Look Smarter Than You Are

I'm not sure why there wasn't a major announcement about this, but as of April 9, customers buying an Exalytics machine to speed up their Oracle Business Intelligence can get 2.4 Tb of PCIe flash drives from Oracle certified and engineered to run on Exalytics.  The cost (as of April 9's price list) is $35,000 (search for "flash upgrade kit").

While I haven't seen one in action yet, the flash pack seems to be 6 Sun Flash Accelerator F40 PCIe Cards each of which has a capacity of 400 Gb.  These cards run amazingly fast with read times of more than 2 GB/second (write time is about half that speed at 1+ GB/second).  These cards normally sell for almost $6K each, so Oracle is providing the flash add-on pack for no more markup than you'd get if you bought them on your own (but you'd then have to get them into the Exalytics machine all on your own).
This Matters If You Own EssbaseWhy would you want this?  Essbase, primarily.  Essbase uses a ton of disk I/O and one of the ways Exalytics can speed up Essbase is by pulling your cubes into a RAMDisk (since you have 1 Tb of RAM to play with).  At some point, though, it has to get that data from physical drives to a RAMDisk (unless you're building all your cubes at start up in memory each time).  Having blazingly speedy flash drives with .25 millisecond read latency allows you to store your cubes on the flash drive and then pull into RAM much more quickly than reading from traditional drives.

We have tested Essbase running on flash drives and it helps everything (particularly minimizes the negative effects of fragmentation since seek time drops to basically nothing on flash).  For customers buying Exalytics primarily for Essbase, the Exalytics Flash Upgrade Kit should be strongly considered with every Exalytics purchase (and if you already own Exalytics, buy it to put on top).

OBIEE is much less affected by hard drives, so while it may help OBIEE, this really matters a lot more to Essbase customers.
Oracle EPM Fully Supported on ExalyticsSince we're on the subject of Exalytics, now that 11.1.2.3 is out, all Oracle EPM/Hyperion components certified to run on Linux will run on Exalytics PS2.  These include:

• Administration Services
• Calculation Manager
• EPM Workspace
• Essbase Server
• Essbase Studio Server
• Financial Reporting
• Interactive Reporting (32-bit only)
• Oracle HTTP Server
• Planning
• Profitability and Cost Management
• Production Reporting (32-bit only)
• Provider Services
• Reporting and Analysis Framework Services and Web Application 
• Shared Services
• Web Analysis

Someone recently told me that they just upgraded their Hyperion applications to 11.1.1.4.  I asked them why they didn't go to 11.1.2.  They gave me the standard story about wanting to wait until the current version got stable (even though 11.1.2.0 came out over 3 years ago in April of 2010).

What they didn't know (cause apparently it hasn't been communicated well) is that Hyperion 11.1.1.x support drops from Premier Support to Sustaining Support in July of 2013 (only two months from the time I'm writing this).  For anyone who doesn't know, Sustaining Support is equivalent to life support.  While Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy does say that you can stay on versions of Oracle's products indefinitely, they don't agree to fully support them.

At the Premier Support level (the one all products start on), you get all the support you'd expect.  When you call in, the support people help you find the bug, they patch it in the next release, you install it, and life goes on happily.  Also, as new versions of supporting products come out like new versions of Office, Windows, or your web browser, Premier Support will make sure the Oracle products work with these new versions.

Extended Support (if offered at all for your Oracle product) comes about 5 years after a product is released.  At this point, Oracle will still let you do all the Premier Support things, they'll just charge you a premium for doing so.  Extended Support will not be offered on Hyperion 11.1.1.x (there aren't enough customers to warrant it).

Sustaining Support (AKA "life support") allows you to call in to ask for support.  Oracle will help you with questions, look up your problems in their knowledgebase, and help you troubleshoot.  They won't patch anything, make versions available that are compatible with new releases of Windows, Office, etc., and in general do anything beyond the bare minimum required.  From Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy document from March 2013, here's what Sustaining Support doesn't do:

• New updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes, and critical patch updates

• New tax, legal, and regulatory updates

• New upgrade scripts

• Certification with new third-party products/versions

• Certification with new Oracle products

And Hyperion (Oracle EPM) 11.1.1.x falls to this level in July 2013. To point out the obvious, if you're not already planning an upgrade to 11.1.2.x, you should start now.  You really don't want to be on Sustaining Support for long.  Since 11.1.2.3 just was released last week, I would probably hesitate going to that version until the first patch set update is released (probably this summer). If you're doing your upgrade before then, I would suggest going to 11.1.2.2.xxx (the current patch of 11.1.2.2).

