Preface

The Oracle9i OLAP User's Guide describes how to use Oracle OLAP for business analysis. It introduces the concepts underlying analytical applications and multidimensional querying, and the tools used for application development and system administration.

This preface contains these topics:

Audience

This guide is intended for application developers and database administrators who perform the following tasks:

Administer a database
Build and maintain data warehouses or data marts
Define metadata
Develop analytical applications

To use this document, you need no prior knowledge of Oracle OLAP.

Organization

This document is organized in five parts.

Part 1: The Basics

Provides conceptual information of general interest to anyone planning to use Oracle OLAP.

Chapter 1, "Overview"

Explains the basics of using Oracle OLAP and related client software for analytical applications.

Chapter 2, "Manipulating Multidimensional Data"

Provides an overview of data manipulation using the OLAP DML.

Chapter 3, "Developing OLAP Applications"

Presents the rich development environment and the powerful tools that you can use to create OLAP applications.

Chapter 4, "Designing Your Database for OLAP"

Highlights some of the most important data warehousing concepts, and provides additional information that is specific to Oracle OLAP.

Chapter 5, "Creating OLAP Catalog Metadata"

Provides an overview of OLAP catalog metadata and the APIs for working with it.

Part II: "Administering Oracle OLAP"

Provides information for database administrators on administrative tasks associated with Oracle OLAP.

Chapter 6, "Administering Oracle OLAP"

Describes the various administrative tasks that are associated with Oracle OLAP.

Chapter 7, "OLAP Dynamic Performance Views"

Describes the relational views that contain performance data on Oracle OLAP.

Chapter 8, "OLAP_API_SESSION_INIT"

Describes the OLAP_API_SESSION_INIT package, which contains procedures for maintaining a configuration table of initialization parameters.

Chapter 9, "Creating an Analytic Workspace From Relational Tables"

Describes how to create an analytic workspace from data stored in relational tables, either using a utility or performing the steps manually. Describes the OLAP DML programs for creating an analytic workspace and for generating relational views of the workspace data.

Part III: "SQL Access Reference"

Provides information about SQL packages and procedures that either create relational views of multidimensional data or embed OLAP DML commands in their syntax.

Chapter 10, "DBMS_AW"

Contains reference information for the DBMS_AW package, which enables SQL programmers to issue OLAP DML statements against analytic workspace data.

Chapter 11, "OLAP_TABLE Function"

Describes how SQL programmers can use the OLAP_TABLE function in a SQL SELECT statement to query multidimensional data in an analytic workspace

Part IV: "OLAP Catalog Metadata API Reference"

Describes the OLAP catalog views and the PL/SQL packages for creating OLAP catalog metadata.

Chapter 12, "OLAP Catalog Union Views"

Describes the views that constitute the comprehensive read API to all the OLAP metadata (both CWM1 and CWM2) defined in the database.

Chapter 13, "OLAP Catalog (CWM2-Specific) Views"

Describes the views that constitute the read API to CWM2.

Chapter 14, "OLAP Catalog Analytic Workspace Views"

Describes the views that represent analytic workspace objects registered in the OLAP Catalog.

Chapter 15, "CWM2_OLAP_AW_ACCESS"

Describes procedures for creating views of workspace objects. The views can be used by standard SQL to access data stored in the analytic workspace, or to define OLAP metadata so that OLAP API applications can access the multidimensional objects.

Chapter 16, "CWM2_OLAP_PC_TRANSFORM"

Describes the procedure for converting a parent-child dimension table to an embedded-total dimension table.

Chapter 17, "CWM2_OLAP_DIMENSION"

Describes procedures for creating, dropping, and locking dimensions, and for setting general dimension properties.

Chapter 18, "CWM2_OLAP_DIMENSION_ATTRIBUTE"

Describes procedures for creating, dropping, and locking dimension attributes, and for setting general properties of dimension attributes.

Chapter 19, "CWM2_OLAP_HIERARCHY"

Describes procedures for creating, dropping, and locking hierarchies, and for setting general hierarchy properties.

Chapter 20, "CWM2_OLAP_LEVEL"

Describes procedures for creating, dropping, and locking levels, for adding levels to hierarchies, and for setting the general properties of levels.

Chapter 21, "CWM2_OLAP_LEVEL_ATTRIBUTE"

Describes a procedure for creating level attributes, associating them with dimension attributes, and for dropping, locking, and setting the general properties of level attributes.

Chapter 22, "CWM2_OLAP_CUBE"

Describes procedures for creating, dropping, and locking cubes, for adding dimensions to cubes, and for setting general properties of cubes.

Chapter 23, "CWM2_OLAP_MEASURE"

Describes procedures for creating, dropping, and locking measures, and for setting general properties of measures.

Chapter 24, "CWM2_OLAP_TABLE_MAP"

Describes procedures for mapping OLAP metadata entities to columns in your data warehouse dimension tables and fact tables.

Chapter 25, "CWM2_OLAP_AW_OBJECT"

Describes procedures for registering metadata in the OLAP catalog for data that is stored in an analytic workspace.

Chapter 26, "CWM2_OLAP_AW_MAP"

Describes procedures for mapping logical OLAP metadata entities to objects defined in analytic workspaces.

Chapter 27, "CWM_CLASSIFY"

Describes procedures for creating measure folders and populating them with measures.

