OLAP Dr.

Shehram Shah
OLAP - ONLINE ANALYTICAL
PROCESSING
• Analytical processing help you dig into problems and come out with facts-based
solutions.
• An analytical way of doing something involves the use of logical reasoning.
• OLAP is the vehicle for carrying out involved analysis.
• OLAP supports Multidimensional Analysis.
• Multidimensional views are inherently representative of any business model.
• Analytical processing help you dig into problems and come out with facts-based
solutions.
DEMAND FOR ONLINE
ANALYTICAL PROCESSING
EXAMPLE OLAP ACTIVITIES
• Roll-ups to provide summaries and aggregations along the hierarchies of the
dimensions.
• Drill-downs from the top level to the lowest along the hierarchies of the dimensions,
in combinations among the dimensions.
• Simple calculations, such as computation of margins (sales minus costs).
• Share calculations to compute the percentage of parts to the whole.
• Algebraic equations involving key performance indicators.
• Moving averages and growth percentages.
• Trend analysis using statistical methods.
OLAP V/S OLTP
OLAP DEFINED
On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a category of software technology that
enables analysts, managers and executives to gain insight into data through fast,
consistent, interactive access in a wide variety of possible views of information that
has been transformed from raw data to reflect the real dimensionality of the
enterprise as understood by the user.
OLAP CHARACTERISTICS
Multidimensional Conceptual View.
Provide a multidimensional data model that is intuitively analytical and easy to use.
Business users’ view of an enterprise is multi-dimensional in nature. Therefore, a
multidimensional data model conforms to how the users perceive business problems.
Transparency.
Make the technology, underlying data repository, computing architecture, and the
diverse nature of source data totally transparent to users. Such transparency,
supporting a true open system approach, helps to enhance the efficiency and
productivity of the users through front-end tools that are familiar to them
OLAP CHARACTERISTICS
Accessibility.
Provide access only to the data that is actually needed to perform the specific analysis,
presenting a single, coherent, and consistent view to the users. The OLAP system must
map its own logical schema to the heterogeneous physical data stores and perform any
necessary transformations.
Consistent Reporting Performance.
Ensure that the users do not experience any significant degradation in reporting
performance as the number of dimensions or the size of the database increases. Users
must perceive consistent run time, response time, or machine utilization every time a
given query is run.
OLAP CHARACTERISTICS
Client/Server Architecture.
Conform the system to the principles of client/server architecture for optimum
performance, flexibility, adaptability, and interoperability. Make the server component
sufficiently intelligent to enable various clients to be attached with a minimum of effort
and integration programming.
Generic Dimensionality.
Ensure that every data dimension is equivalent in both structure and operational
capabilities. Have one logical structure for all dimensions. The basic data structure or
the access techniques must not be biased toward any single data dimension
OLAP CHARACTERISTICS
Dynamic Sparse Matrix Handling.
Adapt the physical schema to the specific analytical model being created and loaded
that optimizes sparse matrix handling. When encountering a sparse matrix, the system
must be able to dynamically deduce the distribution of the data and adjust the storage
and access to achieve and maintain consistent level of performance.
Multiuser Support.
Provide support for end users to work concurrently with either the same analytical
model or to create different models from the same data. In short, provide concurrent
data access, data integrity, and access security.
OLAP CHARACTERISTICS
Unrestricted Cross-dimensional Operations.
Provide ability for the system to recognize dimensional hierarchies and automatically
perform roll-up and drill-down operations within a dimension or across dimensions.
Have the interface language allow calculations and data manipulations across any
number of data dimensions, without restricting any relations between data cells,
regardless of the number of common data attributes each cell contains.
Intuitive Data Manipulation.
Enable drill-down and roll-up, and other manipulations to be accomplished intuitively
and directly via point-and-click and drag-and-drop actions on the cells of the analytical
model. Avoid the use of a menu or multiple trips to a user interface.
OLAP CHARACTERISTICS
Flexible Reporting.
Provide capabilities to the business user to arrange columns, rows, and cells in a
manner that facilitates easy manipulation, analysis, and synthesis of information. Every
dimension, including any subsets, must be able to be displayed with equal ease.
Unlimited Dimensions and Aggregation Levels.
Accommodate at least fifteen, preferably twenty, data dimensions within a common
analytical model. Each of these generic dimensions must allow a practically unlimited
number of user-defined aggregation levels within any given consolidation path.
 ADVANTAGES OF OLAP
• Enables analysts, executives, and managers to gain useful insights from the
presentation of data.
• Can reorganize metrics along several dimensions and allow data to be viewed from
different perspectives.
• Supports multidimensional analysis.
• Is able to drill down or roll up within each dimension.
• Is capable of applying mathematical formulas and calculations to measures.
• Provides fast response, facilitating speed-of-thought analysis.
• Complements the use of other information delivery techniques such as data mining.
 ADVANTAGES OF OLAP
• Improves the comprehension of result sets through visual presentations using graphs
and charts.
• Can be implemented on the Web.
• Designed for highly interactive analysis.