Essbase includes powerful calculation features for demanding analytic requirements. A rich library of functions makes it easy to define advanced and sophisticated business logic and relationships. Essbase gives users the flexibility to build, customize, and extend the calculator through custom-defined macros and functions, as well as the ability to span calculations across databases. On multiprocessor systems, a DBA can configure a single calculation request to use multiple threads to accomplish the calculation, providing enhanced calculation speed.
Aggregate storage databases provide an alternative to block storage databases and enable dramatic improvements in database aggregation time for certain types of applications.
By default, Essbase calculates only data that changed since the prior calculation (known as Intelligent calculations).
Essbase offers two methods for calculating a database:
The method that you choose depends on the type of calculation that you want to perform.
Outline Calculation represent the simplest method of calculation. In block storage outline calculations, Essbase calculates the cube according to :
For more complex calculations than can be defined in the outline, Essbase provides calculation scripts, which are stored separately from the outline and are calculated as necessary.