On the trails near my home, stacks of rock called “cairns” are used to mark the path in places where trails are overgrown or where side trails lead to dead ends. Some of them are little more than utilitarian piles of stone, while others are meticulously crafted and carefully balanced. More than once, I've stayed on the right path only because previous hikers have left a cairn just where I needed it.

Many of the paths I've followed in developing EPM and BI systems have led me to places where the way forward was unclear. I leave these articles at such points to serve as cairns for those who come after me.


Meet Your Trail Guide, Tom Cockerline

I'm an Oracle employee. The views expressed on this website are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle. Before joining Oracle I was an independent Hyperion consultant with a broad range of experience working in the EPM stack.

I started working with Essbase in 1994, and since then I've also developed expertise in Hyperion Planning, Smart View, and the Data Integration Tools (ODI and FDMEE). I'm a CPA who started his career in IT, so I can work both the functional and technical sides of projects.

If you would like to discuss a consulting engagement with me, please send an email to my G-mail account, which has a userid of "tcockerline". You can also contact me via LinkedIn. View Tom Cockerline's LinkedIn profile