MicroStrategy 8 was generally released last month and includes new query optimization features that are designed for Oracle database customers.
Specifically, MicroStrategy 8 can now generate ultra-efficient SQL code by utilizing Oracle 11g’s native query rewrite and materialized data views to enhance things like date-based calculations and multiple table outer joins.
The ability to tap into Oracle 11g’s cube-based materialized views capability, which is akin to providing SQL-flavored OLAP, and query performance optimization capabilities will be a boon for many of McLean Virginia-based MicroStrategy’s customers that use its BI platform for large-scale, complex analysis.
Materialized data views are composite slices of data in multidimensional cube data that are accessible by standard SQL commands. Oracle has embedded an OLAP engine into 11g to store and efficiently manage millions of these materialized views to speed up queries that, for example, calculate sales across products, regions, or customers, by presenting logically pre-aggregated data sets to users.
Oracle announced 11g in August this year and is the result of a massive 36,000 person-months of R&D. The platform upgrades XML storage with the capability to store such otherwise bulky Unicode data in compressed binary form, a new caching engine that accelerates query performance, and new policy-based partitioning capabilities that provide faster throughput for highly specialized queries in highly complex, and very large databases.
