Essbase Is Music To My Ears

Take an informal poll of your fellow Business Intelligence (BI) associates. You may be surprised how many are also musicians. Guitarists, pianists and drummers lurk beneath their surface. I fall into this category. We can't be a Beatle, so instead we let BI applications rock our world.

Designing a successful Essbase cube is like playing a beautiful song:

• One has an established structure to follow (verse, chorus, bridge). The other has the structure of outlines, dimensional hierarchies and load rules.

• One has 4 beats to a measure (mostly) to create balance. The other requires its financial numbers to balance to their source.

• One allows us to venture out a bit and improvise. The other allows for creativity such as shared member rollups, custom formulas and more efficient calc scripts.

Essbase technology advancements (aggregate storage, System 9, version 11x) mimic the tremendous advances in music recording technology (Apple's GarageBand, digital audio workstations, Auto-Tune?). We now have a lot of computing power at our fingertips. How it's used separates a great song or database from a bad one. Harmony from dissonance. Making your cube sing requires a lot of listening (to user requirements), practice (designing solutions) and a light touch.
It takes many orchestral instruments to play a score. Likewise, Essbase is one of many players in the Oracle product suite. Make these products work together in concert and we have our own little BI symphony.

Essbase brings music to my ears. How about you?