Introducing Essbase

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Introducing Essbase
In This Section:
Introduction
Essbase Product Components
Key Features

Introduction
Oracle Essbase products provide companies the ability to deliver critical business information to the
right people when they need it. With Essbase, companies quickly leverage and integrate data from
multiple existing data sources and distribute filtered information to end-user communities in the
format that best meets the users needs. Users interact and intuitively explore data in real time and
along familiar business dimensions, enabling them to perform speed-of-thought analytics.

Essbase Product Components

Essbase products incorporate powerful architectural features to handle a wide range of analytic
applications across large multi-user environments. Figure 1, High-level Information Flow Between
Product Components provides a high-level view of the information flow between the three tiers of the
Essbase architecture. The client tier (on the left) includes Essbase Server clients, such as Oracle
Hyperion Smart View for Office, Fusion Edition, Administration Services Console and Oracle Hyperion
Smart Search, Fusion Edition. The middle tier (in the center) includes services, such as Oracle
Hyperion Provider Services and Oracle Essbase Administration Services. The database tier (on the
right) is made up of Essbase Servers. Communication between the client and middle tiers, and the
middle and database tiers, is through HTTP. Communication between the client and database tiers is
through TCP/IP or HTTP. Communication between data sources and the metadata catalog with the
middle and database tiers is through ODBC and JDBC drivers.
Figure 1. High-level Information Flow Between Product Components

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Essbase
Essbasea multi-threaded OLAP database software that takes advantage of symmetric
multiprocessing hardware platformsis based on Web-deployable, thin-client architecture. The
server acts as a shared resource, handling all data storage, caching, calculations, and data security.
The Essbase Server client needs only to retrieve and view data that resides on a server.
All Essbase application components, including database outlines and calculation scripts, application
control, and multidimensional database information, reside on a server. With Essbase, you can
configure server disk storage to span multiple disk drives, enabling you to store large databases.
Essbase requires a server to run a multi-threaded operating system so a server can efficiently
manage simultaneous requests. A server also runs a server agent process that acts as a traffic
coordinator for all user requests to applications.
Aggregate storage databases provide an alternative to block storage databases and enable dramatic
increases in database dimensionality. Using aggregate storage, Essbase serves a wide range of
analytic needsfinancial analysis, planning, budgeting, sales analysis, marketing analysis,
supply-chain analysis, profitability analyticsall from a single analytic infrastructure.
MaxLa multidimensional database access language that is part of Essbase Serverprovides a
flexible way to automate Essbase administration and maintenance tasks.
For information on system requirements, see the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance
Management System Installation Start Here.
To install and configure Essbase, see the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management
System Installation and Configuration Guide.

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Sample Essbase Applications

Essbase provides a set of sample applications and associated databases that you can use to learn
about Essbase features, and which are the basis for many of the examples given in this document.
Sample applications are installed with Essbase Server.
To use the sample applications, see Setting Up Sample Applications.

Administration Services
Administration Servicesthe database and system administrators interface to Essbaseprovides a
single-point-of-access console to multiple Essbase Servers. Using Administration Services, you can
design, develop, maintain, and manage multiple Essbase Servers, applications, and databases. You
can preview data from within the console without having to open a client application, such as
Spreadsheet Add-in. You can also use custom Java plug-ins to leverage and extend key functionality.

Essbase Studio
Essbase Studio simplifies cube construction by delivering a single environment for performing tasks
related to data modeling, cube designing, and analytic application construction. With a wizard-driven
user interface, Essbase Studio supports modeling of the various data source types from which
Essbase applications are typically built.
A single common metadata repository, or catalog, captures all metadata related to all Essbase
applications built in the enterprise and allows the reuse of metadata at the lowest level of
granularity. The catalog makes Essbase Studio inherently aware of the common metadata that is
shared across the various applications enterprise wide.
Essbase Studio supports several drill-through options: relational databases, OBIEE, BI+ reports,
URLs, Essbase applications (drill across), custom SQL, and Java methods. Essbase Studio also
supports lineage tracking through a rich graphical view of metadata relationships, allowing users to
follow application lineages to their metadata components and through to the data sources from which
they were sourced.

Spreadsheet Add-in
Spreadsheet Add-in integrates Essbase with Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheet Add-in adds the Essbase
menu to Excel, which provides enhanced commands such as Connect, Pivot, Drill-down, and
Calculate. Users can access and analyze data on Essbase Server with mouse clicks and dragging
operations. Spreadsheet Add-in enables multiple users to access and update data on an Essbase
Server simultaneously.

Visual Explorer
Oracle Essbase Visual Explorer provides a query and analysis interface for creating interactive
summaries and reports about the data in an Essbase database. You can choose to visualize data in
various graphical formats, including bars, lines, Gantt bars, shapes, colors, and tables.
Visual Explorer is installed with and accessed from Spreadsheet Add-in.

Data Mining
Data Mining reveals hidden relationships and patterns in your data, enabling you to make better
business decisions. Using Data Mining, you can plug in various data mining algorithms, build models,
and apply them to existing Essbase applications and databases.

Integration Services
Oracle Essbase Integration Servicesan optional product componentprovides a metadata-driven
environment to bridge the gap between data stored in Essbase databases and detailed data stored in
relational databases. The Hybrid Analysis feature gives business users more detail for decision-

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making and IT managers more modularity in designing and maintaining large-scale analytic
applications. Hybrid Analysis allows portions of Essbase databases to be stored in a relational
database. This relational-stored data is mapped to the appropriate Essbase hierarchies.

Provider Services
Provider Services is a middle-tier data-source provider to Essbase for Java API, Smart View, and
XMLA clients. Provider Services supports highly concurrent analytical scenarios and provides
scalability and reliability in a distributed Web-enabled enterprise environment.

