Dense or Sparse - Part 1

Dense or Sparse 1:

Undoubtedly, it’s the world of ASO. But, BSO is not dead. In the initial days of cube designing, one would always say to himself .
“This looks like dense, hmm, may be sparse …I am not sure”

After this topic of my blog, I’ll try to reduce the number of people questioning this one.

I have always been told by many that I explain things from basics. The same goes here too.
First, we’ll spend some time on dimensional model.
No, don’t close the window right now .I mean, only 2 terms of dimensional model.
I shall talk of
FACT
DIMENSION.

Ex: The sales of Honda cars, in Charlotte of North Carolina, in the month of Jan of year 2008 are 5000.

Request all to re look at the above sentence and pull out the dimension names

In the first go, I can make out the following
1. Honda
2. Charlotte
3. Jan

More scrutiny would give more details
4. Sales
5. 2008
6. 5000

Now, what are these numbers or names suggest .Lets try with the names of dimensions

1. Products (from Honda)
2. Place (from charlotte)
3. Time (from Jan)
4. Sales (let it be this way, for some time)
5. Time (from 2008 year)
6. 5000 (this is the number, which is of sales)

Now, let’s refine it further.
Products
Place
Time
Sales

Lets assume that -
There might be more products i.e. Honda, GM, merc
Place, In US, North Carolina is a state and charlotte is one of the cities
Time, this one has a year , quarter , month ..Etc

Now, the final outline can be made with the limited knowledge which we had gained from the above

-Time
-Q1
-Q2
-Q3
-Place
-States
-North carolina
-Charlotte
-Sales (Lets keep is the same , for some more time )

This looks near to our outline.

Fact table contents are the ones, which a user/analyst/decision maker is interested to look at, and understand the business of his company.
The fact table content, when seen against other dimensions ( in our case , time , place , product) gives a user more information about his company.

I.e. Sales in a place, in the month of XYZ for a product.

Now, we are clear with FACT and DIMENSION and what fills them in a dimensional model

Coming to the DENSE, SPARSE, this is our focus
Generally, Dense has contents of fact table and sparse has the rest of dimensions.
To elaborate, Sales is the one, which is a measure/ metric which a typical user would be interested to know of his company.

If you had looked at the definition given in the DBAG (our Bhagvathgeetha) , it says that it has the maximum probability of occurance .

Now ,its easy to interpret that , we might ask questions like

Sales of Honda in Jan
Sales of GM in New jersey
Sales of Honda in 2000

We would be posing questions like
Honda in jan in New Jersey…? And what …can’t even make a question from user’s perspective

Thus, ‘sales’ as a dimension member has max probability of occurrence.
Hence, it’s a dense member and other dimensions like Place, Time , Product are sparse .

I shall continue this post with topic
DENSE OR SPARSE 2..

Questions feed back , I invite

I invite blog topics too ,as this topic is also made on demand and need basis.
Hope it helps


Sandeep Reddy Enti

Is Hyperion Certification easy to clear ,do i have advantage in terms of job or , Do i get interview call if I am certified

Is Hyperion Certification easy to clear ,do i have advantage in terms of job or , Do i get interview call if I am certified
I come across these question from aspiring Hyperion professonals. My advice to them is not to veiw hyperion certification as a ticket to your job , nor the one, which can impact your appraisal
Professionals ,who have worked in an industry, in a domain and had spent substantial amount of time meddling with a hyperion tool , and want to check whether they are good enough to the Hyperion tool ,are the eligible people to can take the certification.
Another common question , Is HCC in demand or HCD? Let me clear one thing here , HCD suits to the professionals who have programming experience and work on development part of Hyperion projects .
Coming to the HCC, these professionals are the ones ,who go to clients , interview them , understand the business , its requirements and provide solutions .They are active in design phase. This needs more experience than just programming.
Hence, if professionals want to take these certifications , then HCD followed by HCC is an ideal order .
For beginners , i would request them to gain some real time experience .Dont plan certification ,based on your PDF and freely downloaded software /work experience .There is a lot of difference . One might clear certifications , but that would misguide the industry ,when you get edge over experienced and worthy Hyperion professionals

Sandeep Reddy Enti

Is Essbase for me?...Where do I start learning Essbase?

Is essbase for me to study? Is essbase hot in the market? Does essbase has future? I am from XYZ background, I want to learn Essbase, Is it for me? …..

I have been encountering these questions now and then. Essbase is an OLAP tool. I have seen many who hardly have understood OLAP as a concept (at least, the definition of it) but are working on Essbase.

I would fit a guy ideal to work on essbase as someone who has a technical computer science background, had worked on one of the relational databases (it might be oracle, SQL server, DB2 ...or any), warehouse conceptual clarity, and the location of OLAP in the architecture of its design, who know the industry which he works, and understands the importance of conversion of data into information. Last but most important, who is willing to agree that Business and IT go hand-in-hand, and IT is the enabler.

These are few traits, if one already has, can enter into the world of essbase with ease. There are other aspirants, who don’t have technical, complementing background, and had never worked on any database but are impressed by the OLAP technology and willing to contribute to the world of it ,and they are interested to start with this tool. For few ,it might be an obligation ,as their job demands them to work on this tool. For them, who are about to start and stand at the cross roads, and confused with the multitude of ways available to start learning this tool .I have some information.

First, realize the objective of an OLAP and how big, the role, it plays in the Decision science of any company. Understand the importance of data warehouse, and why does one need OLAP and where does it fit in. Technically, what skills are required as a pre-requisite to learn essbase. Answer to these, concepts of any database, minimal programming understanding...if you are sure of them, kick off.

Finally, before I conclude I have a request to all, when they start reading the material of essbase of any OLAP tool for that matter you need to imagine two important things
1. Imagine how exactly the essbase technically works Ex: When some one loads data into a cube, he has to imagine as a yellow content filled in that cubes Ex2: If FIX statement is written in a script, then he needs to imagine a cube , with only the fixed content is taking part in the operation or transaction
2. Try to co-relate every technical change with the requirement of the user. Always imagine a user sitting in front of your report made by your OLAP logic trying to make a sense and decision based on it. This decision made based on your report will eventually change the face of his company.

Any question/enquiry, mail me