I enjoyed your reply. And you took the next step bringing in Gemini. I’d like to know your thoughts about how XLCubed would position strategically once Gemini is available.

Regards,

Jorge

You are right mentioning that there are already good in memory (OLAP like) technologies available like Qliktech, PALO, TM1 or the good old PivotTable which one to use, well, it all depends on the user requirements and how deep (if at all) IT is involved in the project.

SAP BW is a problem, because changing structures in SAP BW is hard, and also response times of SAP BW cubes are slow. However, this is not true for OLAP in general, in simple PivotTable / spreadmart scenario a Analysis Services local cubes also would do, its easy to build with the Excel build in wizard, and brings you all the advantages and flexibility of a real OLAP / MDX enabled cube. I will post the next week or so about local Analysis Services cubes, OLAP, MDX and XLCubed.

Another interesting in memory technology will be Gemini the upcoming Analysis Services release…

http://blog.xlcubed.com/gemini-smarter-excel-dashboards-with-end-user-bi/

Gemini is all about the collaboration between IT and the departmental end users. As Nigel Pendse puts it Micosoft uses Gemini as a Trojan horse to bring for Analysis Services into the world of Excel power users:

“Gemini world is refreshingly free of the off-putting jargon like star/snowflake schemas, fact tables, cubes, measures, dimensions, hierarchies, levels, attributes, aggregations, partitions, MDX calculations and scripts typically encountered in OLAP server deployments. Instead, Excel power users with Gemini installed will be able to analyze and summarize vast amounts of data with absolutely no need to pre-define models or structures.”

http://www.olapreport.com/Comment_Gemini.htm

Andreas

@Jorge: I understand your point. I believe that what XLCubed does is to put OLAP technology in the hands of the user, removing IT from the equation (they still need to provide and manage infrastructure), but I’m still learning and I need to see how everything fits together. Andreas will have a much more insightful comment on this.

I disagree with your comment regarding real-time queries on large datasets “it is not an option”. Cubes might have been an answer back in the 70’s where clien’ts hadn’t the processing power of today.

They also lack flexibility to modify/update (just ask anyone running SAP BW). Taking a step back, I ask the question: Do we need today to pre-define the answers in the OLAP fashion?

While today it is true that most enterprise-class offerings use OLAP cubes, it’s also know of the overhead that comes with them and why they typically turn into an IT project.

Excluding the fact that there is already viable technology WITHOUT OLAP cubes such as Qliktech / Pivot link (amongst others see Gartnter / AMR Research) paints an incomplete picture, in my opinion.

I believe that focusing less on the technologies (MOLAP/ROLAP/HOLAP…. and so on) and discussin HOW to enable collaboration between IT and the business, the first to provide infrastructure and access to business-readable data, and the later becoming capable on creating its own reports would be a much more interesting and applicable topic.

Regards,

Jorge