April
2004

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VSS Newsletter April 2004

In this monthly newsletter we inform you about recent and upcoming events in Vlamis Software and the Oracle business intelligence and data warehousing communities. We hope you find this information helpful.

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Vlamis Software Solutions is a consulting company specializing in Oracle-related business intelligence and data warehouse solutions. Learn more about us at our web site at www.vlamis.com. Contact us at sales@vlamis.com or (816)781-2880.

IOUG Live! Conference

If you are attending IOUG Live (April 17-22, Toronto, Canada), let us know. We'd like to schedule a time when we can meet with you one-on-one. In a personal meeting we can provide customized demos and discuss your specific issues. We will be able to demonstrate the latest Oracle software, including Discoverer Plus OLAP, the Excel Add-in, and BI Beans release 10G. These will be featured in our full-day and half-day classes and sessions, but there's nothing like being able to go through these exciting technologies in a one-on-one session. Please contact Jon Clark at jclark@vlamis.com to schedule a meeting with Dan or Chris, who are both speaking at the conference. Conference details are available at http://www.ioug.org/live2004.

Details in VSS's presentations are at http://www.vlamis.com/papers2004. We will continue to offer our technical papers and presentations on our web site after the conference. Topics include:

Oracle9i OLAP class in Kansas City May 3-7

Vlamis Software Solutions is presenting a class on Oracle9i OLAP and BI Beans in Kansas City in early May, currently scheduled for May 3 to May 7. This class will present an overview of Oracle9i OLAP architecture, building relational OLAP cubes with OEM, creating multidimensional cubes with AWM, enabling those cubes for BI Beans using AWM and building BI Beans based applications. The class will also include using OLAP DML code to add formulas that calculate values that cannot be calculated using just BI Beans.

Contact us at 816-781-2880 or jclark@vlamis.com soon if you are interested in attending this class.

Oracle9i OLAP Web Agent on IIS

Do you have a computing environment with Microsoft and Oracle software? Have you heard that Java doesn't play well with IIS? Well, we have found a solution for running a Java Servlet engine and have detailed instructions on how to install and configure a servlet engine with IIS. OLAP Web Agent only requires a J2EE-compliant Java Servlet enginea nd can be used with many products. Contact us for more information if you are interested.

Business Objects and Oracle OLAP

Attention Business Objects users: we want to talk to you. Add the calculation capabilities of Oracle9i OLAP to your database. You can now run Business Objects directly against Oracle9i OLAP cubes. Oracle's white paper, soon to be added to OTN, contains details on how to do this. We can share an early draft of the paper and work with you to implement this on your system. Bring the analytic power of Oracle9i OLAP to your Business Objects applications.

WebFocus on Oracle9i OLAP

Oracle's claim is that "any SQL-enabled reporting tool can report Oracle9i OLAP data." The OLAP_TABLE function (described in our January Newsletter) is the technology that makes this possible. We have used this very effectively with Information Builder's WebFocus product. Please let us know if you have an interest in learning more about how WebFocus can be used to report Oracle9i OLAP data.

Vlamis Software to present at Ohio Oracle User's Group

Join us in Columbus, Ohio, as VSS presents on July 22, 2004, at the Ohio Oracle User's Group on Oracle OLAP. VSS presentations will focus on "Oracle BI solutions" and "Cubes using OWB and Analytic Workspace Manager". Find the details at http://www.ooug.org/meeting20040722.html. Please be sure to RSVP to the OOUG if you plan to attend and let us know if you would like to hook up at the meeting.

Oracle Developer Days Focus on BI

Get free training from Oracle by attending Oracle's Developer Days. These full-day presentations and interactive demonstrations showcase Oracle Warehouse Builder, Oracle BI Beans, Oracle JDeveloper, and Oracle OLAP. Upcoming sessions include Reston, Virginia on May 3, and Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 10. These sessions are very popular and often fill up. Get more information and register at http://www.oracle.com/events/developer_days/Q2FY04/bi.html.

Chris's OLAP Tip: Add a New Cube to an Existing AW

In order to add a new cube to an existing AW which share dimensions with existing BI-Beans enabled cubes in the AW, it is necessary to un-enable the existing cubes/dimensions in the AW.

This is the workaround to a AWM Bug that we have discovered.

The way to directly un-enable a given cube is to call the cwm2_olap_cube.drop_cube PL/SQL package as in the following call:

execute cwm2_olap_cube.drop_cube('XADEMOAW','XADEMO_ACTUAL_CUBE'); 
execute cwm2_olap_metadata_refresh.mr_refresh(); 
commit;

The above drops the cwmlite enabled metadata about the cube XADEMOAW.XADEMO_ACTUAL_CUBE. The owner is 'XADEMOAW'.

Specifically, this drops the cwm2 enabled metadata about the cube XADEMO_ACTUAL_CUBE. It does not drop the cwmlite metadata about the dimensions which make up the XADEMO_ACTUAL_CUBE. Dropping the dimension metadata requires a separate set of calls.

In order to drop the cwmlite enabled metadata about a dimension, use cwm2_olap_dimension.drop_dimension, as in the following call:

execute cwm2_olap_dimension.drop_dimension('XADEMO', 'TIME_AW'); 
execute cwm2_olap_metadata_refresh.mr_refresh(); 
commit;

In the above example we are dropping the cwmlite metadata about enabled AW dimension XADEMO.TIME_AW. Each of the dimensions that are part of the cube will have to be dropped.

The overall procedure for being able to add a new cube to an existing AW which has cube and dimensions that have been enabled is as follows:

  1. call the cwmlite pl/sql package: cwm2_olap_cube.drop_cube for all the cubes that have been enabled in the AW. make sure to call cwm2_olap_metadata_refresh.mr_refresh(); and commit;
  2. call the cwmlite pl/sql package cwm2_olap_dimension.drop_dimension for all the dimensions that have been enabled in the AW. Make sure to call cwm2_olap_metadata_refresh.mr_refresh(); and commit;
  3. In AWM, add your new cube(s).
  4. In AWM, enable the entire AW all at once (including your new cube(s))

Look for other tips in upcoming VSS Newsletters or contact me at sales@vlamis.com for more information.

Chris

Prior Newsletter Articles

We feature breaking news in the "Headline" section of our home page at www.vlamis.com. More news items can be found on our news page at www.vlamis.com/news. An archive of our newsletters going back through 2002 can be found at http://www.vlamis.com/newsletters.

Our March 2004 newsletter featured the following articles:

Our February 2004 newsletter featured the following articles: