1. A New Storage Engine Specialized for MOLAP
MySQL Users Conference 2006
Dr. Juergen Faisst Thinking Networks AG
Thinking Networks AG

2. Thinking Networks AG
Specialist for high-end planning, budgeting and consolidation solutions
Software: TN Planning, > users
Based in Aachen, Germany
50 employees
7 Mio$ revenues
Thinking Networks AG

3. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
World’s Largest Tourism Group
Revenue Management
Simultaneous planning of products, destinations, flights
Forecast based on Neural Networks
Financial Planning of
Cost
Human Resources
Investments
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Thinking Networks AG

4. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Session Structure
Motivation Why do Planning and Budgeting Applications need a different kind of storage engine?
The THINKING NETWORKS Storage Engine What makes our storage engine different?
Project Status Where are we now? Where do we want to go?
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Thinking Networks AG

5. Motivation
Why do Planning and Budgeting Applications need a different kind of storage engine?

6. Business/Corporate/Enterprise Performance Management at a glance
Motivation
Business/Corporate/Enterprise Performance Management at a glance
Performance Management
Analysis incl. Data
Mining
Stat. Consol.
ROLAP:
Mondrian
OLAP4All
HydraCube with embedded BerkleyDB
Similar to
Business Objects
Cognos
MicroStrategy
Reporting
Planning & Budgeting
Data Warehouse
ROLAP
MOLAP-DBMS
RDBMS
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Thinking Networks AG

7. MOLAP storage speeds up Reporting and Analysis
Motivation
MOLAP storage speeds up Reporting and Analysis
Hybrid engines of large database vendors focus on performance and scalability while saving disk space
MS SQL Server Analysis Services
Oracle10g OLAP Option
( )
IBM DB2 OLAP Server
See for more details
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

8. MOLAP storage empowers Planning & Budgeting
Motivation
MOLAP storage empowers Planning & Budgeting
Specialized database vendors focus on MOLAP calculation engine for aggregation, allocation and business rules
TM1
Essbase
Alea
Express
TN Planning
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

9. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Motivation
A simple example for the need of a MOLAP calculation engine: Sales planning
Measures: Sales Volume, Price, Revenue
Scenario: Plan, Actual
Time: Months < Quarters < Year
Product: Products < Product Groups < Total
Location: Store < State < Country < Total
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

10. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Motivation
Reporting is easy
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

11. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Motivation
Planning is different
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

12. Modeling the business logic in a planning application is a challenge
Motivation
Modeling the business logic in a planning application is a challenge
Custom aggregation rules, e.g.
The ”price-volume-amount”-problem
The ”value type”-problem
(Legal) consolidation
Custom allocation rules, e.g.
Planning on aggregate levels
The ”allocate with exceptions”-problem
Custom calculation rules, e.g.
Currency conversion
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

13. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Motivation
What about MySQL ? “
MySQL’s pluggable storage engine architecture offers the unique opportunity to build a hybrid Data Warehouse using a powerful MOLAP storage and calculation engine for Planning & Budgeting”
- THINKING NETWORKS
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

14. The THINKING NETWORKS Storage Engine
What makes our storage engine different?

15. Relational addressing of data: Searching for the right record
THINKING NETWORKS
Relational addressing of data: Searching for the right record
Keys and indexes
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

16. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
THINKING NETWORKS
Multidimensional addressing of data: Direct access in a coordinate system
Location
Product
California
Printer
Time
Feb
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

17. Major advantage and disadvantage of multidimensional addressing
THINKING NETWORKS
Major advantage and disadvantage of multidimensional addressing
Very fast access, independent from data volume
Very fast access, independent from data volume is needed for a powerful calculation engine
Data explosion in sparsely filled data spaces
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Thinking Networks AG

18. Avoiding data explosion by preventing from storing empty cells
THINKING NETWORKS
Avoiding data explosion by preventing from storing empty cells
Sparse
Sparse
Sparse
Dense
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

19. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
THINKING NETWORKS
Sparse rows in a reference table with a fast hash algorithm pointer to …
… high density matrixes
Only matrixes containing at least one non empty cell are stored physically
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Thinking Networks AG

20. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
THINKING NETWORKS
A cell, a row, a column or the whole matrix can be read or written by one single access
Only matrixes containing at least one non empty cell are stored physically
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Thinking Networks AG

21. Project Status
Where are we now? Where do we want to go?

22. SQL-read-access to THINKING NETWORKS Storage Engine via MySQL
Project Status
SQL-read-access to THINKING NETWORKS Storage Engine via MySQL
Thinking Networks
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

23. Multi-dimensional read and write-back access via TN Planning
Project Status
Multi-dimensional read and write-back access via TN Planning
TN Planning
Custom Tailor
Navigator
Language Processor DML, DDL, Views, Rules, Stored Procedures,
Storage Engine
Thinking Networks
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

24. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Project Status
MySQL AB considers support of multi-dimensional queries and handler calls
SELECT ( ( [scenario].[Actual],[time].[Jan]), ([scenario].[Plan],[time].[Feb] ) AS COLUMNS
( [items].[Sales], [items].[Price], [items].[Revenue] ) AS ROWS
FROM SalesCube
WHERE ( [location].[California], [product].[printer])
MySQL (MD)SQL Interface, Parser, Optimizer
MDX standard defined by Microsoft, Hyperion and others
SQL Analytic Extensions is Oracle‘s way to open SQL for multidimensional queries
int get_cube_slice ( char slicespec, int nof_rows, char **rowspec, int nof_cols, char **colspec,
double *results )
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Thinking Networks AG

25. We would like to encourage the developers of other storage engines ...
Project Status
We would like to encourage the developers of other storage engines ... …
to support the new multi-dimensional handler calls
MDX
Thinking Networks
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

26. A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP
Target architecture
TN Planning
Custom Tailor
Navigator
Language Processor
MDX
Thinking Networks
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

27. Thinking Networks considers to offer …
Project Status
Thinking Networks considers to offer …
THINKING NETWORKS Storage Engine for MySQL under GPL
TN Planning as commercial software
Language Processor
Custom Tailor
Navigator
Support & Maintenance Package
Thinking Networks
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP

28. Let MySQL become the leading database
for Business Intelligence
and Analytic Applications
Thank You for Your Attention!
Dr. Juergen Faisst
Thinking Networks AG /
A New Storage Engine Spezialized for MOLAP