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CubesViewer - OLAP Visual Viewer and Explore Tool

Installing the full CubesViewer application

CubesViewer full application includes the complete of user interface features to explore and navigate a Cubes Server.

The full CubesViewer application includes a server-side Python/Django application which serves as backend for some of the operations (ie. saving / sharing).

The CubesViewer application is a web application and as such it must be served by an HTTP server. It can be run using Python Django local webserver, but for more serious/production environments, it should be fronted by a real web server like Apache.

As a side note, it should be pointed that CubesViewer is, however, mainly a client-side Javascript application, 
which means that although the full application is a Python Django Server-Side app, you can use a subset
of the GUI features running the tool directly from your browser (as long as the Cubes server is accessible).

The installation steps are:

1 - Python Cubes Requisite

In order to use CubesViewer, you need to have a working installation and configuration of the latest version of Cubes Framework version.

Cubes includes an HTTP server called "slicer", which provides a REST-like API interface to one or more data cubes. This server needs to be running for CubesViewer. Follow Cubes Framework instructions in order to install and set up a cubes server if you haven't done so yet.

It is not required that the Cubes server runs on the same host as the CubesViewer application.

To be able for CubesViewer to connect to the slicer server, your slicer.ini should allow cross origin resource sharing. To enable this option, put allow_cors_origin: http://localhost:8000 (or the URL from wich your app will work) under the [server] section.

2 - Dependencies

CubesViewer application runs on Python/Django. You need to have the following packages available in your system:

  • Python 2.7
  • Django 1.6.2

You will also need the following Python packages:

  • requests
  • django-piston

Django applications can run on local SQLite files, but if you plan to run on a different database system, you may need to install also the Python connectors for the appropriate database backend (ie. python-mysqldb).

3 - Download and install CubesViewer

Download CubesViewer project from GitHub repository. You can use 'git' or download the ZIP version of the project.

Put the content of the /src directory of the project, in the target directory of your choice.

4 - Configure the application.

There are a few parameters that need to be configured.

Besides of the OLAP database served by Cubes, the CubesViewer application requires access to a database in order to support save/load operations. You can use a local SQLite file or any other database system supported by Django.

By default, CubesViewer uses a SQLite database located in the same directory as the "settings.py" file (web/cvapp). See Django Database configuration documents for more information on the database configuration.

Edit the web/cvapp/settings.py file, and review the following sections according to your Cubes URL, database config and installation path.

##
# 1. Configuration of application database for storing reports
##

# Note: Default database uses sqlite and places the database file in the same
# directory as this configuration file. Change the database connection to
# match your needs.
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
        'NAME': os.path.join(CURRENT_DIR, 'cubesviewer.sqlite'), # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
        'USER': '',                      # Not used with sqlite3.
        'PASSWORD': '',                  # Not used with sqlite3.
        'HOST': '',                      # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
        'PORT': '',                      # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
    },
}
##
# 2. Configuration of Slicer OLAP Server
##

# Base Cubes Server URL.
# Your Cubes Server needs to be running and listening on this URL, and it needs
# to be accessible to clients of the application.
CUBESVIEWER_CUBES_URL="http://localhost:5000"

# CubesViewer Store backend URL. It should point to this application.
CUBESVIEWER_BACKEND_URL="http://localhost:8000/cubesviewer"

# Optional user and password tuple to access the backend, or False
# (only meaningful when CubesViewer Cubes proxy is used)
#CUBESVIEWER_CUBES_PROXY_USER = ('user', 'password') 
CUBESVIEWER_CUBES_PROXY_USER = None

# CubesViewer Proxy ACL
# (only meaningful when CubesViewer Cubes proxy is used)
# ie. CUBESVIEWER_PROXY_ACL = [ { "cube": "my_cube", "group": "my_group" } ]
CUBESVIEWER_PROXY_ACL = [
                         ]
##
# 3. Other Django application settings
##

# Path to static files
STATIC_DIR=os.path.join(CURRENT_DIR, os.path.pardir, 'static')
TEMPLATE_DIR=os.path.join(CURRENT_DIR, os.path.pardir, 'templates')

# Local time zone for this installation. Choices can be found here:
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_zones_by_name
# although not all choices may be available on all operating systems.
# On Unix systems, a value of None will cause Django to use the same
# timezone as the operating system.
# If running in a Windows environment this must be set to the same as your
# system time zone.
TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Madrid'

# Language code for this installation. All choices can be found here:
# http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/language-identifiers.html
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

5 - Initializing the database

Once the application is configured, we need to initialize the backend database. Django applications are initialized using the "manage.py" script.

Move into your INSTALLATION_PATH/web/cvapp directory and run the manage script with the "syncdb" option:

python manage.py syncdb

You will be prompted for an "admin" user and password. This is the user that will have access to the administration section.

6 - Running with Django WebServer

Finally, let's run the application. As mentioned above, you should think of using a front web server like Apache for production web sites. However, Django provides a convenient way to spawn a server for testing purposes. Run the manage script with the following parameters:

python manage.py runserver

Now, the application should be available from your browser, using the following URL:

http://localhost:8000/

If the data model can be loaded from Cubes server and contains any cube definitions, you should be able to see them and inspect them using CubesViewer.

7 - Configure your model for CubesViewer

Note that you can benefit from extra features if you configure your Cubes model. Check the Configuring your Cubes data model section of the documentation.

If you are using CubesViewer, share your experience in the discussion list or tweet #cubesviewer !