A transitional day of sorts here in catalunya where we started in the mountains and ended up next to the sea. The longest stage of the race in 220km and on paper looked good for some kind of group sprint. Sure enough that's exactly what transpired and the Slovenian Luca Mezgec did what he did on stage 1 and 2 and duly put the sprinters to the sword again. The teams goal was pretty simple today and that was to set daniele up for the sprint. Last year he was 3rd so we were very confident in him today and with no GC positions to protect all our hopes as a team today hinged on Ratto in the bunch gallop.

Micheal koch did what he has also done all week and jumped into the early breakaway. By the end of the day he had raced up and insurmountable lead in the sprint classification ensuring he will stand on the podium on sunday in barcellona, provided he finishes the race that is. Micheal has really provided a bright mood in the camp this week with his seemingly daily brave escapes. As I have said before its great to see a guy who normally does so much work for everybody else enjoying the limelight daily on the podium.

Back in the bunch we waited for dario to instruct us on the next move. The breakaway contained a dangerous GC threat so the pace never let up all day so there was no respite. Sure enough as the km's ticked down others joined in the chase for the bunch sprint. We committed our me in the final 30km and its was our boys of salerno and Jean marc who swept up all the remaining escapees. I was rendered pretty much useless today as this virus really tpook the edge of me and resigned to gate keeper. That being a name designated to the rider whom sits directly behind the working team. At 15km to go a 5km 5% climb was the last obstacle. Here is where Ivan kicked into top gear control the pace to firstly ensure a bunch sprint occurred and secondly ratto was there for it. He has an amazing amount of experience so its no surprise under his guidance both things occurred at days end. In the sprint ratto was a little out manoeuvred and was left standard in the wind for too long wasting precious energy and would finish 20th. Still was a fine example of griitting your teeth taday we were so proud of ratto for enen being there to fight for the win, good job ratto!!

On my front sadly today will be the final stage for me in the 2014 volta catalunya. The medical staff, team trainer and team directors have decided I need to rest for a few days and not run myself down at all and keep everything on track for my main objectives in May. This is not something I am proud of but 3 extra rest days will make a big difference at this moment as oppose to suffering with a virus in a world tour race really the decision is easy. I will go to one of the most special training grounds I know off in tenerife and can't wait but first will be a few days rest.

So that's that for volta catalunya! Will do my best to keep the stories coming from atop the volcano in Teide  

CJW

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Its not getting warmer in catalunya!

The volta catalunya is always hit or miss when it comes to the weather in 2014 we have certainly been on the hit side!! Yesterday we were lucky with sun an 0 degrees but today some light rain turned into snow which was a little chilly on the w!ll! To say the very least. On the bright side the arctic climate change here in catalunya didn't set in until the final hour or so of racing where it was pretty much all uphill. Why is that a positive? Well if you are going to ride in snowy icey rain with a wind chill factor of god only knows, its a lot more pleasant doing so going uphill than down! As far as the race went today it was a bit of a none event for us on the results front but still as always there were a few interesting adventures along the way.  

Todays stage is the type I always look forward to. The definition of the perfect stage for is one that has more uphill, preferably at a steady gradient, and not much going downhill! So on paper stage 4 looked great. The only thing that made it not great was that I have not been feeling great since arriving in europe and its been difficult to figure out why. Well I know I have felt tired but until this afternoon was reasonably annoyed and confused as to why. I received confirmation from the doctor I have been suffering from a small virus for the past couple of weeks thanks to a blood exam I underwent last week before leaving for catalunya. Chances are I picked something up in taiwan and it has just taken the spark of me that I have dearly missed these past couple of days. It comes as no surprize to find this as 4 of our 5 man team from taiwan have now been diagnosed with some form of ailment, Boivin with bronchitis, formolo with chicken pox, Jean Marc with fatigue and now I join the list aswell. As annoying as it is to be a little under the weather its also nice to know there is a reason why I feel a little of and not normal. While I am not suggesting I would be setting this race alight by any stretch of the imagination the important thing is to accept the situation and where I am at and move on. At Cannondale Pro we have a very experienced team of doctors and trainers who I know will ensure I return to my chippa chirpy racing self in no time. On a positive note for 90% of the stages I am feeling good and comfortable, its just when they open the gas and I need the turbo that I find its not there. That shows that the base work we have done has been good and now I must not panic and just ensure I get 100% healthy asap. At the end of the day as a professional cyclist your health is your wealth. Another positive is its still 5 weeks until my first major objective of the season so we have plenty of time to recover and rebuild and be ready for my very important month of may in turkey and california.

