OLAP isn't just about the underlying cubes and dimensions, in the end it's about how the information is being presented to the user.
You are right. Cubes, dimensions and the logical model abstraction is the very first step: physical data implementation is hidden. Cubes is young, as mentioned in my comment - front-end helpers will be coming later. I will need some help on that part.
I am not quite sure about the "feature-richness". Yes, it might sell - in environments where people barely notice wrong data in 40-page monthly report, still being content about the report exhaustiveness. From my experience, many people want just basic stuff. I am trying to make cubes as small as possible (but not smaller), however extensible. For example, the cubes will not force you to use "cube's" way of drawing charts. It will provide few examples, based on common, accessible visualising backends. Along with the examples will have possibility to plug-in your own visualisation/reporting method.
The intention is not to create competitive product to the "big ones", it is rather to create light-weight, customizable alternative for many smaller projects.
Cubes aims (at this moment) rather for tool for tool creators than tool for end users. But you never know, how the wind will change... :-)
Comments
OLAP isn't just about the underlying cubes and dimensions, in the end it's about how the information is being presented to the user.
You are right. Cubes, dimensions and the logical model abstraction is the very first step: physical data implementation is hidden. Cubes is young, as mentioned in my comment - front-end helpers will be coming later. I will need some help on that part.
I am not quite sure about the "feature-richness". Yes, it might sell - in environments where people barely notice wrong data in 40-page monthly report, still being content about the report exhaustiveness. From my experience, many people want just basic stuff. I am trying to make cubes as small as possible (but not smaller), however extensible. For example, the cubes will not force you to use "cube's" way of drawing charts. It will provide few examples, based on common, accessible visualising backends. Along with the examples will have possibility to plug-in your own visualisation/reporting method.
The intention is not to create competitive product to the "big ones", it is rather to create light-weight, customizable alternative for many smaller projects.
Cubes aims (at this moment) rather for tool for tool creators than tool for end users. But you never know, how the wind will change... :-)