Oracle Essbase

Oracle Essbase is an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) Server that provides an environment for deploying pre-packaged applications or developing custom analytic and enterprise performance management applications. Oracle Essbase, along with Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition Plus, is part of the Oracle BI Foundation.

With a rapid application development environment, Oracle Essbase enables business users to quickly model complex business scenarios. Aside from its high scalability, a key strength of Oracle Essbase lies in its ability to allow users to "write back" to an application's data repository under security. This makes it ideal for developing forward looking applications such as forecasting, scenario modeling, and "what if" type analysis.

Oracle Essbase provides adaptable data storage mechanisms for specific types of analytic and performance management applications, thereby ensuring sub-second response times regardless of the complexity of the analytics. For example, Block data storage option (BSO) enables driver-based scenario modeling, forecasting, and predictive analytic applications. Aggregate data storage option (ASO) is optimized for massive sparse data sets, supporting thousands of concurrent business users performing sophisticated analyses at the speed of thought.

With the release of Oracle Essbase 11 there is now stronger integration with the both Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies as well as Oracle Database 11g.

Products / Options

• Oracle Essbase Studio
• Oracle Essbase Administration Services
• Oracle Essbase Integration Services
• Oracle Essbase Provider Services

What's New

Oracle Essbase 11.1.2.1 Release Highlights

Communicating with Essbase Using SSL - Essbase supports the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol for all client-to-server and server-to-server communication.
New essbase.cfg Configuration Settings
    AGENTSECUREPORT
    APSRESOLVER
    CLIENTPREFERREDMODE
    ENABLECLEARMODE
    ENABLESECUREMODE
    ENABLESWITCHTOBACKUPFILE
    ESSBASESERVERHOSTNAME
    NUMBEROFSECFILEBACKUPS
    SECFILEBACKUPINTERVAL
    SSLCIPHERSUITES
    SSOPTIMIZEDGRIDPROCESSING
    WALLETPATH
Logging In to Essbase Using Logical Names- Essbase cluster logical names can be used for login, in the form <name>:<secure>.
Changes to login statements - The HOST-NAME parameter can be an Essbase cluster logical name, if using the APSRESOLVER configuration setting. If using SSL, append :secure to the HOST-NAME parameter; for example: login essexer password on "localhost:secure";
Managing Essbase Security Backup Files- You can manage the number of security backup files (essbase_timestamp.bak) that Essbase maintains; the interval at which the security backup files are created; and whether to switch to the latest, valid security backup file on startup if the essbase.sec file is invalid.
Pre-upgrade Security File Backup- When  you upgrade to Essbase 11.1.2.1 from an earlier release, a backup of the security file for the earlier release is created before the security file is upgraded. This pre-upgrade backup file is kept intact and is not subsequently updated by further operations.
New MaxL Statements- The statement 'display system' has new configuration grammar for displaying Essbase configured values set using the essbase.cfg file.
Changed MaxL Grammar- Changes to alter system statement: The 'reconcile' keyword displays discrepancies in application and database information between the security file and the external disk; the 'reconcile force' keyword removes from the essbase.sec security file applications or databases that do not exist on the external disk but that are listed in the security file.
New MDX Functions
    DTS
    IsMatch
MDX Query Execution Management- The essbase.cfg settings QRYGOVEXECBLK and QRYGOVEXECTIME can now also control long-running MDX queries.

