Summer
2004

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(816)781-2880

sales@vlamis.com

VSS Newsletter Summer 2004

No, you weren't dropped from our mail list; we have been extremely busy with various Oracle OLAP implementations. Our previous newsletter was way back in May 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.

To have your name removed from this mailing list, follow the directions at the bottom of this message.

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.


Oracle OLAP 10g New Release

Have you read about Oracle OLAP 10g? There's a lot there. The OLAP DML language is receiving some major enhancements, and analytic workspaces will be more flexible. Major improvements include:

See the white paper by Bud Endress and Anthony Waite, the OLAP Option to the Oracle10g Database, or contact us for more information. Install version DB 10.1.0.3 (patch #3761843 available for Windows and Linux operating systems at the time of this writing) and Oracle OLAP 10.1.0.3 (patch #3769360) to explore these features.


BI Beta

The new BI Beans tools stack is now in beta. With this release, Oracle OLAP customers will be able to build their own very functional thin (no install required) applications or use Discoverer or Excel to analyze data in analytic workspaces. We believe this is going to make a huge difference in the Oracle OLAP marketplace, as companies can put an application in the hands of users within minutes of building OLAP cubes. Look for an explosion of activity in using Oracle OLAP within the next year as companies adopt this platform and Oracle's marketing engine gears up to promote Oracle OLAP now that an Oracle front-end is available.

This includes:

Contact us at sales@vlamis.com if you would like to explore what can be done with your data with these new releases.


Vlamis Software Solutions Expanding

Demand for people skilled in Oracle OLAP is building. We are looking to work with individuals and companies that have experience with Express or Oracle OLAP. If you are interested in working with one of the premier Oracle Business Intelligence consulting companies, send a cover letter and resume to Dan Vlamis at dvlamis@vlamis.com.


VSS Class on OLAP Scheduled for September

VSS has been giving its week-long Oracle OLAP class for over a year now. Participants learn:

In hands-on exercises, students build their own cubes, analytic workspaces, and BI Beans applications.

Sign up for our next class to be held from September 27 through October 1 in Kansas City, Missouri, or contact us today so we can bring the class to you. We can also present the class using your own data and customize it to your needs.


Oracle OpenWorld Combined with AppsWorld

Oracle OpenWorld 2004 is to be held December 5-9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This year's conference promises to be a big event. Oracle is incorporating content from Oracle AppsWorld and has teamed up with IOUG, ODTUG and OAUG to provide sessions from users. Check out the details at http://www.oracle.com/openworld.

We have submitted abstracts through ODTUG and IOUG and will announce the titles of our presentations once they have been confirmed by Oracle.


ODTUG 2004

Vlamis Software presented at the Oracle Developer Tools User Group Conference, with two presentations and participation on two panels.

As always, our papers and presentations are downloadable at http://www.vlamis.com/papers. For more information about ODTUG, visit their web site at http://www.odtug.com.


Ohio Oracle User's Group

We accepted an invitation to present at the Ohio Oracle User's Group meeting on July 22, 2004. Dan Vlamis presented Using Oracle Business Intelligence Tools to Analyze Data Warehouses. You can download the presentation here. The meeting was very informative and we look forward to being able to participate in their future events.


Index of Previous VSS Newsletters Available

In an effort to make our newsletters more useful, we have compiled a central index to all of the articles in the newsletters. We find ourselves referring more and more to previous newsletters. Do you want to know when Analytic Workspace Manager was released? Refer to our October, 2003 newsletter. Want to have a simple example of how to use SQL to access analytic workspace data? Refer to Dan's OLAP tip in our January, 2004 newsletter. At http://www.vlamis.com/newsletters you will find an index to each newsletter since 2003. Please let us know if you find it useful.


Dan's OLAP Tip: Allocate Large Temp Tablespace and Update Often

Some database administrators making the switch from Express to Oracle OLAP have noticed a change in the way the paging system operates. Oracle OLAP does not write to an analytic workspace until the UPDATE OLAP DML command executes. Any changes are written to the session TEMP tablespace and then copied from the TEMP tablespace to the target AW during the UPDATE command. These changes are not visible to other sessions until you execute a COMMIT command. This implies several "best practices":

  1. Allow lots of space in your TEMP tablespace--potentially as large as your AW
  2. Update often when loading AWs
  3. Allow time for UPDATE commands
  4. Don't forget to COMMIT after executing an UPDATE

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 May 2004 newsletter featured the following articles:

Our April 2004 newsletter featured the following articles: