Rittman Mead Blog - Data Warehousing

You Probably Need Parallel Except When You Don't

My last post looked at some aspects of performance tuning that would make traditional DBAs blanche with horror, not once did I mention indexing, partitioning, PCTFREE or parallel. This was not because I don't consider them important, but more that the simple test of "am I doing

Technical

Tuning Philosophy - Tuning the Right Thing

My second presentation at this year's RMOUG Training Days was on tuning "realtime data warehouses"; as usual, this paper is now on the Rittman Mead Articles page [http://rittmanmead.com/files/RMOUG2013%20Realtime%20tuning.pdf]. Perhaps more accurately my talk was more about my tuning philosophy

Technical

Using OBIEE against Transactional Schemas Part 4: Complex Dimensions

You guessed it... more on transactional schemas. For a quick recap, here are the posts to date: Using OBIEE against Transactional Schemas Part 1: Introduction [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2012/06/using-obiee-against-transactional-schemas-part-1-introduction/] Using OBIEE against Transactional Schemas Part 2: Aliases [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2012/08/using-obiee-against-transactional-schemas-part-2-aliases/] Using

Technical

The PIVOT Clause is Only for Aggregates

We briefly interrupt the transactional schemas [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2012/06/using-obiee-against-transactional-schemas-part-1-introduction/] series for this important message: the PIVOT clause of SELECT is only for aggregates! When Oracle added the PIVOT and UNPIVOT operators in Database 11g, at first, I was hopeful. It certainly scratched an itch that

Technical

Using OBIEE against Transactional Schemas Part 2: Aliases

It seems like a different life when I posted the introduction to reporting against transactional schemas [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2012/06/using-obiee-against-transactional-schemas-part-1-introduction/] . Since that time, we've had some exciting new customers come aboard, which has required a lot of my time (and which I have been

Technical

Using OBIEE against Transactional Schemas Part 1: Introduction

What’s the pervasive myth surrounding the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) product suite? OBIEE is only useful for reporting against star schemas. It’s true that the Business Model and Mapping (BMM) layer in OBIEE always presents a dimensional model, or star schema, to report developers, but our

Technical

Extreme BI: Capturing Change with Oracle GoldenGate and ODI: Part 2 (Implementation)

In my previous post [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2012/04/capturing-change-goldengate-odi-intro], I provided an introduction to the Extreme BI approach to change data capture from Source → Staging Layer and Source → Foundation Layer. I described the Oracle Next-Generation Reference DW Architecture and how we plan to implement an appropriate solution

Technical

Extreme BI: Capturing Change with Oracle GoldenGate and ODI : Part 1 (Introduction)

Before I jump into the first of two posts discussing change data capture with Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator 11g, I would like to first introduce myself. My name is Michael Rainey and I am the newest member of the Rittman Mead America team, joining just last month as

Technical

Tuning Philosophy - Hints

This week Stewart, Mark and I are at Collaborate 12 in Las Vegas - look us out if you are at the conference. Long flights (it's about 10 hours from the UK to Las Vegas) give me plenty of blogging time so I decided to write a few

Technical

Basket Analysis in the Oracle Database

Last time [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2012/03/statistical-analysis-in-the-database/] I gave a taster of my forthcoming Collaborate 12 talk on techniques beyond the traditional "slice and dice" that we know so well. I wrote mainly about the ways in which we can perform statistical analysis on our

Business Insights

Statistical Analysis in the Database

My first ever presentation at the UKOUG conference (long before I started working with Mark Rittman and Jon Mead) was an introduction to analytic functions. Since then analytics have remained a key part of my work as a DW developer; many of the processes that I have implemented would be

Business Insights

Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE: ETL Iteration

This is the fourth entry in my series on Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE. To see all the previous posts, check theintroductory posting [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2011/12/agile-data-warehousing-with-exadata-and-obiee-introduction/] which I have updated with all the entries in the series. In the last post, I describe

Business Insights

Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE: Model-Driven Iteration

After laying the groundwork with anintroduction [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2011/12/agile-data-warehousing-with-exadata-and-obiee-introduction/] , and following up with a high-level description of the requiredpuzzle pieces [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2011/12/agile-exadata-obiee-puzzle-pieces/], it's time to get down to business and describe how Extreme BI works. At Rittman

Business Insights

Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE: Puzzle Pieces

In the previous post [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2011/12/agile-data-warehousing-with-exadata-and-obiee-introduction/] , I laid the groundwork for describing Extreme BI: a combination of Exadata and OBIEE delivered with an Agile spirit. I discussed that the usual approach to Agile data warehousing is not Agile at all due to the violation

Business Insights

Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE: Introduction

Over the last year, I've been speaking at conferences on one subject more than any others: Agile Data Warehousing with Exadata and OBIEE. Although I've been busy with client work and growing the US business, I realize I need to dedicate more time to blogging again,

Business Insights

More Notes on Right-Time BI

Over the past couple of years Stewart Bryson and I have been looking into things "right time" (or is that realtime?). It is great to have him around to trade ideas (and graphics for presentations!). Most of what we have been discussing has been about "traditional reporting&

Technical

Oracle Warehouse Builder and Data Integrator

Sometimes, when I am working with customers on data warehousing projects I am asked questions about Oracle Warehouse Builder and its future. I know no more on this than what I read in Oracle's reposted [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/data-integrator/overview/sod-1-134268.pdf] a statement of

Oracle BI Suite EE

Real-time BI: EDW with a Real-time Component

I apologize for the long delay in getting this last portion of the Real-time discussion in place. Since I wrote the first two installments, we've had the BI Forum (US and UK versions), plus a flurry of activity around Rittman Mead in the US, followed up by KScope11.

Technical

ODI 11g New Mapping and Interface Features - Part 3 - OBIEE Lineage

In the first two parts of this min-series, I looked at the new mapping and interface features with ODI 11.1.1.3 [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2011/06/odi-11g-new-mapping-and-interface-features-part-1/], and yesterday I took a look at Load Plans [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2011/06/odi-11g-new-mapping-and-interface-features-part-2-load-plans/] , a new

Technical

ODI 11g New Mapping and Interface Features - Part 2 - Load Plans

Yesterday I posted on the blog an overview of some of the new interface (mapping) features in the original, 11.1.1.3 release of Oracle Data Integrator 11g [https://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2011/06/odi-11g-new-mapping-and-interface-features-part-1/]. In today's posting, I'm going to look at the

Technical

ODI 11g New Mapping and Interface Features - Part 1

About a year or so ago I posted an entry on this blog highlighting the new architectural features of Oracle Data Integrator 11g [http://www.rittmanmead.com/blog/2010/09/odi-11g-now-available-for-download/]. At the time, I talked about the new user interface, integration with WebLogic Server and Enterprise Manager, and how

Business Insights

Data Warehouse Global Leaders Forum, Athens

Mark and I have just spent the last couple of days at the DW Global Leaders Forum in Athens. The DW Global Leaders Forum is an Oracle-run customer program that connects a number of EMEA Data Warehouse clients with each other, Oracle and a small number of partners. The main

Technical

Not The Only 11.1.1.5.0 In Town

Just a short posting to mention that earlier this month Oracle released version 11.1.1.5.0 of Data Integrator Look out for more Rittman Mead postings on ODI over the coming months

Business Insights

Real-time BI: Federated OLTP/EDW Reporting

The typical approach in Federated OLTP/EDW reporting environments is to use a BI tool such as OBIEE to do horizontal federation. This means combining data from multiple sources at the same grain in a single logical table. One note of clarification: my use of the word "federated"

Oracle BI Suite EE

Real-time BI: An Introduction

Discussing real-time data warehousing is difficult because the meaning of real-time is dependent on context. A CIO of an organization that has weekly batch refresh processes might view an up-to-the-day dashboard as real-time, while another organization that already has daily refresh cycles might be looking for something closer to up-to-the-hour.