15 July 2003

According to Igor Machin, the post 9.2.0.3 patch for Oracle 9i is now due in August / September. Groan :-) The new Analytic Workspace functionality in OWB9.2 and OWB9.0.4 relies on this, as does the forthcoming Analytic Workspace Manager add-in for OEM. I've been waiting for this patch for around twelve months now; without this functionality in OWB and OEM, there's no way to create and populate analytic workspaces without resorting to Express code. Until this functionality is build into some easy to use GUI tools, usage of 9i OLAP is going to be held back. Here's hoping they finally get the patch out in time for the UKOUG in December, as it's central to a couple of presentations i've put forward for the conference. We planned to show off this functionality last year, but unfortunately it wasn't ready in time. Let's hope it gets delivered soon, as an end-to-end Oracle via OWB to 9i OLAP demonstration would be pretty compelling. 6:22:32 PM

Some interesting feedback on a couple of recent postings to the weblog; Connell, who's advice I quoted the other day on Oracle Discoverer, replied back to me after I mailed him regarding his postings. Connell used to work in Oracle's BI&W practice, on Oracle Discoverer, and now works as an Oracle Applications DBA. It was good to hear from him. I've also had a mail from Matthew White, who followed my instructions on setting up an iPAQ to work with Bluetooth and GPRS. Matthew has the same setup as this but found that he needed to slightly alter the connection string I quoted to get it to work. I've updated the instructions to reflect Matthew's findings. 5:41:17 PM

I'm working away at the moment on a project involving a data warehouse, using Oracle 9i, Oracle 9iAS, Oracle Express Server and Express Web Agent. Detail level data is held in the Oracle 9i data warehouse, with data then being summarised and aggregated in an Express Server multidimensional database. Oracle Reports is then used to produce JSPs, which are published as reports portlets using Oracle Portal, to deliver KPIs through a central BI 'Home Page', with more in-depth ad-hoc analysis being provided through Express Web Agent, and Oracle Discoverer. It's an interesting project that uses the full range of Oracle BI&W tools. The hotel we're staying in has free wireless internet access :-) although unfortunately only in the hotel lobby; they've switched it off in the rooms to encourage you to use a 'wired' chargeable service where you plug a supplied RJ45 cable into the laptop's network interface. The rooms have also got a TiVO-like service where you can watch films, pause and rewind whatever you're watching, and view the internet through the TV screen. It's an interesting project, firstly in the way that 9iAS is a central part of the architecture and secondly that it requires close and careful integration between the relational dimensional model and the Express multidimensional model. Express is much more flexible that Oracle when dealing with skip-level and ragged hierarchies (Oracle requires you to create lots of 'dummy levels'), and it works with a parent-child level model rather than the flat level model used by Oracle relational dimensions. We're also planning to use OWB9.2 on this project, rather than OWB9.0.4, as 9.2 has quite a few 'bug-fixes' for issues found in 9.0.4, together with a new mapping debugger. As we get to use the tool more, i'll come back with some observations and best practice. 5:35:26 PM