DWH News

Telerik, a leading vendor of development tools and user interface components for .NET, announced support for interactive reports for their reporting solution – Telerik Reporting. This functionality gives business users the freedom to explore data in a visual and interactive way in order to gain insight into how aggregates were arrived at, what does each high-level number mean, and drill through the data pertaining to a high level concept.

If you had looked at my blog entry here, i would have shown a way of reporting on Oracle OLAP 11g using the newly introduced Essbase XOLAP. As mentioned there, one of the biggest advantages of using Essbase is its tight integration with Excel through Smart View. Unfortunately, in the case Oracle OLAP, the excel add-ins were based on the BI Beans technology which is more or less deprecated now. Also the excel add-ins of Oracle OLAP were not as powerful as the Smart View add-in. In my previous blog entry i had shown how XOLAP interpreted the MDX fired from Visual Explorer/Smart-View and then converted them back to the corresponding SQL calls to Oracle OLAP. The SQL’s generated by XOLAP were OLAP aware i.e multiple SQL’s were generated to hit the correct pre-aggregated intersections rather than doing aggregations through SQL. There are 2 biggest drawbacks with this approach. They are

1. It required an Essbase License
2. Any change to the OLAP metadata required an XOLAP cube rebuild within Essbase

Some time last year, Simba Technologies announced an MDX OLE-DB provider for Oracle OLAP. So far i did not get an opportunity to test this though it looked promising. Couple of weeks back we got an evaluation copy from Simba to test the driver (i will have to thank Simba and their Oracle OLAP – MDX provider team for providing us with an evaluation copy). This driver basically provides an ability for Excel users to leverage the power of Oracle OLAP using the Excel Pivot Tables/Charts etc. At a high level this driver does the following

1. End users can use the native Excel functionality to create charts/pivot tables etc
2. The charts/Pivot tables generate MDX (standard OLE-DB based microsoft MDX)
3. Simba driver then converts the MDX to one or more SQL calls to the Oracle OLAP

In this blog entry we will basically see how this driver works. The install process is quite straightforward where we are taken through a set of steps that will setup the OLE-DB driver. This driver will work only for Oracle OLAP versions 11.1.0.7 or above. Then we start off with setting up a DSN to connect to the Oracle OLAP database. Ensure that the client driver of Oracle used in the DSN is atleast of the 11.1.0.7 version.

Once this is setup, from Excel use the Data Connection Wizard to setup a OLE-DB connection through the Simba MDX driver.

This should automatically connect us to the Oracle OLAP schemas.

As you see, we can save a connection to a cube and then the same connection can be reused later for creating more reports. Lets start with creating a simple pivot table report (using native Microsoft Excel Pivot tables)

After this if you notice, we will now be having metadata of Oracle OLAP exposed within the Pivot Table member selection panels. This is very similar to Hyperion Visual Explorer where we are shown all the levels in a dimension and all the hierarchies as well. We can pick and choose either a specific level or we can choose members from multiple levels by applying proper filters. Lets create a very simple report as shown below

As you see, we now have the ability to drill using the native MS pivot table functionality. Lets look at the MDX fired to generate the above query.

As you see the MDX retrieves all the necessary Oracle OLAP level properties as MDX intrinsic properties. This is very interesting. The MDX driver basically does a metadata level mapping between MDX and Oracle OLAP. I am not sure how much of this is documented(in terms of MDX to SQL conversion calls) but again this looks very promising. Now lets look at the SQL that is fired back to Oracle OLAP. The driver can generate multiple SQL Queries for a single MDX call. This is very similar to BI EE 11g (which i shall be covering later once BI EE 11g is GA) where while doing a drill to multiple levels we will see multiple SQL calls being generated.

The first 2 SQL’s generated(for this report) will be for constructing the metadata or the member list for all the dimensions that are part of the query

Then the final query will be for generating the measure values.

If you look at all the queries, they are all OLAP aware i.e. default member filters are applied properly and there is no additional aggregation that is pushed through SQL. This is very interesting and if there are customers using Oracle OLAP, this is one driver that can potentially be put to good use for Excel based reporting.

