Oracle adding forecasting feature to OLAP server

Oracle Corp. is putting a new set of smarts into its OLAP server.

The database giant said Version 6.3 of its Express online analytical processing server would ship in late November with a statistical forecasting engine integrated with the Express kernel.

Oracle is peddling the forecasting feature, a family of nine algorithms, as valuable for businesses that sort through growing reams of fine-grain data to forecast sales, demand, production requirements and other metrics.

"Particularly with e-commerce, globalization and deregulation, doing forecasts that are accurate is imperative," said Jagdish Mirani, Oracle data warehousing product marketing director.

Oracle, in Redwood Shores, Calif., licensed the forecasting engine, called Geneva, from Beverly, Mass., developer Roadmap Technologies Inc. It does predictive model building, model interpretation and a range of advanced statistical calculations geared for business.

Integration directly into the Express kernel provides better speed and accuracy and makes forecasting functions available to analytic applications, Mirani said.

Oracle is at www.oracle.com. Roadmap is at www.roadmap-tech.com.