Anyways back to today and we had one of the most feared first 30km in professional cycling. 10km slightly downhill full blast then boof! 20km uphill! A day like this is always hard as there is always someone wanting to attack of the front at warp speed and there are always plenty of people wanting to chase them! The result is a 5% climb of 20km is done more often than not at an average speed in excess of 30kmph!! So you have 2 choices to make. Firstly you attempt to be one of the brave ones and attack like a mad man hoping to make the breakaway or, secondly buckle your seat belt and find some good wheels in the bunch to follow and hang on for grim death. The only certainty is its going to be balls to the wall flat out for around 45minutes! Sure enough this occurred. I chose the second option and just perched myself up the front and followed the wheels and was as relieved as everybody else when 4 riders whom had around 20 seconds at the top were finally let go clear by Katusha on the long graceful decent of the top of the climb. With the break gone we could now settle in and wait for the fireworks of the climbers teams later in the day.

We rolled along at a nice gentle steady tempo and the whole group seemed happy to enjoy the calm before the storm. We all knew it was coming and was just a matter of when so you take the good times whenever you can. Sure enough some light rain started to fall around 50km from the finish which corresponded with us travelling along a road the size of a footpath. Again at first nothing happened until I saw the giant  yellow and blue clad aussie Rory sutherland hit the front. This meant trouble as contador was playing his hand. Sure enough the peleton instantly decimated on the steady 5km footpath wet climb we were scaling. I was chewing on my headstem at the back of the group until a couple of km's from the top I decided to ride my own pace and back myself to ride back to the front group on the false flat between the top of the climb and the final climb. This was a moment when I did not have the spark and as the rubber band was stretching in and out of the corners I was close to my limit. So I decided to back my false flat TT skills to ride back accross at a more steady pace. At the top of the climb the group was no more than 30 seconds ahead so 5km of concentrated TT work later I was back in the comfort of what was left of the main peleton. Rory was still powering away on the front. This was probably fortunate for me as if he had had any help I would most likely have not got back on. He had been on the front for almost 30min by this stage alone so he would have been getting a little tired fortunately for me.

The snow and sleat was now falling but fortunately it was all uphill for the last 25km. Around 15km of false flat and 10km of climb seperated us from the finish. I found George and Ivan and made sure they had all they needed. George handed me his great big rain jacket which took me about 5 minutes to figure out a way to stuff it somewhere in my jersey. With fingers verging on frost bite its not easy hold onto the handlebars let alone organise a wardrobe on your bicycle!! First I tried stuffing it down the front with no success with zippers and radio cords in the way I was in quite the tangle. Next I tried my vest back pocket but the light rain and freezing temps had literally snap frozen them shut so no luck there. Finally I managed to stuff it under my vest at the back but it turned out I only did half of it as when I went to hand it to our team car I realized I was actually sitting on the other half as I couldn't pull it out. The guys in that group must have had a bit of a giggle at the site of my improvised waterproof fizik seat system. By now I was well and truly spent and knew my boost was not there so once the final climb came I put up the white flag and enjoyed lovely ride up the final climb to the finish in the snow. As I said once I finished I would be notified by the medical staff why I was feeling so flat so was a good thing I took it easy and didn't dig deep, doing so will only prolong the recovery period. With that being said I need as much rest as possible so time for some shut eye and see how I am feeling in the morning.

Race Data-

Time: 5hrs

Elevation gain: 3500m

Ave heart rate: 139BPM

Max Heart rate: 189BPM

Kcal Burnt: 5000kcal

Ave Power: 266 watts

Max Power: 1000 watts

CJW  

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Sun snow n snow n cold stage 3 catalunya

Volta Catalunya hit the mountains today and I must admit was pretty excited about what would greet us in stage 3. After a couple of nervy argy bargy sprint stages the mountains were certain to take the sting out of the pins and make the fight for positions a little easier, well provided your in good shape that is! The objective of the cannondale boys today was to see where Ivan, George and I stood on the GC front and ideally have someone in the breakaway aswell to ensure we can take it easy back in the bunch. Like yesterday our german powerhouse took of as soon as the flag dropped and soon found the company of 5 others to enjoy another up the road consolidating his lead in the sprint classification. So another day and another podium appearance for micheal which is very exciting for him and great to see such a great worker for the team leaders enjoying the spotlight for a change. Sadly however for the boys in cannondale green that's about all we would have to crow about by days end as we crashed and burned on the final climb of the day.

