Using Alphablox

The following sections contain information about how to use Alphablox.

Important: Alphablox is deprecated as of IBM Business Monitor v7.5. For additional information about this deprecation, see Deprecated features of IBM Business Monitor.

Important: To start a cluster that has Alphablox installed, use the ripplestart option to allow Alphablox clustering to establish a lead node for repository synchronization. Ripplestart starts a cluster one cluster member at a time.

Managing Alphablox cubes
DB2® Alphablox cubes enable further data analysis and representation capabilities for IBM Business Process Manager dashboards. If Alphablox cubes were not set up during the deployment of a monitor model, you can use the WebSphere® Application Server administrative console to supply the Alphablox host connection settings as well as create, remove, and export cubes for that monitor model.
Creating Alphablox cubes
Use the WebSphere Application Server administrative console to create Alphablox cubes.
Removing Alphablox cubes
Use this procedure to remove all Alphablox cubes for a version of a monitor model.
Exporting Alphablox Cubes
Use the WebSphere Application Server administrative console to export Alphablox cubes.
Deploying Alphablox
The Alphablox binaries are installed with IBM Business Monitor but not configured. You must use the wbmDeployAlphabloxService command to deploy Alphablox to work with IBM Business Monitor. If you have a remote installation of Alphablox, you can use the wbmEnableAlphabloxConfiguration command to provide access to Alphablox from the administrative console.
Adding data security options to Alphablox
The Alphablox-based Dimensions and Reports widgets load all level members in the initial view by default. In general, this means that there is limited data security because users can see or navigate to any of the dimensional data that is available when using these widgets. IBM Business Monitor provides support for developers to implement customized dimensional data security that is based on user identities. A programming interface (WBM API) is provided for writing custom code for handling Alphablox cube data security control.
Tuning Alphablox for IBM Business Monitor
IBM Business Process Manager uses Alphablox for dimensional analysis. To better use resources and avoid performance issues between IBM Business Process Manager and Alphablox, additional tuning should be performed on the system. To fully maximize the performance, you should author monitor models with performance in mind and configure specific values for the production environment.

Parent topic: Migrating: Version-to-version