A meta-language for MDX queries in eLog Business Solution

The adoption of business intelligence technologyin industries is growing rapidly. Business managers are notsatisfied with ad hoc and static reports and they ask for moreflexible and easy to use data analysis tools. Recently, applicationinterfaces that expand the range of operations available to theuser, hiding the underlying complexity, have been developed. Thepaper presents eLog, a business intelligence solution designedand developed in collaboration between the database group ofthe University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and eBilling, anItalian SME supplier of solutions for the design, production andautomation of documentary processes for top Italian companies.eLog enables business managers to define OLAP reports bymeans of a web interface and to customize analysis indicatorsadopting a simple meta-language. The framework translates theuser’s reports into MDX queries and is able to automaticallyselect the data cube suitable for each query.Over 140 medium and large companies have exploited thetechnological services of eBilling S.p.A. to manage their documentsflows. In particular, eLog services have been used by themajor media and telecommunications Italian companies and theirforeign annex, such as Sky, Mediaset, H3G, Tim Brazil etc. Thelargest customer can provide up to 30 millions mail pieces within6 months (about 200 GB of data in the relational DBMS). In aperiod of 18 months, eLog could reach 150 millions mail pieces(1 TB of data) to handle.