With the break gone we settled into a nice day in the bunch. The final climb of the day did not look like it would explode the peleton to much being just 5km at around 6% but the 10 and 20km climb before hand certainly had the potential to do just that. First on the menu was the 10km and bunch trundled over that nice and gently much to everybodies delight. The second 20km which topped out just 60km from the finish was again done a gentle pace but with its length it seemed to take the snap out of the bunch. You know when this is happening as people stop talking and its much easier to hold a position at the front. I was feeling awesome, in all honesty I felt the most awesome, perhaps the best I have ever felt in a bike race and was confident of a good day. Specially as we crested the big climb I was champing at the bit for the final climb. Basso and george were also prominent at the front so it looked like it was going to be a good day.

One special mention I need to put in was seeing Nathan Earle setting tempo for his team leader chris froome of team sky. Nathan is in his first year in the world tour and a fellow hobart boy. When I first started cycling back in 2007 Nathan although some 5 years younger than me was one of the few guys that wanted to ride with me and wanted to share whatever knowledge he had with me. It was something I will always appreciate and as a result we have always been good friends. We have trained together for countless hours in hobart on Mt Wellington and these memories came flooding back seeing him tap out tempo on the front of the world tour peleton. It was actually comforting to see him doing it as I was pretty confident I knew the tempo he would be riding up so had a little upper hand the peleton knowing what to expect and am sure this was helping put me into a positive mood and frame of mind. But still the most exciting thing was simply to see nathan up there drumming out a tempo for what's been the number 1 team in stage racing over the past couple of years. Role into that that he is from the little old hobart town just like me, a town that did not even know what a pro cyclist really was when we started in the sport 6 years ago but to now have 2 of use riding in the top tear is pretty cool I reckon. Its a domino effect I think, once someone breaks the ice which for the modern protour world that was Matty goss when he signed for CSC back in 2007. From then on we all believed that it was possible to ride in the world tour even if you came from tassie. For so long the north of the state dominated the numbers of world tour riders but in 2014 nathan and I have squared the ledger finally!! Ritchie porte and gossy up north and nathan and I from the south, that's really really awesome to see and I just hope that the flow on effect to the younger generation of budding cyclists is the same as its been for us and many many more tasmanians will be riding in the world tour in years to come, preferably more from the south than north!! Again thanks nathan for giving me something to ponder and enjoy thinking about while climbing a 20km pyrenean pass topping out at 2000+m in 1 degree temperatures! Really did put a positive light on an otherwise painfull hour of power!!  

Back to the race and down into the valley and the 20km before the final climb. Here Daniele Ratto was showing what an awesome team mate he really is using his crafty sprinting skills to position us perfectly at all time for the race to the finish. The last 2 days he has been our leader and delivered, today he was sacrificing himself so we had a shot at glory, that's a really great sign of a great rider and I have always appreciated daniele for this work. He will ride in the wind for you until he literally comes to a stand still and you can trust to always get you out of trouble. You simply stay on his wheel and you know when push comes to shove he will have you in the right place at the right time. As always that's exactly where he had me when we hit the final climb.

Into the final 5km climb and I was brimming with confidence. I was in the perfect position, safely nestled in behind rodrigues and contador and infront of froomie. Perfect I just had to sit here until everyone ran out of team mates to support them and then see what happens! Well this honeymoon period lasted sadly only a couple of km's and all of a sudden when the pace ramped up there was something missing. I was really suffering to stay in the group and knew I was in trouble. Not wanting to drop a wheel and lose the respect of the great riders that had given me such a great position in the bunch I moved aside and retreated back into the group for some shelter and in the hope of recovery. I briefly sprung back to life but when the attacks started going off like fire crackers around 1.5km from the finish I simply didn't have the power to respond. I all of a sudden felt really tired and didn't have the edge I have to honestly say I hoped I had. I had been very tired this past week and my last training session was not good. I still had the power but was suffering to produce it. Since then I had tried to rest and recover as much as possible but sadly when you are chasing freshness at this level its a ticking time bomb for when the best riders in the world will find you out. That happened to me today. Since Taiwan I haven't felt right so not sure why but I suspect the travel and race took more out of me than anticipated and I then trained to hard when I got to europe. Turned up to race the boys feeling very tired and knowing I was perhaps on the edge with fatigue and sure enough when I needed that spark, that 1minute of real suffering, it doesn't seem like much but at this level it makes the difference, I simply didn't have it. It wasn't I exploded I simply couldn't push. I simply didn't have the power and energy to dig deep like a did say in the tour down under or suntour. Simply put I am tired and not sharp and today got given a harsh reality in how things can go from good to bad very quickly! Anyways on the bright side I was closer to the front than the back and we still have 4 more stages and opportunities to come so who knows what might still happen. After this I have a great block of training in tenerife for 4 weeks which is one of my favourite places to train before I head to another of my favourite race the tour of turkey at the end of april. I was 5th there in 2011 so am going back to improve on that. After todays disappointment I will be very determined to do everything possible in the next 4 weeks to ensure I turn up there ready to go and no doubts, then you just have to wait and see if your strong enough or not!!