Part V: "Creating Materialized Views for the OLAP API"

Explains how to create materialized views for queries for aggregate data from the OLAP API.

Chapter 28, "Developing a Summary Management Strategy"

Provides general information about summary management issues for the OLAP API.

Chapter 29, "Creating Dimension Materialized Views"

Explains how to create materialized views for dimensions.

Chapter 30, "Creating Fact Materialized Views With DBMS_ODM"

Explains how to use the DBMS_ODM package to create fact table materialized views in grouping set form.

Chapter 31, "Creating Fact Materialized Views With OLAP Summary Advisor"

Explains how to use OLAP Summary Advisor and the OLAPFACTVIEW package to create fact table materialized views in concatenated rollup form.

Appendix A, "Upgrading From Express Server"

Provides upgrading instructions and identifies some of the major differences between Oracle Express Server 6.3 and Oracle9i OLAP.

Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this documentation set. It describes:

Conventions in Text

We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

Convention	Meaning	Example
Bold	Bold typeface indicates terms that are defined in the text or terms that appear in a glossary, or both.	When you specify this clause, you create an index-organized table.
Italics	Italic typeface indicates book titles or emphasis.	Oracle9i Database Concepts Ensure that the recovery catalog and target database do not reside on the same disk.
`UPPERCASE monospace (fixed-width) font`	Uppercase monospace typeface indicates elements supplied by the system. Such elements include parameters, privileges, datatypes, RMAN keywords, SQL keywords, SQL*Plus or utility commands, packages and methods, as well as system-supplied column names, database objects and structures, usernames, and roles.	You can specify this clause only for a `NUMBER` column. You can back up the database by using the `BACKUP` command. Query the `TABLE_NAME` column in the `USER_TABLES` data dictionary view. Use the `DBMS_STATS`.`GENERATE_STATS` procedure.
`lowercase monospace (fixed-width) font`	Lowercase monospace typeface indicates executables, filenames, directory names, and sample user-supplied elements. Such elements include computer and database names, net service names, and connect identifiers, as well as user-supplied database objects and structures, column names, packages and classes, usernames and roles, program units, and parameter values. Note: Some programmatic elements use a mixture of UPPERCASE and lowercase. Enter these elements as shown.	Enter `sqlplus` to open SQL*Plus. The password is specified in the `orapwd` file. Back up the datafiles and control files in the `/disk1/oracle/dbs` directory. The `department_id`, `department_name`, and `location_id` columns are in the `hr.departments` table. Set the `QUERY_REWRITE_ENABLED` initialization parameter to `true.` Connect as `oe` user. The `JRepUtil` class implements these methods.
`lowercase italic monospace (fixed-width) font`	Lowercase italic monospace font represents placeholders or variables.	You can specify the `parallel_clause`. Run `U``old_release``.SQL` where `old_release` refers to the release you installed prior to upgrading.

Conventions in Code Examples

Code examples illustrate SQL, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, or other command-line statements. They are displayed in a monospace (fixed-width) font and separated from normal text as shown in this example:

SELECT username FROM dba_users WHERE username = 'MIGRATE';

The following table describes typographic conventions used in code examples and provides examples of their use.

Convention	Meaning	Example
[ ]	Brackets enclose one or more optional items. Do not enter the brackets.	`DECIMAL (``digits` `[ ,` `precision` `])`
{ }	Braces enclose two or more items, one of which is required. Do not enter the braces.	`{ENABLE \| DISABLE}`
\|	A vertical bar represents a choice of two or more options within brackets or braces. Enter one of the options. Do not enter the vertical bar.	`{ENABLE \| DISABLE}` `[COMPRESS \| NOCOMPRESS]`
`...`	Horizontal ellipsis points indicate either: That we have omitted parts of the code that are not directly related to the example That you can repeat a portion of the code	`CREATE TABLE ... AS` `subquery``;` `SELECT` `col1``,` `col2``, ... ,` `coln` `FROM employees;`
. . .	Vertical ellipsis points indicate that we have omitted several lines of code not directly related to the example.	SQL> SELECT NAME FROM V$DATAFILE; NAME /fsl/dbs/tbs_01.dbf /fs1/dbs/tbs_02.dbf . . . /fsl/dbs/tbs_09.dbf 9 rows selected.
Other notation	You must enter symbols other than brackets, braces, vertical bars, and ellipsis points as shown.	`acctbal NUMBER(11,2);` `acct CONSTANT NUMBER(4) := 3;`
`Italics`	Italicized text indicates placeholders or variables for which you must supply particular values.	`CONNECT SYSTEM/``system_password` `DB_NAME =` `database_name`
`UPPERCASE`	Uppercase typeface indicates elements supplied by the system. We show these terms in uppercase in order to distinguish them from terms you define. Unless terms appear in brackets, enter them in the order and with the spelling shown. However, because these terms are not case sensitive, you can enter them in lowercase.	`SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;` `SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES;` `DROP TABLE hr.employees;`
`lowercase`	Lowercase typeface indicates programmatic elements that you supply. For example, lowercase indicates names of tables, columns, or files. Note: Some programmatic elements use a mixture of UPPERCASE and lowercase. Enter these elements as shown.	`SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;` `sqlplus hr/hr` `CREATE USER mjones IDENTIFIED BY ty3MU9;`

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