OLAP Catalog Metadata Entities

OLAP Catalog metadata entities are: dimensions, hierarchies, levels, level attributes, dimension attributes, measures, cubes, and measure folders. A separate PL/SQL package exists for each type of entity. The package provides procedures for creating, dropping, locking, and specifying descriptions for entities of that type. For example, to create a dimension, you would call CWM2_OLAP_DIMENSION.CREATE_DIMENSION; to create a level, you would call CWM2_OLAP_LEVEL.CREATE_LEVEL, and so on.

Each entity of metadata is uniquely identified by its owner and its name.

When you create an OLAP Catalog metadata entity, you are simply adding a row to an OLAP Catalog table that identifies all the entities of that type. Creating an entity does not fully define a dimension or a cube, nor does it involve any mapping to warehouse dimension tables or fact tables.

To fully construct a dimension or a cube, you must understand the hierarchical relationships between the component metadata entities.