That's a wrap here in catalunya, shut eye time and another opportunity awaits tomorrow!

Cjw  

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Sun & slippery day in catalunya

A very exciting day here in catalunya for the Cannondale pro boys. Our german strong man micheal koch powered his way into the days breakaway and daniele the rat man ratto continued his rapid progression into top form finishing 3rd in the bunch sprint. Our plan was pretty much as it played out, ideally have a guy in the break so we did not have to chase and ensure daniele was in the perfect position for the sprint. The results will show that it was almost a perfect day for the team but there was a little excitement and action on the road to girona this afternoon.

The stage got of to the perfect start for us with our german micheal koch in the days breakaway. On many many occasions I have been blown away with the power of this young lad and I knew once he was up the road it was going to be a fast day in the peleton to reel him and his fellow escapees in. As expected that's exactly how it panned out and by days end micheal had not only saved our team from doing any work but also would climb atop the podium to pull on the leader of the sprint classification jersey. Big pat on the back to Mr Koch. As I said back in the bunch the pace was high all day. Along with micheal there some serious powerhouses in the breakaway and the peleton knew that could not be given much of a leash. As a result the pace was high and we were all enjoying getting sucked along basking in the Spanish sunshine en route to girona. This is how it remained until the heavens decided to open around 50km from the finish.

The day went from being extremely pleasant to extremely cold wet and miserable in the space of 100m. The sun was gone and the heavens had decided to dumb what seemed like ice water upon us instead of UV rays. When it rains stress in the bunch goes through the roof, surprize surprize. With wet roads comes the increase in crashing potential and with that comes more people wanting to be at the front, and with that come a big fight for front positions. So the consequence of that is that when we should be slowing down and riding safely (Yeah right!!) We travel even faster and increase the risk and danger! That's make perfect sense doesn't it?? Oh the logic of bike racing!

Anyways the simple way to avoid trouble is stay at the front, and I mean right at the front. Infact you can never be far enough forward and out of harms way be it to hold a front position for your leaders or being protected by your team mates, the less people in front of you the less chance there is of somthing going wrong, simple as that. We did this quite well and were immediately up the front. As expected Ratto was on the ball and right there the whole time saving precious energy and staying safe for the big bunch sprint to come. As I said yesterday ivan likes to be up front and out of trouble and takes this to a new level in the rain and sets a great example to the team for riding this way. If we are not protecting him he simply protects himself and waits for us to come to him again and protect him from the wind. Basically the rain makes it extremely hard for everybody and you simply need to keep fighting for position for longer than anyone else is prepared to to stay up the front. So in this area this is a very good example of our captain leading by example.

So with 10km to go all seemed perfect, basso, jean marc, ratto and I were all poised at the front and ready for the sprint work. Koch was about to be swept up and it was time to start ensuring ratto was exactly where he needed to be. All of a sudden a left hand sweeping corner, nothing technical mind you appeared seemingly from nowhere and some nerves hit the front of the peleton. An astana rider just ahead of me decided he would approach the corner casey stoner moto gp style and unclip he left foot to stick out for stability. Unfortunately this distracted me for a split second and I started drifting toward him tapped my front break and before I knew it I was spinning along the road like a merry go round! Amazingly although it happened right at the front I managed not to bring anyone else down with me so when I finally came to stand still the only thing damaged was my ego and pride thanks to the wet slippery surface. So my as cruisy perfect day as was possible under the rainy circumstances just became a whole lot harder. I had to pick myself back up of the deck and chase like a madman to regain contact with the field to avoid losing anytime. The positives were my bike wasn't broken and neither was I so I was up and moving quickly. I could still see the peleton which was another positive as all I had to do was ride hard enough to keep closing the gap between me and it. I stayed remarkably calm which I hope is a good sign of my condition and although at full noise a couple of km's later I was back in the field as we went under 5km to go, big relief.