If you want to read the sunset dates (the dates they drop to Sustaining Support) for all the current releases, visit Oracle.com for the current Lifetime Support Policy.  Here's the one from March 2013 (scroll to page 22) for the Hyperion products:
http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/lifetime-support-applications-069216.pdf

Oracle EPM 11.1.2.3 is out and there are some great features in it (Planning and Financial Reporting have my favorites which you'll see in a second).  11.1.2.3 is not as impressive as 11.1.2.1 or 11.1.2.2, though.  A lot of the products got new features in between releases like Smart View (which adds new features with every patch set), Strategic Finance, HFM (which got Tax Provisioning in February), and Financial Close Management instead of making those products wait until 11.1.2.3 was officially released.

Below are the features I think are most interesting in 11.1.2.3.  This is by no means an exhaustive list and I didn't include every product though I did hit all the ones with significant market share (and a few others including a shout-out to the long-forgotten "EPM Workspace").  All the new feature documents are on Oracle.com.  If you see anything major I missed, let me know in the comments.


Oracle Essbase

• Essbase didn't change much in 11.1.2.3 and users are never going to see any of the changes.
• There are several new BSO functions and calc script commands like @INTERSECT, @ISMBRUDA, @ISRANGENONEMPTY, @MEMBERAT, @RANGEFIRSTVAL, and @RANGELASTVAL.  My favorite is @CREATEBLOCK which, wait for it, creates a sparse block with all the dense combinations in it set to missing.  Yes, we finally have a specific command to create specific blocks after 20+ years of silly block creation workarounds.
• There's a new calc script SET command called RUNTIMESUBVARS that let's you create substitution variables in the script that are passed to the script at run-time.  You can then pass values to these variables when you call the calc scripts from MaxL or the API.  There's a new optional argument (with runtimesubvars) to MaxL's "execute calculation" command that sends the run-time variables to the calc script as you call it.
• There's a new Essbase.CFG setting called ESTIMATEDHASHSIZE that lets you specify (in millions) how many members should be loaded into memory from the outline.  It's meant to speed up massive dimension builds and outline edits.  There are two other new CFG settings as well: ENABLERTSVLOGGING (which logs the new run-time substitution variables) and UNICODEENABLE (which sets the server to unicode mode, basically).
• Data Mining is gone.  Many people didn't even know it was there, but it's been removed.
• Speaking of gone, there is no Essbase Excel Add-In 11.1.2.3.  Further, earlier versions of the Add-In that you may have (like 11.1.2.2) are not supported against Essbase 11.1.2.3.  It probably will work (the Add-In is wonderfully backwards and forwards compatible) but it's not supported.

Smart View

• There were a lot of improvements to Smart View in 11.1.2.2.3xx which came out about a month ago, so there isn't much new in Smart View 11.1.2.3.  Smart View is the new strategic Microsoft Office add-in for all the Business Analytics (BI and EPM) products, though, so that's why the newest release supported direct access to OBIEE 11.1.1.7.  Hyperion Strategic Finance is also now fully supported in Smart View.
• The only major improvement is actually in Hyperion Planning just exposed through Smart View.  There is a new "Planning Admin" extension that lets administrators update Planning metadata (and a few other things) from Smart View.  I'll say more about this under Planning.