Oracle Essbase 11.1.2.0 Release Highlights

• EPM System Security Enhancements- When Essbase is configured for Shared Services Aauthentication, user's are no longer stored in the Essbase security file. For this reason it is no longer needed to perform security synchronization between Essbase and Shared Services. Note that security filters are still stored in the Essbase security file.
• Allocations on Aggregate Storage Databases- It is now possible to perform allocations within an ASO cube. A new MaxL statement 'execute allocation' is provided for this.
• Custom Calculations on Aggregate Storage Databases- It is now possible to perform custom calculations in an ASO cube. A new MaxL statement ' execute calculation is provided for this.
• Dynamic Write-back to Blocks During Calculation- A new function @XWRITE is available for writing data to blocks in the same database or in a remote database. The syntax is similar to @XREF.
• Alias Table Enhancements- Essbase supports 32 alias tables for block storage and aggregate storage databases.
• Increased Length for User, Group, and Filter Names- Essbase now supports 256 characters for user, group, and filter names.
• Conversion of Block Storage Outlines to Unicode-mode Aggregate Storage Outlines- Support for conversion to Unicode aggregate storage outline
• IPv6 Support- Essbase supports the IPv6 internet protocol on Microsoft Windows 2008 and all UNIX platforms.
• OCI Support- The EAS Data Prep editor now support using the Oracle OCI interface in addition to ODBC. In Essbase Studio, it is now possible to specify Oracle OCI as a loading interface.
• Dataload Error Debugging Improvements- Essbase offers improved dataload error messages for debugging purposes, and records causing errors are included in the log files.
• Increased Limit for MDX Query Size- Essbase supports MDX queries that exceed the 232 query limit.
• User Names with Leading Special Characters- User names can contain any characters defined within the code page referenced by the ESSLANG variable. For example, you will now be able to create a user such as '$Hypadmin'.
• MaxL Shell Error Handling Improvements- The MaxL Shell IfError command can detect syntactical errors, nested script errors, and lack-of-permission errors. The MaxL Shell Exit command can accept a non-zero argument to return an exit status to the parent shell.
• Exception Messages in Calculation Scripts- Essbase can exit calculations immediately under specified logical conditions. You can use the new @RETURN function to exit the calculation with customized error messages and levels.
• Essbase Failover Support with OPMN- Essbase supports clustering of Essbase servers to provide active-passive failover with write-back capability. Active-passive Essbase failover clusters use the service failover functionality of the Oracle Process Manager and Notification (OPMN) Server.
• MaxL Support in Java API- Java API support for executing MaxL statements.
• Calculations with Varying Attributes- New calculation functions and command have been added to improve calculation of databases that use varying attributes:
  • @ISMBRWITHATTR
  • @ISATTRIBUTE
  • SET SCAPERSPECTIVE
• New Calculation Functions
  • @BETWEEN
  • @EQUAL
  • @EXPAND
  • @ISATTRIBUTE
  • @ISMBRWITHATTR
  • @LIKE
  • @MBRCOMPARE
  • @MBRPARENT
  • @NOTEQUAL
  • @RETURN
  • @XWRITE
  • @WITHATTR is enhanced to allow varying attributes to be specified in the function argument.

