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OLAP

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28 views8 pages

OLAP

Uploaded by

Rhea Sanjay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

- A category of data processing that allows users to interactively analyze large


volumes of data from multiple perspectives.
- Primarily used for complex queries and business intelligence applications, to
uncover trends, patterns, and insights for decision-making.
- OLAP systems are designed to answer "analytical" queries, often in the context
of multidimensional data models.

Image source: Google Image Search

Multidimensional Data Model (Cube)


● OLAP organizes data in a multidimensional format, often referred to as an
OLAP cube.
● This cube represents the data in multiple dimensions and facts.
● Dimensions are the perspectives or attributes along which you analyze the
data.
○ can be thought of as the axes of the cube.
○ Example: Time (e.g., year, month, day), geography (e.g., country, region,
city), and product categories (e.g., product name, brand, category).
● Measures (Facts) are the numeric values you analyze within the cube.
○ are the data points that you aggregate or calculate over different
dimensions.
○ Examples: sales revenue, units sold, profit margins, etc.

Example application scenario


Consider our running example of an e-commerce application (Amazon, Flipkart etc.).
Here, you might have a cube with the following dimensions and measures:

● Dimensions:
○ Time (Year, Quarter, Month)
○ Geography (Region, Store)
○ Product (Category, Brand)
● Measures:
○ Total Sales
○ Units Sold
○ Profit

This structure allows users to "slice" and "dice" data to answer complex questions
like:

● "What were the total sales for each region in Q1 2024?"


● "How many units of product X were sold in the West region during
December?"
● "What is the profit for a specific brand in a particular store over a year?"
Operations in OLAP
● Slice selects a single level of data along one dimension.

Example: With sales data for several years, you want to examine only the data
for 2023, you slice the cube along the "Time" dimension to extract data for the
year 2023.

● Dice involves selecting data from multiple dimensions to create a sub-cube.


It's similar to slicing, but with more than one dimension involved.

Example: If you want to examine sales for product category "A" in the "North"
region for 2023, you dice the cube along both the "Product" and "Geography"
dimensions for the year 2023.

● Drill-Down allows you to navigate from summary data to more detailed data.
You start with a high-level view and progressively drill down to a more
granular level of data.

Example: You might start with total sales for a region and drill down into
specific months or even days to see detailed sales performance.

● Drill-Up is opposite of drill-down, drill-up aggregates detailed data to a higher


level. This is useful when you want to consolidate data into summaries.

Example: You might start with sales data for individual products and drill up
to see total sales for the entire product category.
● Pivot (Rotate) operation involves reorienting the dimensions of the cube to
view the data from different perspectives. It is a way to "rotate" the data to see
different combinations of dimensions.

Example: You might rotate the cube to switch the positions of "Time" and
"Geography" to examine data over time in each region, rather than examining
data in each region over time.
Image source: Google Image Search

OLAP Types
● MOLAP (Multidimensional OLAP)
○ stores data in a multidimensional database (often a specialized
structure) that allows fast access to pre-aggregated data.
○ is optimized for fast retrieval of summary data and is very efficient for
read-heavy analytical workloads.

Example: A retail company might use MOLAP to quickly access


summarized sales data across various dimensions like region, product,
and time.

● ROLAP (Relational OLAP)


○ store data in traditional relational databases (like SQL databases).
○ does not pre-aggregate data but rather generate summaries on the fly
when the user runs a query.
○ handles larger datasets but may result in slower performance compared
to MOLAP.

Example: An organization using ROLAP might query a sales database


using SQL to generate sales reports across different regions and time
periods dynamically.

● HOLAP (Hybrid OLAP)


○ combines elements of both MOLAP and ROLAP.
○ stores summary data in a multidimensional format (like MOLAP) but
detailed data in a relational database (like ROLAP).
○ provides a balance between fast query performance and handling large
volumes of detailed data.

