VSS Newsletter http://www.vlamis.com/newsletters.html Recent and upcoming events in Vlamis Software and the Oracle business intelligence and data warehousing communities. Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT en http://www.vlamis.com/images/mail/cube2.gif VSS Newsletter http://www.vlamis.com/newsletters.html Copyright 2007, Vlamis Software Solutions, Inc. newsletter@vlamis.com admin@vlamis.com Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT July 2007 Newsletter http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html July 2007 Edition -- Recent and upcoming events in Vlamis Software and the Oracle business intelligence and data warehousing communities. Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html National Petroleum Council uses OLAP http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item1 One of Vlamis Software's clients, the National Petroleum Council was recently in the news. Vlamis Software developed the data warehouse used by NPC to analyze global energy demand and supply through 2030. Simply Google National Petroleum Council or U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, who commissioned the study, and you'll see lots of references, including one in the New York Times. You can find much more about this on our blog www.vlamis.com/blog or the NPC web site. Page 352 of the full report, includes the following:

The data warehouse was designed to be the main analytical tool for the Task Groups, accepting all data collected from the survey questionnaire and other data sources. As the survey data were multi-dimensional, Oracle OLAP database technology was used and the collection was organized using 7 dimensions:

  1. Time (year)
  2. Geography (country or geographic region)
  3. Energy type (e.g., Oil, Gas, Coal, Nuclear, Renewable)
  4. Energy sector (e.g., Commercial, Residential)
  5. Case type (e.g., Business as usual, Alternative energy policy)
  6. Units (applicable unit of measure)
  7. Source (e.g., Public, Proprietary)

We used a mix of relational technology and Oracle OLAP analytic workspaces to perform the aggregations and averages necessary for the analysis. We developed many of the reports and graphs used in the analysis using Discoverer Plus OLAP and data was viewable by NPC analysts using Oracle Portal. This was a very interesting project to work on with many interesting technical challenges, including non-additive data, skip-level hierarchies, non-standard aggregation rules, and more. We hope that this data becomes publicly available some day. Contact us if you want to know more.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item1 Oracle Launches Oracle 11g http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item2 g on July 11 in New York City [...] ]]> Oracle launched Oracle 11g on July 11 in New York City. If you missed the show, there's all sorts of information on Oracle's web site. Rather than me try to summarize the new features, simply read Oracle's white paper.

We were very pleased that Oracle OLAP materialized views were mentioned prominently in Chuck Rozwat's address. This is covered from time index 33:28 through 36:40 in the replay of his presentation.

We're on the 11g beta program, so we've had some hands-on experience with 11g now and we're very excited about what this brings! We can load your data in 11g (beta) today! Oracle says Linux 11g will ship in August, 2007, so we can be ready to go as soon as it's shipping if we start today. You don't have to move your entire operations to 11g to take advantage of this. We also covered this previously in our blog on July 12 and we had already mentioned in our May 2007 Newsletter our presentation showing screenshots of 11g and the features we are most interested in.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item2 Oracle BI SE:One Available http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item3 Oracle has released Oracle BI SE:One. This is a subset of Oracle BI EE, with the addition of a copy of Oracle Database Standard Edition. Oracle is gearing this to the small and medium sized business. There is a limit of 50 users and is sold only on a named-user basis. This can be very attractive; it contains the same core technology as Oracle BI EE, enabling you to add additional features with no re-tooling if your needs become more complex in the future. This also contains Oracle BI Publisher, a great way to create BI Reports.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item3 Oracle BI EE Plus Announced http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item4 Oracle has also announced Oracle BI EE Plus. This adds the Hyperion reporting products to Oracle BI EE. See http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/enterprise-edition.html for more information.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item4 Vlamis to Present at BIWA Summit 2007 http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item5 Our presentation "Implementing Oracle BI EE on Top of Oracle OLAP Cubes" has been selected to be presented at the BIWA Summit, October 2-3 in Reston, Virginia sponsored by the BIWA SIG of the IOUG. See the Oracle BIWA SIG website for more information.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item5 BIC2G Images Sent http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item6 We recently mailed several Business Intelligence Challenge To Go images to people that have requested them. This allows you to run Oracle's Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition in a standalone VMWare image. Our very own Oracle BI EE on Oracle OLAP demonstration is included on the image. See www.vlamis.com/demo for more information on our demonstration and www.bic2g.com for more information on the image itself. Please send us an email if you would like your very own image. This is discussed more in depth in our June newsletter article "Demo of OBI EE on Oracle OLAP Available For You". This can be a great platform for building proofs of concept. Let us know if you would like to work with us on this.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_07.html#Item6 June 2007 Newsletter http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html June 2007 Edition -- Recent and upcoming events in Vlamis Software and the Oracle business intelligence and data warehousing communities. Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html Vlamis Booth and Presentation at Oracle FY08 Kickoff http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item1 BoothWe are very pleased to be included in Oracle's annual North American Sales Kickoff meeting June 11-14 in Las Vegas. This is where almost all Oracle North American sales employees meet once a year to network together, discuss sales strategies and learn about Oracle's product direction in the new fiscal year. Oracle employees: please come see us in Booth 287. We'll be demonstrating our Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBI EE) on Oracle OLAP demo and discussing our OBI EE sales and implementations. We have also been invited to present on Wednesday afternoon during the session "Enabling Partners & Customer Workshops w/ BIC2G:EE" on how we developed the OBI EE on OLAP demo and the benefits we have seen from this joint effort. We will be there from Tuesday morning through Wednesday evening. We'd love to set up a time to visit with you one-on-one, so please contact Dan to set up a time when we can get together.

