Introduction to Hyperion Essbase

This chapter introduces Hyperion Essbase and describes the Hyperion Essbase environment. Hyperion Essbase is a multidimensional database server that is optimized for planning, analysis, and management reporting applications. You can access Hyperion Essbase from a spreadsheet or custom interface on a desktop computer or on a workstation. Managers, analysts, and executives can see useful information on demand with Hyperion Essbase.

This chapter contains the following sections:

About the Hyperion Essbase Product Family

The Hyperion Essbase product family includes the following feature sets:

Hyperion Essbase Application Manager
A graphical environment for developing and maintaining Hyperion Essbase applications. Tasks include building outlines and dimensions, performing data loads and calculations, and defining security access.
Hyperion Essbase OLAP Server
A multidimensional database for storing data with an unlimited number of dimensions, such as time, accounts, region, channel, or product. The Hyperion Essbase server manages analytical data models, data storage, calculations, and data security.
Hyperion Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in
Desktop software enables analysis of the data stored in the Hyperion Essbase server. Hyperion Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets.
Hyperion Essbase application tools
A suite of tools for extending Hyperion Essbase applications. These tools include Hyperion Essbase Currency Conversion, Hyperion Essbase SQL Interface, Hyperion Essbase Spreadsheet Toolkit, and Hyperion Essbase API.
Hyperion Essbase Partitioning
A suite of features that makes it easy to design and administer databases that span Hyperion Essbase applications or servers. You can copy a slice of a large database to work with locally, or you can link from your database directly to other databases.

Multidimensional Development Features

Hyperion Essbase offers many key advantages to help you develop effective multidimensional applications:

Hyperion Essbase requires no knowledge of query languages and minimal programming experience. You can design and manage applications using a graphical interface to control most server functions.

You can add dimensions, change calculations, and modify hierarchies to reflect new business developments. The dynamic dimension builder automatically defines and dynamically loads large amounts of data. You can load spreadsheets, flat files, and SQL tables directly into the database.

Hyperion Essbase contains over 100 analytical functions, all of which operate on very large data sets. You can perform key analytical functions, such as trend analysis, ratios, and allocations, without programming. You can define calculations quickly by using pre-defined functions for depreciation, variances, and other common formulas.

Hyperion Essbase provides secure data views and limits access to unauthorized areas. You can define security for individuals and groups and customize views and retrieval procedures for each user without programming.

Hyperion Essbase is easy to deploy and supports standard applications, operating systems, and networking protocols.

Architectural Features of Hyperion Essbase

Hyperion Essbase incorporates powerful architectural features to handle a wide range of analytic applications across large multi-user environments.

Dynamic Dimensionality

The Hyperion Essbase server uses a method called dynamic dimensionality for storing and retrieving data and for optimizing analytical performance. This method separates data into sparse and dense dimensions. See Multidimensional Concepts and Basic Architectural Elements to learn how Hyperion Essbase defines and uses sparse and dense dimensions to optimize data access and to reduce index and storage requirements within the database.

Dynamic dimensionality allows Hyperion Essbase to provide sophisticated attribute reporting without impact to database storage requirements or batch calculation performance.

Multithreaded Design and SMP

The Hyperion Essbase server is a 32-bit, multithreaded software application that supports symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) hardware platforms. Multithreaded design creates a separate thread for each user request. A multithreaded software architecture enables multiple users to work on a Hyperion Essbase database at the same time. Hyperion Essbase also uses separate threads to support data loads and calculations in the database.

Symmetric multiprocessing allows single servers to run multiple processors concurrently. Hyperion Essbase supports multiple threads over SMP servers automatically. Thus performance is not significantly degraded, even with a large number of simultaneous users.

Multi-User Read and Write

The Hyperion Essbase server supports simultaneous access and update by multiple users. You can implement applications that require iterative changes to data, such as budgeting, forecasting, and planning applications, and allow multiple users to access these applications simultaneously.

Client-Server Overview

The Hyperion Essbase client-server architecture supports enterprise analysis applications. The server runs Hyperion Essbase software and fields requests from clients. A network connects the server and the clients to each other. The server is typically a PC, or a UNIX machine. The clients are PCs or UNIX workstations that also run Hyperion Essbase software.

Hyperion Essbase uses a distributed client-server model. In a distributed model, the database engine typically resides on the server and portions of the database software reside on each client. A typical client-server configuration has one server and multiple clients: the server performs most of the database processing so the clients can run queries with minimal memory and disk configurations.

Hyperion Essbase clients often connect to multiple servers to access different databases. Within your organization, you might have multiple servers, each with its own users and databases.

Hyperion Essbase Server

All Hyperion Essbase application components, including database outlines and calc scripts, application control, and multidimensional database information, reside on the server. With Hyperion Essbase you can configure server disk storage to span multiple disk drives, so you can store large databases. Hyperion Essbase requires a server to run a multithreaded operating system so the server can efficiently manage multiple, simultaneous requests. The server also runs a server agent process that acts as a traffic coordinator for all user requests to Hyperion Essbase applications.

The Hyperion Essbase server software runs on PCs or UNIX servers. See the Hyperion Essbase Start Here booklet for information on the supported operating systems. See the Hyperion Essbase Installation Guide for specific information on server configuration requirements.

Hyperion Essbase Client

Hyperion Essbase clients retrieve and analyze data from the server with Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Excel, or a custom application interface.

There are three types of Hyperion Essbase clients:

The first client interface is Hyperion Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in, which provides users with seamless data access to the server. The Hyperion Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in User's Guide describes how to use the spreadsheet client interface.

The second client interface is Hyperion Essbase Application Manager, which designs, develops, and maintains Hyperion Essbase applications. This manual provides task-oriented instructions for using Hyperion Essbase Application Manager.

The third client interface is a custom application built with Hyperion Essbase Application Programming Interface (API). Hyperion Essbase API enables application developers to create custom interfaces to Hyperion Essbase quickly, using standard tools. You can use Hyperion Essbase API with Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual C++, and specific C compilers on platforms such as Solaris, HP-UX and AIX. Other programming languages, such as Borland Delphi and PowerBuilder, are sometimes used with Hyperion Essbase API, although they are not specifically tested by software providers. The online API Reference in the DOCS directory provides a complete listing of functions, platforms, and supported compilers.

See the Hyperion Essbase Installation Guide for specific information on client configuration requirements. See the Hyperion Essbase Start Here booklet for information about supported platforms for Hyperion Essbase products.