Ratto meanwhile was taking the staying forward and out of trouble technique to the next level. At 4km to go and the final tricky corner he sat 3rd in line in the peleton. He knew with the crazy conditions in the final few kms people would not be charging up from behind and he was on the ball today that's for sure. At around 1km to he was now in second wheel and by the line he would be passed by the eventual winner, luka mezgek, a very polite Slovenian and would wind up 3rd. By his own admission daniele is far from in his best condition but simply by using his incredible bike knowledge and skills he was able to match it with the worlds best and inturn show that improvement is coming thick and fast. We as a team are as excited about the next opportunity he gets for a crack at glory during this week in catalunya.

Tomorrow we hit the mountains. I have really enjoyed racing in the mountains here the past couple of times I have done this race so I am very excited to role the sleeves tomorrow and get stuck into it. The cannondale boys have had a great start to the race so may it continue as the road heads skywards!

Cjw  

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Back to europe, stage 1 catalunya

Today I kicked of my european campaign for 2014 at the volta catalunya in spain. While I already have 3 races in the pins the season never really feels like its started until that first race in europe is out of the way. I have to be honest in that it still feels like a bit of a holiday when racing in aus, a treat if you like! When you have that first day back in europe things are all that big bit more serious in the peleton and the honeymoon racing period is officially over. Its not that the speed changes so much or even the distance or terrain as is the case here in catalunya this week. Its just all of a sudden and particularly at the world tour level everybody is taking it seriously and everybody is back in race shape so I guess for us aussie's, that little edge we have at the start of the year thanks to training in the perfect climate is now gone and were all back on the level playing field. Still its also an exciting day for me to see where you stand and how you handle things when its steps up a notch or two.

Stage 1 at catalunya has in the past had the potential to through up some unexpected surprises. In the previous few editions small breakaways have been given too much lee way and survived to the finish and small splits have broken the peleton on nervy decents in the final km's. Today it seemed the whole field was determined to see no surprises and ensure a hard but fair bunch sprint was played out along the coastline of the Mediterranean. Also this year its a star studded line up so that always adds an extra bit of control to the race. With that being said I nice little manageable 2 man break formed which was never going to be too difficult to control.

Our cannondale boys had a couple of clear objectives here today. Firstly to ensure daniele ratto had a crack at the bunch sprint and secondly to make sure we did not lose any time on the general classification. Its my first race back with Ivan basso for a while and its great to have him back at my side. He is a captain of the team and is so in every sense of the word when in the race. His results over the years command respect and as such when he suggests something we do it. Ivan loves to know exactly what's going on at all times and so do I, that's a major reason I love racing with him. With him we always ride as a team at the front and here I feel much more in control of what's going on, its great. Today Ivan wanted us to take some responsibility in the race in take control of the pace setting in the final 50km. This gave the team a clear objective and we set up camp on the front all the stage. Just the place I love to be, up where I can see what's going on. The plan was for me to ride the 6km climb 30km from the finish at a good tempo to basically keep us at the front for the potentially tricky dangerous decent. From there we would have good position for the final short fast climb and fast techniqual decent and as a consequence ratto would be in a good spot for a shot at the sprint, like plans often do it sounded pretty simple!

So onto the penultimate climb and as usual I was champing at the bit to get to the front and ride tempo up the climb. I had been bouncing out of my skin to do this job for the previous 100km and 1mm after passing the "porto inzia" sign I was on the front and happy as a pig in poop. All the boys were lined up behind me so all was on schedule. One issue with riding on the front is you close to camera motorbike which for some reason unbeknown's to us all wipes out your SRM power meter signal. Not to worry I simply needed to go on feel and with the captain of the ship behind me I knew he would tell me if I needed to change my rhythm. Up the climb we went and all went according to plan and onto the decent we had the control of the field. This was perfect as we were up out of harms way and most importantly ratto was able to save as much energy as possible for the sprint. I was having a ball being on the front all the way up and all the way down. It was by no means an exercise in trying to make the race hard but simply make it as easy and stressless for the cannondale clad boys in green. On the flat micheal koch took over and kept us well positioned and before we knew we had 20km of mostly downhill to plunge back to the Mediterranean coastline.