Oracle Essbase 11.1.1 Release Highlights

• Single Environment to Build and Maintain Oracle Essbase Cubes- Oracle Essbase Studio provides a single interface for performing tasks related to data source modeling, cube design, and construction of analytic applications. See Oracle Essbase Studio
• New Installation and ConfigurationOracle Essbase is now integrated into the EPM System Installer, to streamline the installation of all EPM products within one tool.
• Lifecycle Management- Provides a consistent, repeatable way to move Oracle Essbase cubes, applications, or individual artifacts between development, test and production environments. Also supports auditing and application comparisons.
• Varying Attributes- Support for storing data in attributes that vary over one or more dimensions, and calculate measures over the varying attributes.
• Typed Measures- extends the analytical capabilities of Oracle Essbase beyond numerical data to support for two new data types: text measures and date measures.  Applications can now use text and dates as measures in multidimensional reporting. Oracle Essbase applications can now support analysis based on text or date measures.
• Backing Up and Restoring Block Storage Option (BSO) Databases- enables administrators to back up and restore databases more efficiently.
• Transaction Logging and Replay- a backed-up database can be restored to a specified post-backup state by replaying transactions related to data loads, data updates, and calculation (procedural)_scripts.
• Clearing Data from Specific Regions of Aggregate Storage (ASO) Databases- clear data from a specific region and retain the data located in other regions, such as historical data.
• Environment Variables Used in the Calculation Scripts and Formulas of Block Storage Option (BSO) Applications- supports use system environment variables as placeholders for user-specific system settings in calculation scripts and outline member formulas
• New Calculation Functions- The following calculation functions are new in this release:
  • @ILANCESTORS—Returns the specified members and either all ancestors of the members or the ancestors up to a specified distance
  • @ILDESCENDANTS—Returns the specified members and either all descendants of the members or the descendants down to a specified distance
  • @LANCESTORS—Returns all ancestors of the specified members or the ancestors up to a specified distance
  • @LDESCENDANTS—Returns all descendants of the specified members or the descendants down to a specified distance
  • @NEXTSIBLING—Returns the next sibling (the sibling to the immediate right) of the specified member
  • @PREVSIBLING—Returns the previous sibling (the sibling to the immediate left) of the specified member
  • @SHIFTSIBLING—Returns the specified member or the nth sibling of the specified member
• Grid Expansion During Queries of Transparent Partitions- forces the expansion of the grid when transparent partitions are queried.
• Log Transaction Response Times from Transparent Partition Target- log transaction response times to monitor performance and satisfy service level agreements with user communities.
• Grid Size Limits for Aggregate Storage Transparent Partition Target- in ASO, specify the maximum size of the request grid and the response grid.
• Target of Partition- An ASO cube can be a target of a transparent or replicated partition for aggregation performance benefits.
• Batch Insertion As Data Is Exported to Relational Databases- supports direct INSERT when exporting data from Oracle Essbase into a relational database.
• Unicode Support for Aggregate Storage
• Query Cancel- cancels execution of processes such as data load, MaxL, MDX, Calc Script and others in Administration Services:
• Smart Search Administration Enhancements- Advanced configuration of Google OneBox and Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES) functionality including the ability to select report scripts, calc scripts for metadata indexing.
• MDX Enhancements- improvements to MDX time intelligence and member and hierarchy calculations.
• XOLAP - eXtending OLAP on Relational Database- support for Oracle Essbase cube that is transparently and dynamically sourced from an RDBMS. Greatly increases the potential size and scope of an Oracle Essbase cube through the use of a hybrid aggregation strategy. RDBMS friendly with fewer, simpler, more efficient SQL queries from Oracle Essbase to the RDBMS.
• Parallel SQL Data Loads- Supports up to 8 rules files via temporary load buffers.
• Oracle EBS Financials 11 iSource Integration and Drill-back - when Oracle Essbase is used with Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management, can now support drill back into Oracle EBS to see account balances and drill even further from there. This feature adds even further confidence in a customer's financial data.
• Better Integration with Oracle Fusion Middleware- further adoption of key components of Oracle Fusion Middleware to provide lowest total cost of ownership.
  • Security: Integration with Oracle Access Manager, Oracle SSO, Desktop Kerberos Support, OID as the Native Provider
• • Systems Management, integration with System Installer, Oracle Patch Installer, Lifecycle Management, Auto Deployment to Oracle Application Server
  • Support for Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)

What's New In Oracle Essbase Release 11.1?

Oracle Essbase, Release 9.3 Highlights

• Supports dates as first class objects
• Time dimension wizard automates creation of time dimension hierarchies within Oracle Essbase ASO databases
• Out of the box support for five predefined calendars: Gregorian, Manufacturing, ISO 8601, Fiscal, Retail
• Supports query hints for frequently used queries
• MDX optimizations:
  • New functions enhance string processing
  • Handling formulae that involve tuple/cross dimensional references
  • Ranking tuples in sets
  • Analysis of date hierarchies
• Supports high speed subset data export:
  • Data slices (including dynamic calc members and aggregates) can be selected and exported lights out in a number of different formats including directly into relational tables
  • This feature is calculation script enabled
• Expanded 64-bit support for AIX and Sun Solaris
• "Reference cubes" improve @XREF performance
• EXCLUDE / ENDEXCLUDE construct allows calculation scripts to specify which members NOT to calculate
• MAXL has been enhanced to provide a means to encrypting usernames and passwords in scripts

What's New in Hyperion Essbase Release 9.3?