Creating Cube Views

Many implementations require the ability to extract and analyze complex sets of data in a way that is simple to visualize and supports business or organizational decision making. A common model for performing this type of analysis is a multi-dimensional array, often referred to as a data cube. Cube views allow data to be represented in a way that provides the user with multiple perspectives of the results.

Although called a "cube", a cube view can have two, three or a higher number of dimensions. Each dimension represents some attribute in the database and the cells in the data cube represent a measure or value. For example, a cell could contain a count of the number of times that attribute combination occurs in the database, or the minimum, maximum, sum or average value of data related to that attribute. Queries are performed on the cube to retrieve information.

The framework provides objects to support the definition of data cubes and a flexible means of viewing them. The topics in this section provide information about what is supplied in the framework to assist in implementing a cube view. Your product may also supply out of the box support for relevant use cases. Refer to your product documentation for more information.