Using Partitions and Fragments

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to:
Identify reasons for segmenting data
Describe techniques to model partitions
Implement a value-based partition
Implement a fact-based partition

10 - 2

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Business Challenge
Data is often partitioned into multiple physical sources for a
single logical table.
Organizations need to seamlessly and efficiently access and
process data from multiple sources to satisfy user requests.
Business applications must know where to go for what type
of data and under what conditions.

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Business Solution: Oracle BI Server

Oracle BI repository can be configured so that Oracle BI
Server handles the navigation to the appropriate source.
Oracle BI Server seamlessly and efficiently accesses and
processes data from multiple sources to satisfy user
requests.

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Partition
Is a database element that contains part of the data for a fact
or a dimension
Combines with other data fragments as necessary
May be:

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Fact-based
Value-based
Level-based
Complex

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Partitioning by Fact
Data is partitioned by fact when different fact data is stored
in different tables.
Example: Actual sales versus quota targets

Actual sales

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Quota targets

Sales
Rep

Product
Sale

Sales
Rep

Product
Quota

1100

1000

1100

2000

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Partitioning by Value
Data is partitioned by value when the data is split into
separate tables according to the values of the data.
Example: Invoice data is stored separately for each region.

Invoices for
Central
Region

Invoices for
West
Region

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InvNbr

Dollars

Region

1135293

1000

Central

InvNbr

Dollars

Region

114444

200

West

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Partitioning by Level
Data is partitioned by level when the same facts are stored
in separate tables at different levels of aggregation.
Example: Detailed sales data is summarized and stored by
year and region.

Sales detailed data

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Sales by year and region

Sales Rep

Date

Product
Sale

Year

Total
Dollars

1100

19980105

10000

1998

200000 Central

1100

19981001

25000

1999

300000 Central

1100

19981010

10000

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Region

Complex Partitioning
Data is partitioned using more than one technique.
Example: Invoice sales data is partitioned by value and level.
Invoices by month for Central

Month

Total
Dollars

Region

Year

Total
Dollars

199801

10000

Central

1998

200000 Central

199802

25000

Central

Invoices by month for West

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Invoices by year for Central

Region

Invoices by year for West

Month

Total
Dollars

Region

Year

Total
Dollars

Region

199801

300000

West

1998

3000000

West

199802

350000

West

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

ABC Example: Value-Based (Customer)

Replace the current, single source for customer data with two
value-based partitions.

Customers
with names
starting with
letters AM

Customers
with names
starting with
letters NZ

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NewKey

Name

1000

Clifton Lunch

NewKey

Name

1002

Tongs Wok

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

ABC Example: Fact-Based (Quota)

Allow users to query for actual sales data and quota data in a
single query.

Actual sales

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Quota targets

Sales
Rep

Product
Sale

Sales
Rep

Product
Quota

1100

1000

1100

2000

Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

ABC Example: Value-Based (Inventory)

Build a business model for inventory data that is fragmented
into multiple tables.

Eight quarters of
inventory data
stored in eight
separate tables

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Implementation Steps

Import physical sources.

Create physical joins.
Add sources to the Business Model and Mapping layer.
Specify fragmentation content.
New step
Test the results.

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Specify Fragmentation Content

Use the Expression Builder to define the type of content that
the fragment contains.
Set the flag to specify whether to combine this fragment with
other data.

Specifies that customer

data from AM is
contained in this fragment

Specifies combining this

fragment with the other

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Summary
In this lesson, you should have learned how to:
Identify reasons for segmenting data
Describe techniques to model partitions
Implement a value-based partition
Implement a fact-based partition

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Practice 10-1 Overview:

Modeling a Value-Based Partition
This practice covers the following topics:
Creating a partition
Defining fragmentation content for a value-based partition

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Practice 10-2 Overview:

Modeling a Fact-Based Partition
This practice covers modeling a fact-based partition for quota
data.

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Practice 10-3 Overview:

Using the Calculation Wizard to
Create Derived Measures
This practice covers creating measures for the quota partition.

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Practice 10-4 Overview:

Modeling Fragmented Inventory Data
This practice covers defining fragmentation content for
inventory data.

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Copyright 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved.