Simba Technologies' CEO Corner

SAP NetWeaver BI (SAP BW) and Microsoft Excel 2007 – MDX Connectivity

I was poking around the SAP Developer Network (http://www.sdn.sap.com) website this weekend and found a presentation entitled "SAP NetWeaver BI 7.0 Native Microsoft Excel 2007 Integration"
(https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/7083c7d3-d1ab-2a10-08ae-c8470148c7c2). Although these slides are dated January 2008, they are worth looking at. Slides 3 and 4 talk about the competitive positioning of Excel 2007 and the business case for Excel vs BEx Analyzer. Slides 5 and 6 show some architecture. In slide 6, I would like to point out that irrespective of how you access NetWeaver BI – ODBO, XMLA, or BAPI – you will hit the same MDX Processor. Many people have asked me if there are advantages of one API vs another and my answer has been that if it is just about the MDX, there is no difference because it is the same MDX Processor that underlies all the different APIs. ODBO and XMLA are industry standard APIs whereas BAPI is an SAP specific API. BAPI does have some slight advantages in that it exposes things that are SAP specific but again, these are minor. When it comes to supporting the MDX Query Language, the SAP MDX Processor has been upgraded to better work with Excel 2007. Slide 9 tells you more about what SAP Support Packages are needed to enable the Excel 2007 ODBO/MDX connectivity.

IBM Cubing Services - MDX and ODBO - Excel Pivot Tables

In case you missed it, on May 6, IBM announced support for OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) in their Cubing Services product.  You can read the official notice at http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/3/897/ENUS208-113/ENUS208-113.PDF.  DB2 Warehouse edition is now called InfoSphere Warehouse.

In October 2007, IBM shipped MDX Query Language support in this product.  However, you had to access the MDX functionality via a proprietary interface.  At the Information OnDemand conference in October 2007, IBM had a demo of Business Objects Voyager working with Cubing Services.  Voyager is an OLAP reporting tool from Business Objects which connects to MDX data sources.  Voyager works with Microsoft Analysis Services, SAP BW, and some of the Business Objects Performance Management applications.  It was nice to see Voyager working with Cubing Services, albeit using a proprietary API.  Now Cubing Services supports ODBO so it is possible to connect any ODBO client to Cubing Services.  I have not yet played with this new version of Cubing Services.  I hope to soon.

One thing I am told is that Microsoft Excel works with Cubing Services via ODBO and MDX.  However, IBM's MDX Query Language implementation is what I call the MDX 1999 variant.  The MDX Language Specification is part of the OLE DB for OLAP Specification which Microsoft last published in 1999, therefore I call it MDX 1999.  Microsoft has of course added a lot of extensions to the MDX Query Language and the MDX supported by Microsoft Analysis Services 2005 is what I call MDX 2005.

Excel 2007 uses the MDX Query Language to connect to OLAP data sources.  Excel 2007 is an adaptive product - it will adapt to the MDX supported by the underlying data source.  Therefore, if you connect Excel 2007 to Microsoft Analysis Services 2005, it will function differently than if you connect it to Microsoft Analysis Services 2000.  Excel 2007 is able to determine what MDX Query Language features are supported by the underlying data source and expose functionality accordingly.

Since Cubing Services supports MDX and ODBO, you can connect Excel 2007 to Cubing Services.  However, only the MDX 1999 variant is supported and Excel 2007 on Cubing Services will function like Excel 2007 on Microsoft Analysis Services 2000.  So far, only SAP BW 7.0 and Microsoft Analysis Services 2005 support the MDX 2005 variant.  I am not sure of IBM's timeline for supporting MDX 2005.  Also, Cubing Services does not yet support XMLA.  I expect XMLA support to come relatively soon as this is technically easier to develop than ODBO and much easier to develop than MDX 2005 functionality.  If I was a betting man, I would expect IBM to announce XMLA at their next Information OnDemand conference.

The OLAP Report

I had an opportunity to dive into the latest OLAP Report this weekend. In the latest publication, Nigel Pendse talks a lot about the consolidation in the BI space (http://www.olapreport.com/consolidations.htm) and he has an interesting chart that shows all the acquisitions in the space. His use of colours on this chart is especially interesting because you see how much consolidation there has been in recent years, as opposed to just acquisitions. In my blog on January 15th, I wrote about the consolidations in the BI space and Nigel’s chart visually highlights just how much consolidation did happen.

More on Data Warehouse Database Management Systems

Stephen Swoyer at TDWI wrote an interesting take on Gartner Inc’s latest Data Warehousing Magic Quadrant.  Stephen talks about the smaller players in the report.  Good read.  You can read it at http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8712.

Data Warehouse Database Management Systems

I was reading the Gartner Report on “Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems, 2007,” and I wanted to share some thoughts. You can refer to the report here: http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/article19/article19.html. I found this report interesting in that there are four companies in the Leaders quadrant – Teradata, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. All of these companies are major players, and it is great to see Gartner recognize them. It is also interesting to see so many visionary companies like Sybase, Netezza, Greenplum and DATAllegro also highlighted.

If you look at the leaders, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft all have OLAP within their database. IBM and Microsoft support MDX. Oracle supports SQL for its OLAP option and Oracle also has a proprietary OLAP interface. It is interesting to note that Teradata, who ranks highest in this report, does not have OLAP capabilities. Of course, Teradata does have its AJI’s. When reading Teradata’s marketing literature and looking at its strategy, you see it has partnered with Microsoft for OLAP capabilities. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Teradata had OLAP capabilities built right into the Teradata database?

I may be over-simplifying here, but if you look at Oracle and IBM, it looks like both of these vendors have OLAP built right into the database. With Microsoft SQL Server, you get Analysis Services, which is an add-on to the database. Recent versions of Analysis Services have the ROLAP option, which allows you to leave the data in SQL Server rather than pull it out and build MOLAP cubes. Historically, OLAP databases were of the MOLAP style, like Hyperion (now Oracle) Essbase. Now, there seems to be more of a push to integrating OLAP into the database like Oracle and IBM, and Microsoft with the ROLAP capabilities in Analysis Services.

If Teradata were to build OLAP capabilities into its database, the result would be very interesting. Teradata has a very unique and powerful multi-processor architecture that it has refined over more than 27 years. Imagine if you were to take the idea of building OLAP into the database and, in Teradata’s case, engineer OLAP capabilities into this multi-processor architecture, you would now have OLAP capabilities that could rival, or beat those of IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. If Teradata had an OLAP option and if Teradata followed Microsoft’s lead and included the OLAP component as part of the database licensing, think of the win for Teradata customers.