Hyperion Planning

• Essbase ASO databases can now be created as Planning Plan Types.  These databases will allow writeback provided it's at level-0.  This is stunning.  These ASO cubes can be displayed on Planning composite forms with Essbase BSO cubes just like current BSO cubes in multiple plan types can be combined on a single composite form.  For some reason, this release doesn't put security filters on the ASO cubes, so you have to access these cubes through Planning or through the Planning ADM driver in Hyperion Financial Reporting.  Still, ASO in Planning is a step in the right direction.  Oh, and you have to own full-use Essbase to create these ASO cubes; just a Planning license doesn't cut it.
• You can create members on the fly (kinda) if they don't exist when business rules need them.  This may only work in modules and not custom plan types.  The documentation says only modules, but I admittedly haven't tried it on custom plan types yet.
• Custom dimension hierarchies can now vary by plan type.
• Task lists can now include "Copy Version" and "Job Console" as tasks.
• There is a new Task List Dashboard (gives you an overview of tasks by user, due date, etc.) and a Task List Report Page (that exports to XLS and PDF).
• Grid Scroll Preferences lets you control if all rows/columns in a form are retrieved at once or only when you scroll down.  This should improve performance for large forms (and not slow down the internet when we want to watch cat videos on YouTube).
• Users can now control through user preferences if they want member names, aliases, or both.  This can be set to override the form settings.
• Outline Load Utility has been enhanced to do fun things like export metadata to a relational database or export data to a text file.  There's a new user interface for loading dimensions and data from flat files (and exporting them too).  This was previously only doable through the command line.
• There's a new "Plan Type Editor" that lets admins add and delete plan types to already existing applications. Previously, this required going back to the initial creation step or hacking the underlying tables.  The Plan Type Editor can be used to add ASO to an existing Planning application.
• Admins can now do some administration of Planning from within Smart View like editing dimensions, creating cubes, and refreshing cubes.
• Workforce and CapEx have been enhanced to get them up to speed with Project Financial Planning's improvements to these modules in 11.1.2.2.  You won't get these improvements with a straight migration: you have to create a new "shell" application and manually migrate your old dimensions into the new application.
• You can create, assign, and delete substitution variables directly from the Planning web interface.

Data Relationship Management

• There's an entirely new module within DRM (no word yet on if it costs money, but my gut feeling is that it's included with DRM) called "Data Relationship Governance."  To oversimplify what is actually quite cool, it adds workflow to DRM.  It lets data stewards coordinate entry, validation, and approval of hierarchies but it does a lot more too.  Users can request hierarchy changes and they go into a worklist so nothing gets lost.  It has built-in alerts for when users have requested changes and it also sends e-mails when something has been sent to you or it's something you should be informed of.  In my humble opinion, this is the greatest improvement to DRM since it was created.
• Dynamic scripting lets you use JavaScript instead of formulas to create derived properties and validations.  This is a welcome improvement over formulas since we now have access to a real programming language.
• You can now connect directly to external relational database tables to import hierarchies.

Hyperion Financial Management (HFM)

• There's a new module (that technically was released in February) called Hyperion Tax Provision.  It handles tax automation, data collection, tax calculations, reporting and it does it all within HFM.  Now when you create an application in HFM, you tell it if you want a Consolidation (traditional) application type or Tax Provision.
• Data forms let you show/hide the POV members, access the dynamic POV member lists, and run "on-demand rules" to essentially calculate the data form (by running the on-demand rule on a subset of data).
• Data grids also let you control which POV dimensions you're showing and gives you access to dynamic POV member lists.
• Admins can turn off modules for all users if they aren't applicable (for instance, if you don't allow intercompanies in HFM).

Financial Data Quality Management (FDM)

• FDM and ERPi (ERP Integrator) combine in 11.1.2.3 into a single product: FDMEE (Financial Data Quality Management Enterprise Edition).  It's more than just ERPi renamed which is what some are claiming.  Below are some of the improvements.
• The UI (user interface) is now consistent with the other Hyperion products like Planning and HFM.
• FDM is fully supported in Shared Services and Lifecycle Management.
• Data loads are sped up.  Scaling and load balancing are fully supported.
• ERPi users will now see full FDM functionality that they couldn't access before.
• SAP BW is now supported directly as a data source.
• FDM and ERPi owners have access (at no charge) to all the new FDMEE capabilities.

Financial Reporting

• I know what you're thinking and yes, Financial Reporting actually got improved in 11.1.2.3 (it is a strategic product for Oracle). So for the coolest thing you'll see since ASO in Hyperion Planning...
• Financial Reporting is now mobile.  That's right: it runs on Apple iPhones, iPads, Android phones and Android tablets.  Users can browse the repository, launch reports (HTML or PDF), run books (HTML or PDF), change POVs, change page members, expand rows and columns, and even launch related content.  Pick your jaw off the floor.
• Books have been enhanced to allow cover pages before the table of contents, embedding (and launching) Word DOCs from an HTML book, and changing the starting page number of books.
• The designer has new authoring features including a row property to show dots after the member name (to fill the column) in PDF output, custom text colors, and auto-sizing text boxes in PDF output.
• Annotations have a new auditing capability that puts annotation info (like creation date or modified date) in a log file on the server.

