Data Warehouse Modeling: Data Cube

and OLAP
 OLAP server
• The chief component of data warehouse process is the OLAP
server.

• Sits between a client and a database management systems

(DBMS).

• Online Analytical Processing Server (OLAP) is based on the

multidimensional data model.

• Data can be imported from existing relational databases to

create a multidimensional database for OLAP.

• It allows managers, and analysts to get an insight of the

information through fast, consistent, and interactive access.
 Cubes

• The data structures used in the OLAP are

multidimensional data cubes or OLAP cubes:

• Cube is a data structure that can be imagined as

multi-dimensional spreadsheet.

• Take a spreadsheet, put year on columns,

product on rows – that’s two-dimensional cube.
 From Tables and Spreadsheets to Data Cubes

• A data warehouse is based on a multidimensional data model.

• This model views data in the form of a data cube.
• A data cube allows data to be modeled and viewed in multiple dimensions
– Dimension tables contains description of attribute
such as item (item_name, brand, type), or time(day, week, month, quarter,
year) or location (county, state, city, street)

– Fact table contains measures (such as dollars_sold) and keys to each of the
related dimension tables

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6
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A 3-D view of sales data for AllElectronics, according to the dimensions time, item, and location. The measure
displayed is dollars sold (in thousands).

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3-D data cube

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4-D data cube

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 Cube: A Lattice of Cuboids (views)
In data warehousing all
literature, 0-D(apex) cuboid
-an n-D base cube is
called a base time item location supplier
cuboid.. 1-D cuboids
-The top most 0-D
time,item time,location item,location location,supplier
cuboid, which holds
the highest-level of time,supplier 2-D cuboids
item,supplier
summarization, is
called the apex time,item,location
time,location,supplier

cuboid. 3-D cuboids

-The lattice of time,item,supplier item,location,supplier
cuboids forms a data
4-D(base) cuboid
cube.
time, item, location, supplier
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Cuboids Corresponding to the Cube

all
0-D(apex) cuboid
product date country
1-D cuboids

product,date product,country date, country

2-D cuboids

3-D(base) cuboid
product, date, country

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 A Sample Data Cube
Total annual sales
Date of TV in U.S.A.
1Qtr 2Qtr 3Qtr 4Qtr sum

ct
TV
du
o PC U.S.A
Pr
VCR
sum

Country
Canada

Mexico

sum

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 A Concept Hierarchy: Dimension (location)
all all

region Europe ... North_America

country Germany ... Spain Canada ... Mexico

city Frankfurt ... Vancouver ... Toronto

office L. Chan ... M. Wind

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 Multidimensional Data
• Sales volume as a function of product,
month, and region Dimensions: Product, Location, Time
Hierarchical summarization paths
o n
gi
Re

Industry Region Year

Category Country Quarter

Product

Product City Month Week

Office Day

Month
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 • Cubes in a data warehouse are stored in three
different modes.

Types of OLAP
MOLAP • Multidimensional Online Analytical processing
mode
ROLAP • Relational Online Analytical Processing mode
HOLAP • Hybrid Online Analytical Processing mode.
 ROLAP & MLAP
• The underlying data in this model is stored in relational databases.

• Since the data is stored in relational databases this model gives the appearance of traditional
OLAP’s slicing and dicing functionality.

• Advantages :
it can handle a large amount of data and can leverage all the functionalities of the relational
database.

• Disadvantages: Its performance is slow

• In MOLAP data is stored in form of multidimensional cubes and not in relational databases

• Advantages:
it provides excellent query performance and the cubes are built for fast data retrieval.

• Disadvantages :it can handle only a limited amount of data

 Comparing the use of MOLAP and ROLAP

MOLAP ROLAP
• Cube browsing is fastest when using MOLAP • Processing time is slower in ROLAP

• MOLAP storage takes up more space as • ROLAP takes almost no storage

data is copied and at very low levels of space as data is not duplicated.
aggregation
• In ROLAP data cannot be viewed
• All data is stored in the cube in MOLAP and unless connected to the data source.
data can be viewed even when the original
data source is not available.
 Typical OLAP Operations
• Roll up (drill-up): summarize data
– by climbing up hierarchy or by dimension reduction (Eg. City->country)
• Drill down (roll down): reverse of roll-up
– Navigate from higher level summary to lower level summary or detailed data,
or introducing new dimensions (Eg. Quarter -> Month)
• Slice and dice:
– project and select
• Pivot (rotate):
– reorient the cube, visualization, 3D to series of 2D planes.

June 26, 2025 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 20

 Roll up (drill-up)

• The roll-up operation (also called drill-up or

aggregation operation) performs
aggregation on a data cube, either by
climbing up a concept hierarchy for a
dimension
• i.e. dimension reduction.
Roll down (drill-down)

The roll down operation (also called

drill down) is the reverse of roll up.
It navigates from less detailed data to
more detailed data.
It can be realized by either stepping
down a concept hierarchy for a
dimension or introducing
additional dimensions.
Slice

Slice performs a selection on one dimension of the given cube, thus

resulting in a subcube.
 Dice
The dice operation defines
a subcube by performing a
selection on two or more
dimensions.
Reduces the number of
member values of one or
more dimensions.
 Pivot

• Rotates the data axis to view the data

from different perspectives.
• Groups data with different dimensions.