Tag: Cloud

EPM Conversations — Episode 14, A Conversation with Sree Menon, The Calc Man

Sree Menon, The Calc Man

Many years ago (just over 10!), Yr. Obt. Svt. wrote a blog post on why he Hated and Loved Calculation Manager. I even did it twice. I am – oft times, still, it continues unabated – a complete smartass who pays little heed to what he says and writes and this was most definitely one of those times. These posts were a continuation of not altogether terrifically awesome judgement as they were an expansion of a similarly-snarky two parter on Hyperion Business Rules. 2009? 2012? My, but the time does fly.

So that’s four snide technical blog posts on two closely related Oracle products. As is typical and as has been noted, I performed zero thought on any potential consequences that might arise from click-bait (was that even a term in 2009?) titles: Oracle could have gotten annoyed and come down on my head with a bag of hammers or they could have ignored it and hoped that no one read my posts or they could have read it, realized that (somehow) there was a little value in it and reached out to me so that in future my posts on this

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EPM Conversations — Episode 12, A Conversation With Kumar Ramaiyer, Workday Adaptive Planning Business Unit Vice President

As Everyone Knows, But Hardly Anyone Actually Does

One of my fondest recollections of Kscope (umm, one year or another, they all blend together after a while) is sitting in on Kumar’s introduction of Exalytics (remember that Wave Of The Future?). As Kumar dived deeper and deeper into the hardware behind Essbase-on-Exalytics, he prefaced each increasingly (exponentially?) complex computer engineering concept and detail with, “As everyone knows…”. If only. I sure didn’t.

Key to Kumar’s personality is this liberality of intellectual comradeship: he thinks that surely whatever a given insanely complex topic might be is easily understood by the average geek. This (possibly insanely optimistic) generosity of intellectual spirit informs this podcast as Kumar takes us (and you, Gentle Listener) through his journey from theoretician to developer to advocate to Vice President of Engineering while working at Informix, Oracle, and now Workday.

Cubes, Cubes, Cubes

Beyond the interesting personal history (and you have to catch Kumar’s glory days in the NCAA and yes, really; we in the performance management space are polymaths), he gives one of the most passionate, cogent, and comprehensive arguments of the cube as the ideal for planning and budgeting. I’ve worked with non-cube forecasting tools and

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A Free Form Planning aka Essbase SaaS Journey — part 6, the Mac Smart View Revolution

A point fully stretched to the breaking point

Essbase on Macintosh has always been a poor relation. But it was not always thus. There was a time when Apple Power Computing really was Thinking Different and that difference was revolutionary. I was a (small) part of it. The emotions invoked were strong, to wit:

This is (I think) Bill Gates being tortured by Mean Girls; you can substitute Essbase on Mac for Mr. Bill. Ouch. Was Yr. Obt., Lyl., Fthfyl., & Hmbl. Svt. ever treated thus at a birthday party? If so, he cannot remember, but probably.

The last time I used Essbase and a Macintosh that wasn’t also running a VM, was in – gasp! – something like 1994, just about when I started with Essbase. Yes, there really was an Essbase add-in for Mac and I used it on my Macintosh IIfx.

Given that Macs now run Intel, this poster isn’t totally accurate but is too cool to not include:

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Supposedly there’s a version around with Sluggo Smith punching Mr. I-used-to-be-the-richest-man-in-the-world-but-I’m-not-doing-too-badly-thanks-for-asking in the face but I’ve never actually seen it. This is good enough.

Evangelizing Macintosh aka being a Mac fanboi

Why, when Windows

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A Free Form Planing aka Essbase SaaS Journey — part 5, POV You’re Clear Out of Smart View

POV, you’re clear out of Smart View, When I am not looking at you

I analyze out of this world, The data that no mortal ever knew

Essbase SaaS otherwise known as Free Form Planning has largely, although not completely (I don’t actually know what the gap is – ask Oracle but I do know it’s getting smaller), come to Smart View parity with native Essbase connections. There is one glaring exception – that damnable, horrific, hard to use, and I-just-hate-it floating POV, viz.

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Evil. Hateful. Accursed. Also, I don’t like it. It has been part of the Planning data connection seemingly forever and I’ve disliked it just as long. In the on-premises world it’s easy to get round by using the Essbase data connection in Smart View but that isn’t an option in Planning Cloud.

But what if there was a fix to this and it’s OMG-easy? Actually, the OMG part consists of me not knowing it and Planning’s Product Manager maintaining his patience when he told me it’s been there for almost a year. He is a better man than I.

You’re right out of my Excel book, The financial plan I read last night at five

No

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A Free Form Planning aka Essbase SaaS Journey — part 3, Think Small

Think Small

When I were a lad, VW Bugs (or Beetles – take your pick) were thick on the ground. My parents’ friends had them; my father drove one of these bad Squareback boys, picked up direct from the VW factory at Wolfsburg and a fine car till it caught on fire. Twice. In fact my grandmother drove a 1969 one in her favorite color – red. In the 1960s, small was beautiful. It still can be.

Small is definitely not one of these:

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It’s rather more like this:

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That’s history. What do I drive? I walk the automotive walk. Hmm, that’ s a bad analogy because the point of having a car is that one doesn’t have to walk but no matter. Here’s my lead sled:

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Yup, there it is in all its glory, parked right next to my favorite trailhead. I like to think that I’ve driven off road more than 98% of SUVs even if it’s just grass. I’m quite the reverse snob.

My so-called friends have deemed this really quite cheap, gets great mileage, and irredeemably geeky hatchback as: The Mustard Cruiser, The Short Bus, and most cruelly, The Dorkmobile. All true,

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