As expected daniele the rat man ratto had been diligent all day and was in a great position. Jean marc, the awesome team mate I was so fortunate to first ride along side in taiwan was assigned to guide him into the finish and as expected was right there with him when it mattered. As they hit the km to go micheal koch was putting his german powerhouse tt skills to the test and providing an excellent lead out for daniele. When he swung off the sprint in earnest began and when the dust settled daniele would be a very creditable 5th pace for the day. This was a great result for daniele as he has had a slow start to the year and his first world tour race day of the season so excellent for the days weeks and months ahead. From a team perspective it was again great to commit to a task and carry it out together, nothing ventured nothing gained and while we did not get the win we atleast laid the foundations for one so that will give us motivation to go out and do the same again tomorrow.

Being back in europe means seeing some faces you haven't seen for a long time. One such face was that of the 2013 le tour de france champ chris froome. I hadn't really seen chris since having dinner with him in monaco early last year so was great to catch up with him and have a chat. Surfice to say he is an incredibly interesting guy and as such its always an enlightening conversation with him. Today we actually discussed training in california and how awesome it is. It seems that the bug to spend your off season training and season breaks stateside is fast spreading through the peleton. He was interested to here about my month there over december january period where I trained with the likes of taylor phinney and motogp star cal crutchlow. It was one of the most awesome months I have enjoyed on my bicycle and chris was keen to here all about. I certainly did my best to recruit him to the group, more the merrier, its really an awesome awesome spot to ride you bike in california. Will be interesting to what he decides to do on that one.

Anyways back to the racing here in catalunya and tomorrow looks suited to a similar outcome of today. Flat by spanish standards with a few narly little twisty turny sections in the final 20km to spice things up a bit. I am feeling good, I have been a lazy slob this week and slept into atleast 9am so have adapted perfectly to spanish race timing. We rarely start racing before midday so the ability to sleep in is quite crucial to being at your best for hard afternoon in the saddle. So with that being said its time for some shuteye!

Cjw

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Hybrid Essbase has arrived

A patch, but much more than just a patch

After much anticipation, Oracle have released the latest and greatest update to Essbase, the Oracle Essbase Release 11.1.2.3.000 Patch Set Update (PSU): 11.1.2.3.500.  As a patch, you must first have 11.1.2.3 installed.  You then get to experience the pleasures of opatch.exe as you apply the following patches to Essbase and its components (there are many platforms available, the below are Windows 64-bit only):

Component	Patch
Hyperion Essbase Server 11.1.2.3.500	Patch 17767302: Essbase Server
Hyperion Essbase Client 11.1.2.3.500	Patch 17767299: Essbase RTC
	Patch 17767307: Essbase Client MSI
Hyperion Essbase Studio Server 11.1.2.3.500	Patch 17767295: Essbase Studio Server
	Patch 17767296: Essbase Studio Console MSI
Hyperion Essbase Administration Services (EAS) 11.1.2.3.500	Patch 17767309: EAS Server
	Patch 17767316: EAS Console MSI
Hyperion Analytic Provider Services (APS) 11.1.2.3.500	Patch 17767293: APS Services

If you are not on Windows, you can search for the patches.  Yes, the below search is for Windows but go ahead and change it to your platform of choice.  Oracle is OS agnostic.

That Windows-specific search will give you this (I cut off the non .500 files):

Just be sure that you also search for Studio, EAS, and APS.

If you want the whole 11.1.2.3.500 EPM patch (and it is a monster 1.7 gigabyte patch -- I heard about it from John Goodwin’s blog) go to Patch 17529887: Patch Set Update: 11.1.2.3.500 for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System.  Here’s the readme (you must be logged into Oracle Support to read this).

Why should you care?

I’ll give you my take on this release, but as the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

I’m going to briefly cover Hybrid, but I think the other big hits from this release are:

• MDX Aggregate and Sum are sped up
• FIXPARALLEL
• A change to the way Essbase stores BSO data

MDX Aggregate and Sum

A pretty common issue in ASO databases is the need to do a level zero-only calculation (say for a rate calc) and then aggregate up.  Except of course ASO doesn’t work that way – it’s dynamic, remember?  And that means that ASO wants to calculate data at all levels, including that rate calculation.  If the rates are only valid at level zero, this fully dynamic nature results in inaccurate results when those rates are summed and then calculated at upper levels.

Many (including me) have tried to get round that by creating member formulas that test for the level of the dimensions and use MDX to aggregate dimensions on the fly.  This often doesn’t work because MDX calculations are dynamic and hence do not take advantage of the bitmap.  As Dan Pressman would say, doing this is not letting ASO be ASO.  What I say is that this is S-L-O-W.  Too slow, usually, to actually work.

