To help business and IT leaders making decisions about enterprise IT platforms, products and consulting, US-Analytics has undertaken to provide basic definitions for enterprise IT products and services. We would call it EPM for Dummies but it doesn't seem wise to call our prospects dummies. So welcome to Enterprise-Performance-Management-For-Really-Smart-Business-People-Who-Have-Had-Better-Things-To-Do-Than-Learn-About-Techie-Stuff (Until Now) or despair for short. I know ... so catchy ... we should definitely go into advertising.
First of all, Oracle is more than a mysterious old lady in Matrix movies. It's also a global, leading edge provider of software tools for enterprise-class business intelligence and performance management. In the world of corporate data-wrangling, Oracle is Neo. In fact, the Matrix itself could have run on Oracle software.
OK, enough Keanu Reeves talk. Wait...
"Whoa ... I know Kung Fu!"
OK, now we're done.
According to the Oracle web site, "Oracle Essbase is the industry-leading OLAP (online analytical processing) server."
There are two things to explain about this sentence:
1. OLAP is an industry term that can have hidden and technical meanings. In general though, OLAP is an approach to database construction that allows databases to quickly answer multi-dimensional analytical queries. Databases configured for OLAP use a multidimensional data model, allowing for complex analytical and ad-hoc queries with a rapid execution time.
2. Hyperion = Oracle. For decades - as early as 1981 - Hyperion was producing top-quality Business Intelligence and Analytical software. Through various stages and ownership structures, the company has been called Micro Control, Arbor, and Hyperion. Hyperion's notable products include Hyperion Essbase, Hyperion Intelligence, Hyperion Enterprise, Hyperion Planning, Hyperion Workforce Planning, Hyperion Strategic Finance, Hyperion Financial Management, and Hyperion Master Data Management.
In 2007, Hyperion was purchased by Oracle, but by then Hyperion had such a strong following in the marketplace that Oracle knew better than to simply scratch its name off of every product it had ever built. Instead, Oracle has taken a phase-in approach to name changing, keeping the Hyperion name on some products (like Hyperion Financial Performance Management), and mixing both names on others (such as Oracle Hyperion Financial Management). Essbase, however, has now officially lost its Hyperion moniker. The proper name is Oracle Essbase. But many in the industry still call it Hyperion Essbase.
So now let's get on with Oracle's definition.
"The newest release of Oracle's Hyperion Essbase product, Oracle EssbaseOracle Essbase enables the business to quickly model complex business scenarios. For example, Oracle Essbase makes it easy for line-of-business personnel to develop and manage analytic applications that model complex scenarios, forecast the business and perform "what-if" analyses in order to look into the future. Oracle Essbase supports extremely fast query response times for vast numbers of users, for large data sets, and for complex business models. It is hot-pluggable across any data source." provides an environment for rapidly developing custom analytic and enterprise performance management applications. With a rapid application development environment that is managed by the business,
All of that is tech-speak for this:
Oracle Essbase is a super-intelligent database software that allows the world's largest companies to collect, maintain, protect and query their data to make it reliable and meaningful. CEOs rely on Essbase reports to give them insight into what's really going on in their business, allowing them to make informed and strategic decisions with confidence.
Oracle Essbase is about framing all of a company's disparate data to make it meaningful, actionable and beautiful. It's one way that US-Anlytics helps clients Picture Results.