]]> Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item1 Vlamis Presenting at ODTUG http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item2 Once again, we will present at the Oracle Developer Tools User Group Kaleidoscope conference in Daytona Beach. Dan will be at the conference Tuesday afternoon through Thursday noon and will present "Implementing Oracle BI EE on Top of Oracle OLAP Cubes" on Thursday, June 21 at 8:30am. Please contact Dan if you'll be at the conference to arrange to get together.

]]> Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item2 Demonstration of Oracle Business Intelligence on Oracle OLAP June 11 at 3:00pm CDT on the Web http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item3 Our demonstrations of running Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBI EE, formerly Siebel) against Oracle OLAP analytic workspaces have been extremely well received. We have scheduled a repeat session on June 11, 2007 at 3:00pm Central Daylight Time. You can find details on what we'll be showing and how to connect to the web conference at http://www.vlamis.com/demo. We may plan a demonstration the week of June 25, so check our web site or give us a call if you are interested. Demo scripts, other webcasts, and other resources are at http://www.vlamis.com/demo.

]]> Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item3 Mark Rittman Blog http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item4 For years, we've enjoyed a great relationship with Mark Rittman and developed a great deal of respect for Mark. In a Rittman Mead Blog article Mark mentioned our blog and put more words behind our Oracle OLAP 11g Preview slides (with screenshots) announced in our May 2007 Newsletter article. Be sure to check out Mark's blog as he has some great information there about Oracle BI.

]]> Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#Item4 Dan's OBI EE Tip - Disable Cache http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#tip The standard recommendation when developing OBI EE implementations is to disable the BI Server cache. If you allow OBI EE to cache your data, OBI EE may pull the data for a given report from its cache instead of re-issuing the SQL to pull the data. This can lead you to think that the software is performing better than it really is for users, especially if you issue the same query multiple times. In addition, we have found certain circumstances where OBI EE's cache will produce "wrong" results when querying views that use OLAP_TABLE. For details and to participate in the discussion, see our blog entry on the subject "Need to Disable Cache in BIEE". We recommend that you simply turn off the BI Server cache by changing the line ENABLE=YES to ENABLE=NO in NQSConfig.INI if you are using OLAP_TABLE views or if you are in development mode. Of course if you disable the cache, be sure to reevaluate this decision before going into production.

Look for more tips in upcoming VSS Newsletters and our blog, or contact me at dvlamis@vlamis.com for more information.

