The future of Essbase: Hybrid database format

Essbase Hybrid
by Hyperionconsultant.be
for Essbase Administrators

hyperionconsultant.be
Cloudshill Consulting is an independent contractor business focusing
on the Benelux market on offering project and pre/post-project
consulting services in EPM software.
Read more on hyperionconsultant.be
hyperionconsultant.be 2017 © Cloudshill Consulting

Agenda
• History Essbase
• Existing types of database
• Why a new type of database?
• What is Hybrid?
• Concept & Limitations of Hybrid
• Practically

History of Essbase
• 1991 – Arbor software - Essbase (Extended Spread Sheet Database) - BSO
• 1998 – Hyperion buys Arbor
• 2005 – Introduction of ASO (14 years after BSO)
• 2007 – Oracle buys Hyperion
• 2014 – Introduction of Hybrid (9 years after ASO)

Existing types of database
BSO ASO
Calculation scripts
Lots of functionality and calculations options
Unrestricted dimension setup
“Popular” with administrators
Write data at any level (0 or higher)
“Small” dbs only
Not very scalable
Consolidation can run for hours
Attributes dimensions make it slow
Quite big, lots of disk space needed
• Huge volumes of data
• Lots of dimensions
• Immediate consolidation available, no action needed
• Compact, not too much disk space
• Limitations on dimension setup (shared members, types
of hierarchies)
• MDX is more complex that calc scripts
• Write data only to level 0

Why something new?
• Hybrid Database
• First release
• 11.1.2.3.500 – May 2014
• First update
• 11.1.2.4 – February 2015
Keep from both BSO and ASO
Remove from both BSO and ASO
MIX of both =
Oracle want to simplify Essbase!
Away from technical complexities

Hybrid Database
• The Oracle vision on the future of Essbase
• A radical new product development
• Long term:
• Hybrid will become the default database
• BSO and ASO stop to exist (!?)
• Mid long term
• Hybrid will replace BSO (as some limitations still exist)
• Now
• Hybrid works and is available but with limitations

Hybrid Concept
• Complicated design decisions (e.g. tuning , block size and dimension setup
choices) are becoming less important
• Looks and behaves as a BSO database
.. for both user and admin
.. but ..
• With a fast ASO based consolidation technique
• BSO storage of data at level-0
• Multi Db’s under 1 application (mixing types)
• BSO blocks are loaded in temp hybrid tablespace (à la ASO)
• Not all BSO formulae are already supported in Hybrid, but they can run against
BSO

Final yet? Limitations
• Oracle is gradually implementing more and more BSO features
• Hybrid does not support calculation scripts but they can be
executed in BSO
• Evolution on integration
11.1.2.3.500 11.1.2.4
Calc scripts Against BSO Against BSO
Supported Functions 16 +/- 130
Cross Dimension x->y->z Not supported Not supported
Data export Against BSO engine Against BSO engine

Current Function Limitation
Not supported in 11.1.2.4
Allocations @ALLOCATE
Financial @DISCOUNT @IRR
Multidimensional @MDSHIFT @MDALLOCATE
Hierarchy @ANCESTVAL @PARENTVAL
Movement @MOVAVG @MOVSUMX
Current Member @CURRMBR @CURRMBRRANGE
Trans Database @XREF @XWRITE
Block @CREATEBLOCK

Under the hood
Hybrid for Essbase Administrators

Activate Hybrid
• Essbase configuration file :
• Add option:
• ASODYNAMICAGGINBSO full / partial / none
• full : ASO style (aggregations + calculations)
• partial : Aso limited aggregations only + but
BSO calculations
• Syntax
• Activate for whole server
• Or for an application
• Or for a database

Convert BSO into Hybrid
• Outline:
• Setting parent levels sparse members to dynamic calc
• Setting at application and only restarting the application is ok

Hybrid Architecture
• Hybrid is ASO viewed through a BSO lens. If Essbase Hybrid is a car, then the
body looks BSO with an ASO engine
• You find BSO: blocks, dense and sparse
• You do not find ASO: no solve order, compression of dimensions
• Dynamic calc is on => ASO aggregations
• ASO is default engine with failover to BSO. Application log:
• Hybrid Aggregation Mode disabled
• Hybrid Aggregation Mode enabled

Directories
• Double directory structure (à la BSO and à la ASO)

Directories
• ASO style
• Tablespace are created on database startup
• Tablespaces are deleted after application stop

BSO style parts in Hybrid
• BSO files are there:
• .otl file
• .dat & .ind files
• .rul files
• Data loads, Smartview data
• Go to BSO
• Calculation order is the BSO Calculation order
• Tuning of Hybrid is done via the BSO properties.

ASO style parts in Hybrid
• ASO structure
• Default tablespace is not used
• TEMP tablespace is used to read in BSO blocks
• No ASO tuning parameters anymore
• No aggregated views

Hybrid: ASO and BSO together
• BSO data blocks contain level 0 data
• ASO Calculation engine loads blocks into temp workspace
• Set a solve order that mimics BSO calculation order
• Dynamically writes mdx to perform calculations
• If the ASO query processor is not able to execute the query, then
the BSO query is launched
-2hyperionconsultant.be 2017 © Cloudshill Consulting

When to use
• Big BSO db’s.
• Keep BSO calculations but aggregate in ASO
• Advantages
• No more calc dim or agg needed
• Smaller databases (backup, imports, move)
• Block size is less relevant as aggregations do not take place. Avoid limitation
of cross dims by big block
• Cache only needs to support level 0
-1hyperionconsultant.be 2017 © Cloudshill Consulting

Thanks

The future of Essbase: Hybrid database format

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Recently uploaded

The future of Essbase: Hybrid database format