Currently looks like there is no way to fire custom MDX queries through the Excel 2007 that i have. So, i am not sure how the driver will behave/work when we push custom MDX aggregations like AGGREGATE, SUM etc. Also, i am not sure whether a mapping for all MDX functions(like intersect, union etc) to corresponding OLAP SQL calls exist. But I was told that custom MDX functions should also work well. It is just a case of Excel 2007 not supporting custom MDX queries for the native Pivot Tables.

QlikTech today announced successful enterprise deployments of QlikView business intelligence software by VIP Parts, Tires & Service, the largest privately owned automotive aftermarket retail chain in the New England. VIP’s business footprint spans wholesale, fleet and commercial divisions, as well as 56 retail stores. Using QlikView to integrate, analyze and search millions of transactions from operational and POS (Point of Sale) systems across locations, VIP moved from green-bar and spreadsheet reporting to real-time operational scorecards and holistic, multi-level views of business performance, improving management controls and response to business issues..

Pentaho Corporation, the open source Business Intelligence (BI) leader, today announced that London Oncology Clinic is using Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition for management reporting at one of Europe's top cancer treatment facilities. The London Oncology Clinic (LOC), based in London's Harley Street, is a private practice of over 35 world-class consultants, specialising in the latest peer-reviewed treatments for cancer patients. The technologically advanced clinic operates on a totally electronic system.

Pervasive Software, a global leader in cloud-based and on-premises data integration, today announced support for the RightNow CX Cloud Platform recently introduced by RightNow, an industry-leading cloud-based customer experience solutions provider. Pervasive Data Integrator™ connectivity, via open APIs in RightNow Connect, gives RightNow clients the ability to rapidly and reliably connect to a full range of on-premises and hosted applications and data sources.

Aptela, a leading provider of business-class phone services to small businesses, teleworkers and mobile workers nationwide, today announced the availability of a new Department Dashboard with the issuance of its Aptela v5.2 release. This announcement comes on the heels of the company’s recent launch of Aptela v5 calling platform, which was architected to give its customers the tools required to intuitively manage their business communications.

SAS Institute Japan Ltd. has announced that KDDI Corporation, Japan’s second largest comprehensive telecommunications provider, has selected SAS® Customer Link Analytics, a solution for analyzing relationships in communities created by customers, and SAS® for Customer Experience Analytics, a Web-based customer analysis solution.

Experian, an information services company, has signed an agreement with HSBC to help integrate the bank's access to external data sources around the world.

Starting in Asia, Experian's Connect+ data integration software will be used by HSBC to enable access, consolidation and aggregation of data from multiple sources, including credit bureaus and other third party data providers.

Jitterbit, the leading provider of powerful, flexible and easy-to-use application and data integration, today announced a global partner program, extending the company’s award-winning enterprise integration software, services and support to Systems Integrators, Resellers, ISVs, OEMs and other technology partners.

Developing a comprehensive operational definition of trust is challenging in itself. The term trust has been cited in history as far back as the 13th century Middle English, but it has etymological origins even earlier with regard to expressions of loyalty and faithfulness (Mollering, Bachmann, & Lee, 2004). The concept of trust has been studied in a variety of academic fields, including the disciplines of psychology, sociology, economics, and business. While researchers in those disparate fields assessed trust from slightly different contextual angles, general similarities arise in the context of our review. For the purpose of this article, we will review the concept of trust as it relates to trust among BI project teams and interpersonal trust from a vulnerability perspective.

Aunque no me prodigue mucho en posts últimamente, no puedo dejar de avisar de esta interesante oportunidad.

Los últimos meses he revisado algunos de los libros de Business Intelligence Open Source que han sido publicados y que son realmente interesantes. Desde la editorial Packt hay una interesante campaña de descuento por volumen que creo que podéis aprovechar (para adquirir los interesantes libros de Pentaho Reporting (https://www.packtpub.com/pentaho-reporting-3-5-for-java-developers/book) o Pentaho Data Integration (https://www.packtpub.com/pentaho-3-2-data-integration-beginners-guide/book que además están en descuento, entre otros).

Link: http://www.packtpub.com/article/packt-special-offer

Rapid BI Consulting, a Toronto-based provider of Business Intelligence (BI) consulting and services, today announced a reseller partnership agreement with QlikTech, provider of the award-winning QlikView Business Intelligence (BI) solution. With QlikView, Rapid BI now offers its customers the leading in-memory associative BI solution married with the expertise of its own BI-focused consultancy for unprecedented value and expertise.