Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide- P5:Essbase is a multidimensional database management system. The name Essbase stands for Extended Spread Sheet dataBASE. Using the custom add-in provides the end-user with near seamless compatibility in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. | Preface Another widely recognized name in the data warehousing arena is Ralph Kimball. Ralph Kimball is an author on the subject of data warehousing and business intelligence and received a . in 1972 from Stanford University in Electrical Engineering specializing in man-machine systems. He is widely regarded as the Guru of Data Warehousing and is known for long-term convictions that data warehouses must be designed to be understandable and fast. Ralph s methodology is also known as dimensional modeling or the Kimball methodology. The similarities between Mr. Inmon and Mr. Kimball are many and so are the differences. The following paradigm statements illustrate just how Mr. Inmon and Mr. Kimball are perceived in the world of Data Warehousing. Bill Inmon s paradigm The enterprise data warehouse is one part of the overall business intelligence system. An enterprise should have just one data warehouse and one to many data marts. The data marts then source their information from the data warehouse. In the data warehouse information is stored in third normal form. Ralph Kimball s paradigm The enterprise data warehouse is the conglomerate of all data marts within the enterprise. Information is always stored in the dimensional model. There is no right way or wrong way between either of these two ideas. They each represent different data warehousing philosophies. In reality the data warehouse philosophy used in most enterprises is closer to Ralph Kimball s idea. This is because most data warehouses started out as department level efforts and as such they originated as an activity specific data mart. Only when more data marts are built later do they evolve into a data warehouse. What is a data warehouse Just what is a data warehouse really According to Bill Inmon you know the famous author of several data warehouse books A data warehouse is a subject oriented integrated time variant non volatile collection of data in support of management s decision making process. A .
