Re: Warehouse Builder User

On May 31, 1:40 pm, rajesh_chopr..._at_yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> Is anyone using Oracle Warehouse Builder as an ETL tool? I am
> considering looking into it now it's free and wanted to know your
> views on functionality and usability.
>
> TIA
Hi TIA,
Thank for your sweet questions. Have you looked at http://www.oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/warehouse-builder.html? I suggest using the OTN OWB forum at http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=57 for throwing in these questions. You will find out that there is quite an active and broad user community.

Functionality and usability are great, make sure that you start with the OWB10gR2 'Paris' release. (Study the licensing model, it is easy to use options in the menus you do not have the rather expensive licenses for.)
You can really do a lot of the ETL development process in OWB, though some tend to complement it with more effective ERD/documentation functionality like found e.g. in Oracle Designer. The metadatamodel is user extendible and the maintenance of mappings and other metadata can even be scripted (wow - generate graphical mappings that in turn generate pl/sql.)
Please be aware that for the execution of the so called process flows (the flow and dependency of several mappings) one should rely on Oracle Workflow Management. We use however our own enterprise wide scheduling system (Redwood Cronacle) and that joins perfectly. OWB can deploy to either normal oracle tables, however OLAP cubes (db option) is supported too. (I have never felt the need for it.)

Please be aware that OWB is best used for from-Oracle or flatfile to Oracle. The generated pl/sql code is quite OK, (and readable after some excercise), the graphical modeling of mappings you need to learn (might throw a multiday course at Oracle University in, or another supplier), and also find out some do's and don'ts that almost every seems to learn the hard way - by experience. Some aspects aren't that well implemented (bitmap index management (pre/post load), statistics gathering) but can be easily extended.

They do also supply some modules for connecting directly to SAP, and perhaps PeopleSoft and/or others.

More questions: the OTN OWB forum.
Regards,
Erik Ykema Received on Fri Jun 01 2007 - 12:59:12 CDT