Do it in batch

Oracle have realized this and, in 11.1.2, came up with ASO calc scripts.  They are run via MaxL and the execute calculation command – it’s a little ugly looking but supports those level zero only calcs.  Run that and let ASO be ASO and do the aggregations it loves to do – perfect, right?

What about interactive applications?

While that’s fine for batch processes, it doesn’t work very well in interactive applications.  I’ve seen some stunningly kludgy ways of launching MaxL in the background to do the level zero calcs after a user inputs data.  It works, kind of, but is a pain.

A better way, hopefully

Oracle feels your pain, and have optimized Essbase so that the member formula MDX technique may allow you to do those dimension level tests and then do a Aggregate or Sum.

I note that this may be a solution for you because:

1. I haven’t tested it
2. I have to believe that it only scales so far

OTOH, per the “I haven’t tested it” statement I could be 100% wrong and maybe this approach will work for large dimensions.  Watch this space for a test in the near future.

What does the read me say?

Faster Queries for MDX Aggregate and Sum Functions

In aggregate storage databases, performance is improved for MDX queries containing the Aggregate or Sum functions. Essbase performs dependency analysis and uses a formula cache to execute these requests dynamically.

For the optimized performance of these functions on aggregate storage databases, include in your query the following elements:

• Any of the following functions, used within the named set and/or as an argument to this function: Intersect, CurrentMember, Distinct, CrossJoin, PeriodsToDate. The use of any other functions (such as Members) disables the optimization.
• The second parameter, accounts_member, must be included for optimal performance.

Note: Optimal query performance may require a larger formula cache size. If you get an error message like the following, adjust the Essbase.cfg setting MAXFORMULACACHESIZE accordingly:

Not enough memory for formula execution. Set MAXFORMULACACHESIZE configuration parameter to [1072]KB and try again.

Pretty cool, eh?

FIXPARALLEL

We all know, and mostly love, CALCPARALLEL.  It can be a little tricky to set up correctly, causes greater PAG file (we are back in BSO land, btw) fragmentation, and lots of functions revert Essbase to serial mode, but the performance boost is so great most developers just use as much of it as possible.

FIXPARALLEL is just what it says – parallel calculation for blocks of commands as defined by FIXPARALLEL…ENDFIXPARALLEL.  

A question arises:  If BSO parallel calculation already exists through CALCPARALLEL, why bother with a different method of parallelization?  It’s partly about choice, and partly because FIXPARALLEL doesn’t rely on task selection the way CALCPARALLEL does.  In other words, FIXPARALLEL doesn’t depend on “sparsity, outline order, dependencies, and member formulas” when generating a task list.

Also, FIXPARALLEL works with temporary variables (VAR functions), DATACOPY, and DATAEXPORT (flat files only).  

A change to the way Essbase stores data

This one caught me by surprise, mostly because it tells me that the way I thought Essbase stored data in blocks has been wrong.  

Per the ReadMe:

Prior to this release, each time a data block was updated, it was written to a new disk location. With this release, for Exalytics, Essbase enables in-place data writing.

In-place data writing means that when updates occur, the data block can be written to the same location, as long as the compressed size of the data block fits in its original location on the disk.

In-place data writing can help reduce data fragmentation and lower the need for frequent restructuring of database. It also reduces the need for frequent index updates, resulting in improved performance.

I could have sworn that Essbase always did that.  In fact, many people (although not Glenn Schwartzberg) have.  Even Oracle (at least previously) stated:

The Average Fragmentation Quotient ratio measures free space in a given database.  As you update and calculate data, empty spaces occur when a block can no longer fit in its original space and will either append at the end of the file or fit in another empty space that is large enough.  These empty spaces take up space in the .PAG files

I, and others, took this to mean that when Essbase can write a data value back to its original block, it did.

Reading this, and Glenn’s comments that this has always been the way Essbase works led me to try an experiment with Sample.Basic on 11.1.2.3.000:

1. I cleared the database and loaded calcdat.txt. That got me to 1 for the Average Clustering Ratio and 0 for the Average Fragmentation Quotient as displayed in Esscmd’s GETDBSTATS command (I am not exactly sure this is yet available in MaxL).
2. I went into Smart View, navigated to New York->Budget->Sales->Jan->100-10, changed 640 to 645, and did a submit.
3. Looking at GETDBSTATS again showed me that Sample.Basic now had an:
1. Average Clustering Ratio of 0.9999647
2. Average Fragmentation Quotient of 0.04882698

Glenn was right (yet again, I might add -- I wouldn’t bet my life on arguing technical functionality with Glenn as I am still to young to die), changing even a single value causes Essbase to fragment.  I can only conclude, just as the documentation states, Essbase, outside of Exalytics, this release, and the INPLACEDATAWRITE Essbase.cfg setting, that Essbase for most of us does not write back to the same location.