EPM Workspace

• OBIEE 11.1.1.7 is back in Workspace (it used to be there back in OBIEE 10).  You can both create and launch OBIEE from Workspace.
• OBIEE uses single-sign on if you're logged into Workspace (OBIEE now can also share a security model with Essbase).

Web Analysis, Interactive Reporting, SQR Production Reporting...

• Seriously?  People, move to OBIEE.  These are dead products.

General Comments

• You can upgrade to 11.1.2.3 directly only from 11.1.1.4 and 11.1.2.x.  Earlier versions require going to either 11.1.1.4 or 11.1.2.2 first.
• 11.1.2.3 still doesn't officially support Chrome or Safari.  The documentation says that Oracle recommends IE (Internet Explorer) 9 or Firefox 10 because older versions are slower.
• The EPM documentation is now fully supported on Apple mobile devices (in ePub format).  It already worked on Amazon Kindles (in Mobi format).

That's all folks.  You can thank me at Kscope13 for making it so you don't have to scour all the readme files yourself.
Oh, that reminds me. Since you read this entire essay of bullets, I owe you a reward.  When you register for Kscope13 (the best Oracle BI, EPM, and Hyperion conference in the world bar none), mention promo code IRC.  It'll save you $100 off whatever the prevailing rate is.  You can tell your friends or make them read this blog to find that out themselves.

On February 1, it was announced that Star Analytics (one of our favorite software companies in the world) is being bought by IBM (not one of our favorite software companies in the world) for an undisclosed amount.  Star, founded in 2004, made two excellent products (Star Integration Server and Star Command Center) and IBM's strategy, at the moment, is to continue the two products under IBM's Business Analytics Software group.

As  everyone knows, IBM has been on an acquisitions kick for the last 5 years particularly around business analytics.  They own Cognos, TM/1, Clarity and a whole lot of other products... or at least they bought the companies that made those products and then stopped some of those products and continued others.  Unlike Oracle that is quite good at buying companies and then immediately knowing which products they want to strategically continue, IBM can take some time to make up their mind and half the time, people internal to IBM don't know which products are being discontinued.  There are still people internal to IBM that are touting Clarity's planning and consolidations products, and those have been virtually dead since IBM first bought Clarity.

It may seem odd to some that Star was bought by IBM considering that IBM owns Cognos and Star is traditionally awesome at Hyperion integration not Cognos, TM/1, and the like.  What many people don't realize is that Star's products have been expanded beyond their traditional Hyperion roots over the last few years and now talk well to other products including relational databases.  Star Integration Server is still found almost exclusively at Hyperion shops, and one has to believe that part of the reason IBM bought Star is to be able to easily extract data from Essbase, Planning, and HFM.

Judging from IBM's announcement and FAQ on the purchase, it seems that being able to extract and control Oracle (particularly Hyperion) is the main reason they bought Star.  That makes it odd that Oracle didn't go ahead and buy them instead.  All I can think of is that either IBM offered a better price or Oracle felt they had competing products with some of the same functionality already (I'll be getting to that in a second).

So what does that mean for you?  If you bought Star's products, congratulations.  They are excellent products and I would continue using them for as long as IBM continues to support them.  If you're considering a purchase, I would wait until IBM decides what they're going to do.  At bare minimum, IBM will probably begin to favor Cognos and TM/1 more than Hyperion and for a lot of us, Hyperion expertise was the reason we bought Star's products.

If you want to consider something else, I would suggest buying Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management or Oracle Data Integrator instead of Star Integration Server and Hyperion Financial Close Management instead of Star Command Center.  They don't exactly overlap functionality-wise, but they are the closest replacements I can readily think of.  Note that Star Integration Server has some very cool extraction technologies that are patented, so any product extracting data or hierarchies from Hyperion is probably going to be a lot slower, for the time being, than Star.

We will miss you, Star Analytics.  It was a good 7+ year run, and the Hyperion world will always fondly remember your company, your products, and your employees (particularly your iconic leader, and my close friend, Quinlan Eddy).  May your staying agreements at IBM be short.