Smart View
Smart View provides a common Microsoft Office interface for Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Financial
Management, Fusion Edition, Oracle Hyperion Planning, Fusion Edition, and Oracle Enterprise
Performance Management Workspace, Fusion Edition data. Using Smart View, you can view, import,
manipulate, distribute, and share data in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint interfaces.

Application Programming Interface (API)

Essbase APIthe developers interface to Essbaseenables you to create customized applications.
The Oracle Essbase API Reference provides a complete listing of API functions, platforms, and
supported compilers.

Developer Products
Essbase developer products enable the rapid creation, management, and deployment of tailored
enterprise analytic applications, whether or not users have programming knowledge.
The products (for example, Application Builder and Oracle's Hyperion Application Builder for .NET)
provide a comprehensive set of application programming interfaces, drag-and-drop components, and
services.

Smart Search
Smart Search integrates with leading enterprise search solutions such as Google Search Appliance
and Oracle Secure Enterprise Search to provide a familiar search interface. Using simple business
terminology, users can obtain structured information from Essbase applications and databases.
Information that has been filtered according to user privileges is delivered in data grids and live links
in Smart View. Oracle Hyperion Smart Search, Fusion Edition greatly enhances the way in which
users can quickly get to information contained within Oracle applications.

EPM System Lifecycle Management

Lifecycle Management provides a consistent way for Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance
Management System products to migrate an application, a repository, or individual artifacts across
product environments and operating systems. Generally, the Lifecycle Management interface in
Oracle's Hyperion Shared Services Console is consistent for all EPM System products that support
Lifecycle Management. However, EPM System products display different artifact listings and export
and import options in the Lifecycle Management interface.
Lifecycle Management features:
Viewing applications and folders
Searching for artifacts
Comparing applications and folders
Migrating directly from one application to another
Migrating to and from the file system
Saving and loading migration definition files

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Viewing selected artifacts

Auditing migrations
Viewing the status of migrations
Importing and exporting individual artifacts for quick changes on the file system
In addition to providing the Lifecycle Management interface in Shared Services Console, there is a
command-line utility called Lifecycle Management Utility that provides an alternate way to migrate
artifacts from source to destination. The Lifecycle Management Utility can be used with a third-party
scheduling service such as Windows Task Scheduler or Oracle Enterprise Manager.
Lastly, there is a Lifecycle Management Application Programming Interface (API) that enables users
to customize and extend the Lifecycle Management functionality.
For detailed information about Lifecycle Management, see the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise
Performance Management System Lifecycle Management Guide.

Key Features
Integration with Existing Infrastructure
Essbase products integrate with your existing business intelligence infrastructure. Essbase products
meet the enterprise analytic demands of users for critical business information with a minimum of
information technology (IT) overhead, and therefore enable organizations to realize maximum return
on their existing IT investments:
Provides an extensible architecture
Supports a comprehensive range of data sources, hardware and operating system platforms,
access interfaces, and development languages
Enables analytic applications to be deployed across a local or wide area network and across an
intranet or Internet

Data Integration
Essbase products enable organizations to leverage data in their data warehouses, legacy systems,
online transaction processing (OLTP) systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems,
e-business systems, customer relationship management (CRM) applications, Web log files and other
external data sources. For database integration, Integration Services provides a suite of graphical
tools, data integration services, and a metadata catalog that tie into relational databases or data
warehouse environments.

Ease of Server and Database Administration

Essbase products provide a cross-platform administration console. The console gives you detailed
control over the Essbase environment:
You can manage multiple servers and databases.
You can use MaxL, a syntactical language command shell with a PERL extension module, to
automate batch maintenance.

Mission Critical Applications in Web-based Environments

A middle-tier framework extends the power of Essbase products by creating a Web-enabled,
distributed platform for Essbase applications, hence serving the analysis needs of large numbers of
users in Web-based environments. Provider Services provides clustering and failover support,
extending the scalability and reliability of the platform, and supports mission-critical applications in a
24 x 7 environment.

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Powerful Querying
Large communities of business users can interact with data in real time to quickly analyze business
performance. Using Essbase products, you can organize and present data along familiar business
dimensions, enabling users to view and explore the data intuitively and turn it into actionable
information.

Calculations
Essbase includes powerful calculation features for demanding analytic requirements. A rich library of
functions makes it easy to define advanced and sophisticated business logic and relationships.
Essbase gives users the flexibility to build, customize, and extend the calculator through customdefined macros and functions, as well as the ability to span calculations across databases. On
multiprocessor systems, a DBA can configure a single calculation request to use multiple threads to
accomplish the calculation, providing enhanced calculation speed.
Aggregate storage databases provide an alternative to block storage databases and enable dramatic
improvements in database aggregation time for certain types of applications.

Write-Back and Security

Essbase provides unique multi-user read and write capabilities, including data update and multi-user
recalculation. Business users with front-end tools can write data back to a server and recalculate the
data on a server using calculation scriptskey functionality to support sophisticated modeling and
planning applications.
The robust, multilevel security model provides server-, database-, and cell-level security. Full control
of data access, views, and write capabilities are managed through administration. Oracle's
Hyperion Shared Services provides integration with external authentication systems, such as
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

Ease of Development
Essbase offers many key advantages to help users develop effective multidimensional applications.
Users can:
Design and manage applications using a graphical interface to control most server functions.
Quickly add dimensions, change calculations, and modify hierarchies to reflect new business
developments. In addition, the dynamic dimension builder automatically defines and
dynamically loads large amounts of data, including data from spreadsheets, flat files, and
supported relational database tables directly into a database.
Define key calculations without having to write a program.
Define security for individuals and groups and customize views and retrieval procedures for
each user without writing a program.

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