SAS Scandanavian Airlines have implemented a new Financial Business Intelligence platform. They use Oracle Database 10g with OLAP, RAC and OWB. For querying, they use Oracle Application Express as well as Discoverer and Spreadsheet Add In. 350 users access the Budget and Planning application and the predefined reports.

Technical Solution:

The solution implemented is a 2 node RAC Database and a single Oracle Application Server architecture. There are 13 cubes, with approximately 300 OLAP measures. Cubes are mostly 6 dimensional, with up to 10 hierarchies per dimension. Data is entered from Excel, as well as fed from the General Ledger daily. Oracle Application Express provides drill through reporting from Oracle OLAP to General Ledger detail.

The solution evolved from 2 existing Oracle Financial Analyzer implementations (used with HyperRoll), and consolidates information from 2 Oracle Financials applications to a single source. The solution was also chosen for its scalability and performance, and the ease of the security administration is seen as a huge bonus. The administration and consolidation of the systems has meant significant cost savings.

Also important to SAS Scandanavian Airlines was the flexibility of the architecture being able to accommodate business changes and wider scope as part of their ongoing evolution.

The solution was implemented by and this information is courtesy of SAS Scandanavian Airlines and Oracle Consulting in Sweden.

Görel Lagercrantz, Director SAS Financial Systems, The SAS Group states "The consolidation of information from multiple applications, coupled with ease of administration, lower licence and support costs, and reduced consulting support, will result in a 40% reduction in cost of ownership compared to our previous budgeting applications.  Additionally the Oracle database with the OLAP option gives us scalability, functionality and performance for our 350 user base, and an open foundation from which to develop in the future".

About SAS Scandanavian Airlines:

The SAS Group, the Nordic region’s largest listed airline and travel group, offers air transportation and airline-related services from its base in Northern Europe. SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Spanair and Blue1 are members of the world’s largest global airline alliance – Star Alliance™. The Group also includes the airlines Widerøe and airBaltic as well as the partly owned airline Estonian Air and the business area SAS Aviation Services.

Read Oracle Customer Snapshot here.

www.sasgroup.net

View more Oracle OLAP Customer references here.

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Oracle OLAP

What is the recommended version of Oracle OLAP if using Oracle Database 10g? 10.2.0.3 is available for most platforms. The OLAP 'A' Patch is available on MetaLink as patch # 5746153 for all platforms except Windows. Patchset 10 is available for Windows - Patch Number 6344567 (win32), 6344568 (win64), 6344569 (AMD 64bit).

What is the recommended version of AW if using Oracle Database 10g? AWM 10.2.0.3A is available on MetaLink as Patch 6032088. AWM 10.2.0.3A for Windows is available on OTN.

Refer here for more information on recommended releases.

What about using Oracle Database 11g? Oracle Database 11g (11.1.0.6.0) is now available on LINUX, and is available on OTN. Windows and other platforms will be available soon. An OLAP 'A' patch will be available in late October on MetaLink, as well as a new AWM 11g version which will be made available on OTN.

Additionally, 11.1.0.7 due next year should contain migration tools for use with OLAP 10.2.

What are the plans for the 10.2 code stream? 10.2.0.4 will be released at the end of the year.

What help can I get in implementing OLAP 11g? The Oracle OLAP Development group is offering some technical help and advice to a small number of committed customers, as part of an OLAP 11g Reference Program initiative. If interested please send an email to orpnews_us@oracle.com. We'll contact you to find out your plans and if we can help each other.

Read more about Oracle OLAP 10g on OTN .

Oracle Database 11g extends the capability of OLAP 10g by improving its scalability, ease of security, simplicity and its use as a transparent Summary Management tool.

In summary, some new features are:

In the Server:

• Extends the performance capabilities of OLAP 10g.
• Summary Management - Cube Materialized Views can be created allowing the preaggregation and analytic capabilities of OLAP to be used in any warehouse transparently.
• Simple for the DBA - Cubes can be refreshed using the Materialized View Refresh system.
• Simple for the developer - simpler SQL syntax to access data from the cube is available in the CUBE_TABLE function, in addition to OLAP_TABLE. An example of the CUBE_TABLE function would be SELECT * FROM TABLE(CUBE_TABLE('global.channel')); where global is the AW and channel is the object.
• SQL access to cubes, and dimensions is provided automatically.
• Cost Based Aggregation can preaggregate a degree of data based on the cost of precomputing individual cells.

AWM:

• Extends the implementation capabilities of 10.2.0.3; Partitioning and Storage Advisors make recommendations for implementing the cubes.
• Cube scripts can be run to extend the functionality of dimensional objects: load, aggregation, DML, PL SQL scripts can be run
• Cost Based Aggregation can be set
• Security - Object security can be applied to dimensions and cubes for user restriction and can be implemented using SQL grant and revoke or within AWM.
• Security - Data security can be implemented in AWM, securing the data (dimension and cube) available to individual users or roles.
• Measure calculation templates can be used to edit and create a variety of sophisticated calculations.
• Options to set use of Materialized View Refresh System and Query Rewrite for cubes.