Hybrid is here, or ASO meets BSO

I’ve been waiting for this one ever since it was announced at Oracle OpenWorld 2013 – Hybrid, formally known as BSO/ASO Hybrid Aggregation Mode, is a fascinating piece of code.  What it essentially does is brings ASO dynamic aggregations to BSO databases.  This is beyond huge because it solves the data explosion issue that has bedeviled BSO Essbase since its inception.

Hyrid aggregation means that you get all of the BSO goodness (think all of those great BSO calc script functions) that you know and love but get away from the all (or most) of the bad things in BSO that stem from the aggregation process of stored members:

• Upper level blocks don’t have to exist
• Database sizes are much smaller
• Calc times are much shorter (or even nonexistent)

It’s all very exciting stuff that I and Dan Pressman will cover in coming blog posts and of course our ODTUG Kscope14 presentation Evolution or Revolution:  The New Hybrid Essbase.

The future

I’m going to stop for now (mostly because I have to have a life and because I need to get rid of the beta patches I have and install the commercially released version) but will note that this this release has a lot of limitations as one might expect for an initial go round.  Think of 11.1.2.3.500 as a statement of direction, with limitations being taken away and new functionality being added over time.  

The next few blog posts will cover what I and others discovered during the beta process, some of the workarounds, and the implications of this exciting new extension to BSO Essbase.

You may know that I was part of a team that wrote a book all about advanced Essbase:  Developing Essbase Applications.  In it, author Dave Farnsworth wrote a chapter called, “BSO Will Never Die and Here is Why”.  Despite many people’s attempts to declare BSO dead, I think it’s safe to say that Oracle doesn’t agree.

Be seeing you.

The FRA's 'Deep Dive' into Metro-North

It was worse than we’d ever known.  Metro-North was almost an accident waiting to happen.

That summarizes the Federal Railway Administration’s “Operation Deep Dive” report issued last week, following 60 days of probing into every aspect of the railroad’s operations.  All of this comes on the heels of collisions and derailments in the past year that have taken the lives of four commuters and two railroad workers.

The 28-page report confirms that what was wrong at Metro-North was not just old equipment but a failure of management with very misplaced priorities.  “On-time performance” was what mattered most, even at the expense of safety.

Among the report’s findings…

·       Half of the personnel who dispatch and monitor the trains have less than three years’ experience, are not properly trained and are so tired they make mistakes

·       The railroad’s “safety culture” was “poor”.  Safety meetings went unattended.

·       Fatigue by train engineers, track workers and dispatchers may have affected performance.

·       The trains themselves are in good shape, but the tracks are not.

I’ve been following Metro-North for more than 20 years, so much of this is not news to me but just a substantiation of my worst fears.  Still, the report makes for interesting reading because it cites many examples as proof-points for these findings:

Metro-North has known for a decade that they were facing a “retirement cliff” with 20% of its employees, those with the most experience, reaching their 30^thanniversary of employment to retire on fat pensions.  But the railroad was clearly inadequate in hiring and training their replacements.

Fatigue becomes a factor because soon-to-retire veterans grab all the overtime they can in their final year to increase their income and their railroad pensions.  They are among the oldest employees and least resilient.

Metro-North’s management wasn’t even enforcing its own rules.  The report says employees were “confused” about cell phone use on the job.  Any teenager studying for his driver’s license knows not to use a cell phone while driving, but track workers at Metro-North got away with it.

Additional funding for staff and infrastructure are important and must be found. But turning around a culture of lax enforcement and lip-service to safety is going to take more than money.

Only a month on the job, espousing “safety is our top priority” at every turn, the new President of Metro-North, Joseph Giulietti, recently saw the first fatal accident on his watch:  a track worker, 8 years on the job, was struck by a train just outside the Park Avenue tunnel.  Why?

There are no quick fixes to this mess.  It took years of invisible neglect for Metro-North to slide into this abyss, and it will take years to rebuild the railroad and regain riders’ trust.