Thursday, April 25, 2013

OLAP(Online Analytical Processing)


 OLAP deals with Historical Data or Archival Data. Historical data are those data that are archived over a long period of time.
Example: If we collect last 10 years data about flight reservation, The data can give us many meaningful information such as the trends in reservation. This may give useful information like peak time of travel, what kinds of people are traveling in various classes (Economy/Business)etc.

    Historical Data or Archival Data
    Infrequent updates
    Analytical queries require huge number of aggregations
    Integrated data set with a global relevance

Updates are very rare here. Analytical queries requires huge number of aggregations. In analytical queries the performance issue is mainly in query response time. Query need to access large amount of data and require huge number of aggregation.
OLAP Queries have significant importance in strategic decision making. This helps the top level management in decision making.
Examples for OLAP Queries
    How is the profit changing over the years across different regions?
    Is it financially viable continue the production unit at location X?

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