in reports is oh-so-hard to debug when they don’t work in [...]

I consider Single Sign-On setup through Active Directory(AD) a key point in every system’s life. Up to this point — it’s just a PoC, a prototype or a department (10-20 users) level application. AD integration step is usually prosponed, because it’s documented somewhere and there are much more important things to do, like showing that [...]

How to set up a trick called ‘put a file in a folder and it’ll dissappear in DWH’ with Oracle Data Integrator. Imagine that we need to upload a text file in DWH whenever it appears in some folder with no defined schedule. It really easy to do in ODI: 1) Create a package with [...]

Since I’ve spent a day breaking through this mess, I’d share my way of getting ODI to work with XE as a repository. ODI repository creation is sucessfull, but after that Topology Manager and all other ODI modules won’t work, throwing “ORA-12705: invalid or unknown NLS parameter value specified” while connecting to XE. There are [...]

Since I’ve spent some time working with Oracle Business Intelligence last year, I think I’d write a simple comparison list of strengths\weaknesess of OraBI EE vs Cognos (see post on the same topic by Venkatakrishnan). All of this is imho, of course. Oracle BI EE Pro’s: 1) Aggregate navigation — ability to set up aggregate [...]

Okay, it has been almost half-a-year (oh, dears) since the last decent post on this blog. Russian one has suffered as well, I must note. Reasons vary, but mostly it’s that I’ve been, you know, busy-busy. As I now start to reflect on it, it’s always a point of view thing and a question of [...]

Read Edward Roske and Tracy McMullen’s “Look Smarter than you are with Essbase System 9″ over the weekend. It’s really the best “technical” book I’ve read over past couple of years. Written in simple and not annoying language, with a lot of humor (I couldn’t hold myself when I’ve read the fight club joke) — [...]

Finally got a chance to try essbase out on real data volumes. Building half-a-billion facts cube turned out into something like this: PS: I have very special attitude to David Lynch’s films. A physical one. Just the sight of road running away at “Lost Highway” makes me creepy. It takes me about 5 seconds to [...]