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What Is the OLAP Option to the Oracle Database 10g?
The OLAP option supports multidimensional analysis within the Oracle
Business Intelligence product line. The OLAP option provides a complete
multidimensional database embedded within the Oracle database. It
includes a full-featured multidimensional calculation engine, multidimensional
data types, a multidimensional interface for dimensional modeling
and querying, and a
SQL interface to multidimensional data types. The multidimensional
interface for query also supports access to relational tables for
relational OLAP (ROLAP) deployments.
The OLAP option to the Oracle database is completely embedded within
the Oracle database. The multidimensional engine runs within the
Oracle database process and multidimensional data is stored in Oracle
data files. As part of the Oracle database, the OLAP option utilizes
administrative, security, and high availability features of the
database. The OLAP option is also fully compatible with Real Application
Clusters and Grid Computing.
Need for OLAP
The OLAP option to the Oracle database is the foundation of dimensional
analysis within Oracle Business Intelligence. It supports
OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP,
OracleBI Spreadsheet Add-in,
OracleBI Beans, as well as third-party business intelligence
tools and applications.
The OLAP option provides support for advanced analytic features,
such as nonadditive aggregations, allocations, forecasts, financial
models, and ad hoc calculations. The dimensional model presents
data in easy-to-understand business terms and allows applications
to easily define complex dimensional queries and computations.
The OLAP option can provide significant performance advantages to
dimensionally modeled applications. It offers excellent query performance
for ad-hoc query environments where users query data in unpredictable
patterns and define their own calculations. In addition, the OLAP
option can significantly reduce the time needed to prepare data
for ad hoc query by efficiently managing calculations such as data
summarization and ad-hoc calculations. The result is more timely
access to fresh data and excellent end user query performance.
Analytic Workspace
An analytic workspace contains data that is organized by using a
multidimensional data model and stored in Oracle multidimensional
data types. An analytic workspace typically contains data organized
by subject matter. For example, an analytic workspace might contain
data related to sales and marketing data, financial data, or human
resources data.
Most analytic workspaces contain several stored measures plus any
number of dynamic calculations defined by a database administrator,
application developer, or end user. These measures (facts) are organized
by dimensions that may include
hierarchies and attributes. Analytic workspaces contain both
detailed and summary-level data.
Performance advantages and calculation capabilities of the OLAP
Option are applicable to both small and very large data sets. As
a result, analytic workspaces are appropriate for both departmental
and enterprise applications. Features such as partitioning, parallelism,
and sophisticated sparsity management capabilities support very
large multidimensional data sets.
Managing Analytic Workspaces
Analytic Workspaces are easy to create and manage. The line-of-business
power user, departmental database administrator, and IT database
administrator can use
Analytic Workspace Manager to define the multidimensional
model, to manage data loading, and to define multidimensional calculations.
Analytic Workspace Manager is designed for the non-IT professional
and puts multidimensional modeling and analytic workspaces within
easy reach of a wide variety of users. Analytic Workspace Manager
is a completely GUI environment. No coding is required to create
and manage an analytic workspace.
OracleBI Warehouse Builder brings the power of a full featured
ETL system to the process of creating and managing analytic workspaces.
Warehouse Builder can be used to define a complete ETL process,
from source data to finished analytic workspace. Warehouse Builder
can deploy a data model and data directly to an analytic workspace
without requiring the first staging data in relational data types,
which is a direct benefit of the OLAP option as an integrated component
of the Oracle database. As a result, Warehouse Builder offers both
simplified administration and streamlined performance for the IT
professional who manages analytic workspaces.
Availability
The OLAP option is available in Oracle database. Analytic Workspace
Manager is available with the Oracle database client. |
