Creating Dimensions Using OWB "Paris"

One of the most interesting new features promised with Oracle Warehouse Builder "Paris" is better support for the creation and maintenance of dimensions. If you're an existing OWB user, you'll know that support for dimensions is pretty limited - you can't create snowflake or parent-child dimensions, you can only create MOLAP dimensions by first creating a relational implementation and then exporting it through the OLAP bridge, there's no support for skip-level or ragged hierarchies, it doesn't by default create the CWM1 metadata required for BI Beans or Discoverer for OLAP use, and you can't import in definitions of existing dimensions. What this means is that you generally use OWB to create the first cut of a dimension, then use tools such as Analytic Workspace Manager or Oracle Enterprise Manager to finish off the job.

I was particularly interested then to take a look at the new dimensional modelling features that come with OWB "Paris". If you've seen any of the advance documentation for "Paris" you'll probably know that with this new version you can create a logical model of your dimension, and then at deployment time choose whether to deploy it relationally or multidimensionally, and you might also have heard about some of the new features such as support for slowly changing dimensions and snowflake schemas.

With this in mind, I've had a play around with the "Paris" beta and made some notes on Dimension Building Using OWB "Paris". Feel free to take a look, and if you have any questions let me know.

Creating Dimensions Using OWB "Paris" June 8, 2005 Mark Rittman

Creating Dimensions Using OWB "Paris"
June 8, 2005
Mark Rittman