VARYING ATTRIBUTES IN ESSBASE

VARYING ATTRIBUTES

Though Varying Attributes feature is launched in 11.1.x version and is not new to Essbase,
I have seen, still this is new to many. The reason for my new post about Varying Attributes is to explain in detail about Varying Attributes features with examples. 

Varying Attributes Overview

A product typically has attributes that describe or define the product. 
For example, a product could have an attribute describing the size of the product in liters and an attribute describing the flavor of the product. 
In such a scenario, Product would be a base dimension while Liters and Flavor would be attribute dimensions.

An enhancement to Attribute Dimensions starting from version 11.1.x gives us more 
flexibility by without the necessity of creating new stored members or even a new dimension, and thus affecting the database size in a negative way. 
This new option is called Varying Attributes.

As an example, consider this scenario:

Cool drink with 200 ml is newly launched in the last quarter of the year. Sales of cool drinks in the last six months are as follows:

Varying Attributes example: newly launched cool drink in 200 ml

Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb
Coke500ml	Coke500ml	Coke500ml	ThumsUp200ml	ThumsUp200ml	ThumsUp200ml

In this example, cool drink with 200 ml is Varying attribute. Data retrievals show that cool drink sold in Sep, Oct and Nov months total of 1500 ml of quantity and from Dec, Jan and Feb the cold drinks sold for 3 months are 600 ml. Without using Varying Attribute, the total quantity in liters would  be 2.1lts

In order to create varying attributes (assuming, that the other standard dimensions, like Product and Time, already exist), a common Attribute Dimension with its members needs to be created in the outline.

Parallel and Serial Calculation

PARALLEL AND SERIAL CALCULATION

Essbase supports Parallel and Serial Calculations:

Serial Calculation is the default. With serial calculation, each calculation pass is scheduled to run on a single processor. If invoked from a calculation script, the calculations are executed sequentially in the order in which they appear in the calculation script.

Parallel Calculation breaks each calculation pass into sub-tasks. The sub-tasks that can run independently of one another are scheduled to run simultaneously on up to 64 or 128
threads. Block storage databases running on 32-bit platforms support up to 64 threads. Block storage databases running on 64-bit platforms and aggregate storage databases (whether running on 32-bit or 64-bit platforms) support up to 128 threads. Each thread may be on a different processor.

To change from the default serial calculation to parallel calculation, change, at most, two
configuration settings and restart the server, or add an instruction to the calculation script.

Checking Current Parallel Calculation Settings:

You can check either the server configuration file or the calculation script that you plan to use to see if parallel calculation is enabled.

To check whether parallel calculation has been enabled in the server configuration file:

1. Open the server essbase.cfg file with a text editor.
2. Search for the parameter CALCPARALLEL, and check its specified value.

To check whether a calculation script sets parallel calculation, look for the SET
CALCPARALLEL command. Review the script carefully, because the script may enable or
disable parallel calculation more than once.