BI Blogs

What happens to the cube after the processing is complete but before cube is ready for the querying ? There are actually quite a few steps that should be taken in order to prepare the cube, like create calculated members and named sets, apply security, factor in actions and KPIs etc. In this article we will provide an overview of the most important steps and discuss issues directly following from how these steps are done and how the ordering of these steps is important….(read more)

I really enjoyed this shopping cart at panic.com. You pick up the images of the products and drop them into the cart. Makes everything easier. Let’s hope other online retailers start working more like this.
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Ask a group of IT specialists (especially BI specialists) what is meant by Business Intelligence and you will probably get a different answer from each person. Some will take a very narrow view and focus on, perhaps, the backend database technology, a single reporting application, or even a specific way to analyse data. Others take such a broad remit in their definition of BI they include

Most BI applications simply provide read-only views on business data. However, some users do actually need to interact with data to perform data modeling and/or forecasting scenarios. Oracle’s OLAP environment provides an extremely rich and secure environment for providing this type of interaction. In a previous article in the Oracle magazine I explained how you to build a JSP page that allowed a user to select different types of forecasts. However, since SQL does not currently provide forecasting I used the multi-dimensional programming language OLAP DML, which is very similar to SQL.

In the process of creating this sample I discovered a number of issues that lead to some new features within BI Beans 10g. Most of the issues of combining server side programming (OLAP DML) with JSP development is actually debugging the whole stack. JDeveloper provides excellent JSP debugging tools and the JDev team have some excellent samples that can be found on their OTN home page.

However, trying to debug OLAP DML was not quite as easy. So as part of BI Beans10g we provided some additional debugging facilities to help OLAP DML developers. A generic AW is used to debug any OLAP DML operation that is called from a JSP page. This AW is shipped as part of the Common Schema samples and is usually installed into the CS_OLAP schema and is called AWDEBUG. It contains a program that controls the whole debug process, called BI_BEANS_UTIL. That program takes the following arguments:

• Context Name passed from Java Environment
• Current directory setting
• Name of calling program
• Mode of operation - START or STOP
• Should prgtrace be enabled
• Should badline be enabled
• Should monitor be enabled
• Should trackprg be enabled

The AWProgram JSP tag controls many of these arguments. The JSP tag has properties that allow the developer to control which of the features are enabled or disabled.

To show how the debugging process works lets review the What-If JSP page that is part of the Executive Insight demo. The page contains two buttons above the bar graph:

• Run Model – executes a new forecast using the OLAP DML program RUN_MODEL
• Reset – clears forecasted data using the OLAP DML program CLEAR_DATA

To enable the debugging process the AWDEBUG workspace needs to be attached to the current session. This is done using an AWCommand tag. The tag is added to the start of JSP page and is set to manually execute. Other options are “onRender” or “onInit” and these are self-explanatory.

The wizard that defines the tag allows the developer to type any OLAP DML command into a window. These are the commands that will be executed when the tag is called.

For this example, we attach the AW UTILS that contains the programs that will create the forecast data and also remove the forecast data for the “Reset” button. The second command attaches the AW that controls debugging.

The next step is to add the two buttons that will execute the OLAP DML and update the graph with the new data. These buttons can be defined using the AWProgram JSP Tag. The tag wizard prompts for the required inputs. The key fields are as follows:

• debugPath – this is the name of a directory object created within the database instance and points to a directory path on the server. All trace files will be written to this directory
• ShowTrace – enable trace of each line of code. This sets the OLAP DML option called PRGTRACE. This generates a file called program_name_PRGTRACE_timestamp.trc
• ShowBadLine – enables verbose error messages
• ShowMonitor – enables recording of execution timings of each line of code. This generates a file called program_name_MONITOR_timestamp.trc
• ShowTrackprg - enables recording of execution timings of each program. This generates a file called
  
  program_name_TRACK_timestamp.trc

Each file is written to the directory specified in the debugPath property. All tracing is enabled only for the duration of the execution of the tag. Once the tag has finished firing all tracing is automatically disabled.

The three files that are generated contain different information and are used to debug different situations. Once an OLAP DML program has been defined the next step is to ensure it is executing correctly. The execution path can be traced using the showTrace property. This will show, line by line, the flow of the program. Assuming the program is running correctly but performance is not as expected you can use the showTrackprg and showMonitor properties to evaluate how much time is being spent within each program and on each line within each program. This can highlight lines of code that are taking a long time to execute and that need optimizing. I will provide a detailed review of each of these trace files in the next article.

Investment in Business Intelligence, as for all other IT endeavours, is driven by one of three factors: “Does knowing this information (at the right time) allow me to sell more?”“Does knowing this information allow me to reduce my business costs (e.g. buy cheaper, reduce headcount)?” and“Do I need to report this information to comply with regulation?”Of course, all three of these reduce to MONEY –

A while back I blogged about a data warehouse review we are doing for a customer. At the time I was less than impressed by the consistency of the approach to DW design and the lack of knowledge of how Oracle works and what is ‘built-in’ as functionality. I have now moved on to another of their legacy systems. On the surface things look better. Source code has version control headers, they are

In the UK many businesses seem to shut down in the gap between Christmas and the New Year (there are even words for this break – ‘Twixtmas’ and ‘Winterval’) People are away from their desks and the roads are unnaturally quiet, especially in my part of Britain with it’s 0.5mm dusting of snow – enough to scare most UK drivers from the roads and to paralyse the whole transport system. But I am back

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Well, it’s nearly christmas day here in the UK…the pressies are all under the tree, the food and drink is all bought and planned and I’m quite “merry” myself already!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - that’s my last words for 2005!

Cheers!
Jeff

Microsoft released a new release of Excel AddIn for SQL Server Analysis Services: it’s the version 1.5 which is compatible with Analysis Services 2005, compatible in the sense that it fully navigates attributes and hierarchies in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, no KPI support (at least I can’t find it).

I’ve just had to turn comments on the site off, because of a (insert your favorite word for spammer here) who thinks people on my site like Viagra, Cialis, and shady financial offerings.

Suppose I’ll have to upgrade and see if there’s any word verification plugins for Movable Type. Know of any? Send me an email at “ngoodman” at the usual.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

This funny parody was submitted by my good friend Kent Graziano, but we do not know whom the original author is. Abbot and Costello ringing your phone this holiday?

Headquartered in Milpitas, California, Solectron Corporation is a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) company. With operations on five continents and locations in more than 15 countries, Solectron incorporates the principles of lean manufacturing and Six Sigma throughout its operations. Running such a vast manufacturing network and global supply chain brings a formidable data management challenge. When Solectron found itself struggling to retrieve and coordinate business-critical information, it turned to Sun Microsystems Inc. and Sun iForce Partner Eakins Open Systems for guidance in developing an improved global data warehouse solution and infrastructure robust and scalable enough to cope with its enormous data inputs.

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