Dan Vlamis

]]> Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_06.html#tip May 2007 Newsletter http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html May 2007 Edition -- Recent and upcoming events in Vlamis Software and the Oracle business intelligence and data warehousing communities. Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html VSS Newsletter Returns! http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item1 After a lengthy break, the VSS Newsletter is back! Things have been very busy at Vlamis Software and Oracle. There's no way we can truly cover all of the changes that have occurred since our last newsletter, so we will jump in with news from this year. Please let us know if there are topics you'd like us to cover in future issues.

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item1 Demonstration of Oracle BI EE on Oracle OLAP May 14 at 3:00pm CDT on the Web http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item2 Our demonstration of running Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBI EE, formerly Siebel) against Oracle OLAP analytic workspaces has been extremely well received. We presented this in April at the Collaborate '07 conference, and then in a webcast on May 1. The demand for the presentation was so high that we have scheduled a repeat session on May 14, 2007 at 3:00pm Central Daylight Time. You can find details on what we'll be showing and how to connect to the web conference at http://www.vlamis.com/demo. We plan other showings this month as well. Demo scripts, other webcasts, and other resources are at http://www.vlamis.com/demo.

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item2 Demo of OBI EE on Oracle OLAP Available For You http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item3 Oracle has produced a VMWare image with multiple live working demonstrations of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Our demo of OBI EE on Oracle OLAP is on this image. The image will be available in the month of May, 2007. It requires a copy of VMWare. All of the demos run inside a virtual machine with all of the Oracle software pre-configured. The appropriate licenses for Linux and all of the Oracle software are included; all you need is a VMWare, a browser, and about 15 gigabytes of disk space (works especially well from an external hard drive connected via USB 2.0). You can dissect the demos to see how all the software works. More information will be available soon at http://www.bic2g.com.

Send us an email at sales@vlamis.com if you'd like to have your own copy of this demonstration environment.

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item3 Oracle Buys Siebel and Renames it Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item4 In case you missed the news, you should know that Oracle is focusing its development efforts and its strategy on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. The first release of this software (codenamed "Maui") with the Oracle name was released in February, 2007. You'll find much more information at http://www.oracle.com/bi. Vlamis Software is likewise focusing its consulting offering on the OBI EE product line and is ready to help you with your OBI EE implementations.

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item4 Vlamis Software Starts Blog on Oracle BI and Data Warehousing http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item5 We've launched a weblog (blog) to make it easier for us to cover the rapid changes that can occur in the Oracle BI and data warehousing space. Bookmark our blog at http://www.vlamis.com/blog and watch for more information.

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item5 Oracle OLAP 11g Details Released http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item6 We recently had a chance to "touch and feel" Oracle OLAP 11g beta. We were given permission to share this information at the Collaborate 07 conference and incorporated it into our presentations. To view the information, see the PowerPoint file on our web site on Oracle OLAP 11g Preview with several screenshots and bullets highlighting the features we found most exciting.

If you'd like to explore this in more depth, please let us know. Oracle OLAP 11g will make it MUCH easier to integrate OLAP into a data warehouse project.

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item6 Oracle Buys Hyperion http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item7 People often ask us what we think of Oracle purchasing Hyperion. This is a great move for Oracle. They have acquired the standard in financial analysis software. But nobody really knows what they are going to do regarding the integration of the software, especially the Essbase multi-dimensional database. Oracle says they are going to continue all product lines indefinitely and evaluate what to do once the companies are legally joined after June 30, 2007. After asking all sorts of friends in Oracle and Hyperion product management, I believe they truly have not decided what specifically to do. Everything else is pure speculation.

Dan Vlamis

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#Item7 Mark's OLAP Tip: Use OLAP View Generator to SQL-Enable AWs http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#tip AWM View Generator Screen ShotOne of the features of Oracle Analytic Workspace Manager is the ability to develop Java plug-ins for AWM. Oracle has made a plug-in available that creates views that use the OLAP_TABLE function to expose analytic workspace cubes and other objects for access via SQL. It really is easy; you can simply right-click a cube and select "Plug-in - Create Relational View..." and it creates a view for the selected cube. Download the OLAP View Generator for more information.

Look for more tips in upcoming VSS Newsletters and our blog, or contact me at mthompson@vlamis.com for more information.

Mark Thompson

]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 11:00:00 GMT http://www.vlamis.com/News/newsletters/2007_05.html#tip