Business Intelligence Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will:
- Create an OLAP model, which is a logical structure that
describes your overall business plan. The model takes the form of a
star schema which represents the relationships between its
components with a star-like structure. At the center of the star schema
is a fact table, which contains the actual data that you want to
analyze, such as product sales figures. Radiating from the fact table
are the dimension tables which contain data that define the OLAP dimensions,
such as account numbers, months, product names, and so on. One or just
a few OLAP models can represent most or all aspects of your business.
In the scenario of this tutorial, you will create an OLAP model that covers
most of your business, The Beverage Company (TBC). Because you are
creating a new model, you are not using the star schema you created in Lesson 16, Creating a star schema from within the Data Warehouse Center.
- Create an OLAP metaoutline, which is generally a subset of the
model that you use to create an OLAP application. The idea is to create
one or a few OLAP models, from which you can create many metaoutlines, each of
which can look at a specific aspect of your business. Metaoutlines
describe how the multidimensional database outline will look to the OLAP
user. You can tailor the scope of a metaoutline by selecting which
dimensions will be visible to OLAP users, and by setting filters that
determine what data is retrieved. In the tutorial, you will create a
metaoutline that is specific to the sales data in the Central states region of
the TBC company..
- Load and calculate your data to create an OLAP
application. An OLAP application contains data structured by an
Essbase outline, or template, that is based on the
metaoutline.
- Take a brief look at the other components of the DB2 OLAP Integration
Server.
After you have finished the tutorial and created the OLAP application, you
can analyze the TBC sales data from the Central states region using either the
Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet programs. See the OLAP
Spreadsheet Add-in User's Guide for 1-2-3 or OLAP Spreadsheet Add-in User's Guide for Excel for more information.
The DB2 OLAP Integration Server desktop contains the following
components:
- The OLAP Model interface is a full-function tool for creating OLAP
models. The DB2 OLAP Integration Server also includes an OLAP Model
Assistant, which guides you to create a simple OLAP model. The OLAP
Model Assistant does not have all the function of the full OLAP Model
interface. The lessons in this tutorial show how to use the
Assistant.
- The OLAP Metaoutline interface is a full-function tool for creating OLAP
metaoutlines. The DB2 OLAP Integration Server also includes an OLAP
Metaoutline Assistant, which guides you to create a simple OLAP
metaoutline. The OLAP Metaoutline Assistant does not have all the
function of the full OLAP Metaoutline interface. The lessons in this
tutorial show how to use the Assistant.
- With the Administration Manager tool you can perform simple OLAP database
administration tasks such as exporting data to the Data Warehouse, managing
storage, and creating new users and granting them access to
applications. See the OLAP Integration Server Administrator's
Guide for more information.
[ Top of Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Table of Contents ]