Book excerpt: Maintaining the advanced technical focus found in Developing Essbase Applications, this second volume is another collaborative effort by some of the best Essbase practitioners from around the world. The book explores technology areas that are much-discussed but still very new, including Exalytics and Hybrid Essbase. It covers the latest improvements to the Essbase engine as well as the impact of new reporting and analysis tools. It also presents advanced Essbase best practices across a variety of features, functions, and theories.