Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide- P10: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. | Download at Essbase Data and Design Considerations We have successfully performed the installation of Oracle s Essbase software and it is functioning correctly. Let s cross-check for a minute we have the server agent installed and running the EAS installed on our client and operating correctly and the Oracle Essbase Add-in for Microsoft Excel is also installed on our client in Microsoft Excel. We are now ready to begin learning and exploring Oracle Essbase In this chapter we will discuss how to use the data elements required by the customer and transform them from the usual row and column relational schema into Essbase-friendly meta-data dimensions and data members. Moving ahead we will use the Esscar Motor Company as the fictitious business customer for all of our examples throughout this book. The Esscar Motor Company is a traditional multinational automobile manufacturing enterprise. Introduction to OLAP OLAP is the common term for Online Analytical Processing and is generally known to be a multidimensional client-server computing environment. The differences between OLAP analytical solutions and traditional data analysis applications containing backend relational databases are stark. The most obvious being an OLAP analytical application s ability to provide speedy analysis of broad slices of data. Programs which are complex and expensive to write would be required to perform even a fraction of the functionality provided by a simple Oracle Essbase OLAP application. Download at Essbase Data and Design Considerations Another notable difference is OLAP s ability to drill-down to the lowest level of granularity with ease. You will even hear phrases like slice and dice and multidimensionality which means having the ability to view the data from virtually any perspective. Finally the ability to calculate large amounts of data on the fly gives users a superior advantage over traditional applications with relational databases when it comes to what
