Companies that seek to manage costs while increasing profitability must make decisions based on a timely analysis of accurate data. Oracle E-Business Suite is a complete set of business applications that runs entirely on the internet, enabling you to cut costs; increase revenues across front- and back-office functions; and access current, accurate, and consistent data.
One of the most interesting new features introduced with Oracle 9i was the OLAP Option, which brought the analytic capabilities previously found in Oracle Express Server into the Oracle database kernel. Primarily used for business intelligence and data warehousing applications, the Oracle 9i OLAP option allowed users to analyse their data using powerful multidimensional queries, storing their data in either relational or multidimensional datatypes to suit the volumes and nature of their data.
The first release of the Oracle OLAP option included a whole range of new features and capabilities, which are now being successfully implemented by business intelligence customers and partners, and many existing Oracle Express customers have now migrated their applications from the Express Server platform to Oracle 9i.
Now, with Oracle 10g due for release at the end of 2003, this article looks forward to some of the new features planned for Oracle 10g OLAP, as recently announced at the OracleWorld event in San Francisco.
One of the new features in Oracle 9i was Oracle Data Mining, a data mining engine which allowed data analysts and application developers to perform a range of data mining algorithms on data held in the Oracle database. Oracle 9i came with a number of mining algorithms, such as Adaptive Bayes Networks, Clustering and Association Rules, together with a Java API to allow ODM functions to be included in Java applications.
One of the most interesting presentations given at the UKOUG Reporting Tools & BIW Special Event that was held March 18th 2004 was a preview of the next generation of Oracle Discoverer, known by the codename 'Drake'. Oracle haven't officially released details of Discoverer Drake at the time of writing (April 2004), but it's possible to now obtain an overall picture of what the product is likely to look like.
Keith Laker gave a presentation at the last Oracleworld in San Francisco, that amongst other things set out some of the new features coming with BI Beans 10g Release 2.
Oracle Discoverer is an ad-hoc query tool used for reporting and analysing data held in Oracle and other third-party databases. It presents data using business terms, allowing users to build reports by choosing data items from a business repository (known as the 'End User Layer), then dragging and dropping them onto a report using a 'point and click' interface. Oracle Discoverer allows users to create charts and graphs to go with their reports, and then to save and publish them for other users to view.
Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting provides finance and business managers with the right information and self-service tools to help them understand the business better, control the planning process, and tune plans to improve results. Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting is a key component of Oracle Corporate Performance Management, a comprehensive solution for improving performance across all facets of your business. Unlike many solutions that stand apart from your transaction systems and require additional software, hardware, implementation & integration, Oracle Corporate Performance Management is core to the Oracle E-Business Suite – one solution, one data model, one view of your business.
This update provides details on the forthcoming releases of Oracle's BI&DW products, including the 10.1.0.3 release of Oracle 10g, OWB 'Paris', AWM2, Discoverer 'Drake', the OLAP Excel Add-in, Oracle BI Beans and Enterprise Planning & Budgeting.