If you’ve been shopping around for a BI solution or, if you’ve been looking for a BI solution in the cloud, you’ve probably heard about the Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC).
If you’re wanting to learn more about OAC or you stumbled upon this page while searching for business analytics solutions, then this is the blog post for you.
We’ll cover the most frequently asked questions about OAC to give you a better understanding of what this tool can do for you.
1. What is the Oracle Analytics Cloud?
You probably hear the word “cloud” a lot while searching for solutions to optimize your business. It’s a very general term. If you want to truly understand the cloud and its many facets, check out this free eBook. At the same time you probably hear about "Oracle Analytics." What is Oracle Analytics? What solutions does that encompass.
Oracle Analytics Cloud is the newest, cloud-based analytics solution within the Oracle Analytics or Business Intelligence space. OAC isn’t an application, it’s a platform. Oracle touts this platform as offering “the most comprehensive analytics in the industry. Whatever your strategy, OAC can work with it at any scale and in every environment, whether that’s in the cloud, on-premises, or a data center.
Oracle Analytics Cloud features include...
- Self-service visualization
- Data preparation
- Enterprise reporting
- Advanced analytics
- Dynamic user-driven what-if modeling
- Self-learning mobile analytics
OAC was built to help you ask any question from your data with mobile-friendly features in OAC and DVCS — allowing you to access to your data and visualizations even when you aren’t in front of your computer.
2. What services do I get with OAC?
OAC includes five services…
- Oracle Data Visualization Cloud Service (DVCS)
- Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service (BICS)
- Oracle Essbase
- Oracle Smart View
- Oracle Day by Day — a smart feed available on the mobile app with Siri integration
3. How are these services sold?
OAC services are sold in packages in two editions:
- OAC Standard
- OAC Enterprise
4. What services are included in each edition?
The OAC Standard Edition includes:
- DVCS
- Data Visualization Desktop (50 licenses per OCPU)
- Oracle Smart View
- Oracle Essbase
The OAC Enterprise Edition includes everything you get in the standard edition, plus:
- BICS
- Oracle Essbase Enterprise
- Oracle Day by Day
5. What capabilities are included in the OAC Standard Edition?
- Self-service data loading and blending
- A growing list of data sources
- Automatic smart data visualization and insights
- Fluid analysis for every environment
- Inline data prep and dynamic data flows
- One-click advanced analytics
- What-if analysis
6. What capabilities are included in the OAC Enterprise Edition?
In the enterprise edition, you get all the capabilities of the standard edition, plus…
- Drag-and-drop blending between self-service data and enterprise data, i.e. data mashups
- Data modeling to support enterprise business definitions and analysis
- Sandboxing and partitions to external sources
- Mobile app integrated with BICS and can learn based on your specific patterns
- Self-learning insights in a mobile app that’s integrated with BICS
7. What is the pricing for each edition?
For non-metered services, the pricing is…
- Standard Edition: $3,000/month/OCPU
- Enterprise Edition: $6,000/month/OCPU
8. What are the differences between OBIEE licensing and OAC licensing?
A license for Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus, includes:
- Oracle Business Intelligences Server Enterprise Edition
- Oracle Business Intelligence Answers
- Oracle Business Intelligence Interactive Dashboards
- Oracle Business Intelligence Reporting and Publishing
- Oracle Business Intelligence Delivers
- Oracle Business Intelligence for Microsoft Office (Office Plug-in)
- Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher
- Oracle Business Intelligence Server Administrator
- Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting
- Oracle Hyperion SQR Production Reporting
- Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting
- Oracle Hyperion Web Analysis
- Oracle Containers for Java EE (OC4J)
- WebLogic Standard Edition (for use with OBIEE)
- WebLogic Standard Edition (for use with Hyperion Reporting Products)
- Oracle Internet Directory
A license for Oracle Business Intelligence Server Enterprise Edition, includes:
- Oracle Business Intelligence Server Enterprise Edition
- Oracle Containers for Java EE (OC4J)
- WebLogic Server Standard Edition
- Oracle Entitlements Server Basic
To learn more about what’s included in OBIEE licensing, visit the Oracle Help Center.
Unlike OBIEE, you get Essbase with your OAC licensing as well as Smart View. You also get DVCS and Data Visualization Desktop.
However, with a license for Oracle BI Foundation Suite (BIFS), you get server components more comparable to OAC, including:
- Common Enterprise Information Model
- The semantic model of OBIEE accessed through an open API, providing a single version of truth of all BI users and applications.
- Oracle BI Server
- Oracle Essbase
- Oracle Essbase Analytics Link
- This enables the delivery of financial analytic reporting by facilitating on-demand or real-time transfer of financial information from HFM.
In BIFS, end-user components, include:
- Enterprise Reporting
- Ad-hoc Query and Reporting
- Interactive Dashboards
- Scorecard and Strategy Management
- Actionable Intelligence
- Integrated Search
- BI on the go
9. What are the prerequisites to running OAC?
Running OAC requires several services…
- Any edition of Oracle Database Cloud Service
- You can choose from four packages…
- Standard Package
- Enterprise Package
- High Performance Package
- Extreme Performance Package
- This package is equivalent to having a modern Exadata Machine at your fingertips.
- Oracle Compute Cloud Service — Block Storage
- Oracle Storage Cloud Service
- You can choose from four packages…
10. I’ve heard news about the recent Data Lake Edition, what does that include?
The OAC Data Lake Edition comes with all the services of the standard edition, plus…
- Support for creating scalable data flows — this includes ingestion, transformation, and persistence
- Your data flow can also be executed on Apache Spark or the Oracle Database Cloud.
The OAC Data Lake Edition comes with all the capabilities of the standard edition, plus…
- Provisioning and management with Oracle Big Data Cloud
- Easy definition of data ingestion, preparation, transformation, and persistence using the Analytics Cloud Data Flows
- Data transformation leveraging Apache Spark
- Connectivity to on-prem data lakes
- Sandboxing and partitions to external sources for Essbase
To learn more about the OAC Data Lake Edition, check out the blog.
11. What is it like to interact with OAC?
OAC allows you to use your mobile device to tap or talk to perform analysis, while remembering patterns to adopt your preferences. OAC was built to make your interaction with the platform more natural and intuitive.