Example: An organization might use HOLAP to quickly generate


high-level reports from an MOLAP system but use a relational database
to drill into the detailed transactional data when needed.

OLAP in Real-World Scenarios


● Retail and Sales: Retailers often use OLAP systems to analyze sales
performance. They can slice and dice data to answer questions like:
○ "Which products had the highest sales last holiday season?"
○ "How do sales differ by region, store, or time period?"
○ "What is the profit margin for each product category across various
locations?"

● Financial Reporting: Financial institutions use OLAP for budgeting,


forecasting, and financial reporting.
○ Analysts can quickly analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) such as
revenue, expenses, and profits across multiple dimensions like
department, time period, or geographical location.
● Healthcare: In the healthcare industry, OLAP is used to analyze patient data,
treatment outcomes, and operational efficiency. Hospitals might use OLAP to
examine:
○ "What is the average length of stay for patients in different
departments?"
○ "How do treatment costs vary by region and type of surgery?"
○ "Which medications show the best patient recovery outcomes?"

● Marketing and Customer Analytics: Marketers often use OLAP for customer
segmentation and campaign analysis. They can analyze data to understand:
○ "What demographics (age, gender, location) respond best to our
marketing campaigns?"
○ "How do sales differ between customer segments and advertising
channels?"

The Concept of OLAP "Cubes" in Practice


● OLAP systems often use this multidimensional model to represent data in a
more abstract form for analytical purposes
● This multidimensional data is ultimately stored in underlying tables and
databases.
● The physical storage of that data is typically still in tables, either in a
relational database or specialized multidimensional database systems.

Visualizing the OLAP Cube


Let’s imagine a simple example of a 3D data cube:

● Dimension 1 (Time): Year (2019, 2020, 2021)


● Dimension 2 (Geography): Region (North, South, East, West)
● Dimension 3 (Product): Product Categories (Electronics, Clothing, Groceries)

At each intersection of these three dimensions (e.g., North Region, 2020,


Electronics), you have measures (e.g., total sales, profit, units sold).

Analysis examples:

● If you query "total sales for the North region in 2020", you can quickly retrieve
the value from this intersection point of the cube.
● If you "drill down" to see monthly sales for 2020 in the North region, the OLAP
system retrieves the data for that specific "slice" (e.g., total sales for January,
February, etc.).

The Cube is More Conceptual Than Physical


● When OLAP vendors talk about a "cube," they’re generally referring to this
conceptual model of data.
● It's a way of organizing data that:
○ reflects the business world and
○ allows for quick and intuitive querying along multiple dimensions.

Example: Retail Sales Cube

Consider a retailer (e.g. Flipkart) with sales data. A simple sales cube could have:

● Dimensions:
○ Time (Year, Quarter, Month)
○ Geography (Country, Region, Store)
○ Product (Category, Brand, Product)
● Measures:
○ Total Sales (Revenue)
○ Units Sold
○ Profit Margin

Here’s a simple visualization of how this might look:


Time/Geography/Product 2020-Q1 2020-Q1 2020-Q1
(North) (South) (East)

Electronics (Units Sold) 2000 1500 1800

Clothing (Units Sold) 1000 800 1200

Groceries (Units Sold) 3000 2500 2700

Each intersection of Time, Geography, and Product holds aggregated measures


(like units sold, total sales, or profit), allowing for rapid slicing, dicing, and querying
of the data.

Key Points
● The cube is a conceptual model to represent multidimensional data, and it’s
often used in OLAP systems to allow users to explore data across multiple
dimensions.
● Physically, data is still stored in tables (either relational or multidimensional
databases), but these tables are organized to efficiently support fast querying
and aggregation along the various dimensions.
● OLAP cubes enable users to quickly view and analyze aggregated data by
slicing, dicing, and drilling into the data.
● The cube structure helps make sense of complex data by organizing it into
intuitive, multidimensional frameworks, even though the underlying data is
stored in tables.

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