O3 Designer es the component used to design the multidimensional models. These models are created to analyze large volumes of information thanks to the specialized data structures that they use to resolve multidimensional queries very eficiently.
In order to implement a complete solution that satisfies all the analysis needs of an organization, it is necessary to define a set of datamarts, each one of them focused on a particular subject.
To facilitate the design and update of the solution, O3 Designer allows developers to define public (shared) dimensions, which are then available to be used from the traditional multidimensional models.
The cube creation process includes two essential stages:
- Defining the multidimensional model with O3 Designer.
- Building the datamart with O3 Builder
Defining Multidimensional Models
The first step in the process of creating a datamart consists of the definition of the Multidimensional Model. This involves declaring and organizing the data sets that contain the information for the analysis.
The developers assigned to this task should be capable of understanding:
- The business area being analyzed.
- The structure of the database where the data to include in the datamarts is stored and manipulated.
Therefore, this task is usually conducted by a team composed of:
- Business area specialists.
- IT staff that are well informed about the structure and availablility of the data.
The definition of the analysis model consists of the declaration of each of the dimensions, (along with their hierarchies), and the measures that carry the numeric information. The models also declare the data sources used to extract the information required for the design and the update of the datamarts.
In the case of models containing public dimensiones, only the declaration of such dimensions is required, along with their data sources.
The designer also determines the way the update process will occur by choosing either a Full update or an Incremental update.
Not only does the O3 Designer provide a friendly graphical interface, it also offers a set of tools and options that simplify the data extraction process that cover a variety situations.
The result of this stage is the multidimensional model which is stored in a file with the .mdl extension. This file contains all the information required to build and update the datamart when given as an argument to the O3 Builder
Some of the benefits of creating your own models whith the O3 Designer include:
- Ease of use in the definition of the datamart structures.
- Hability of reusing some of these structures.
- Graphical representation of dimensions and their hierarchies.
- Syntactic verification of the model prior to its update with the O3 Builder.
- Assistence in the clasification and extraction of data.
- Automatic invocation to the O3 Builder in order to build and update the datamart using the designed declared in the model.