What is OLAP?

Cube, Operations & Types in Data Warehouse

What is OLAP?

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a category of software that allows users to analyze
information from multiple database systems at the same time. It is a technology that enables
analysts to extract and view business data from different points of view.

Analysts frequently need to group, aggregate and join data. These operations in relational
databases are resource intensive. With OLAP data can be pre-calculated and pre-aggregated,
making analysis faster.

OLAP databases are divided into one or more cubes. The cubes are designed in such a way that
creating and viewing reports become easy. OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing.

OLAP cube:

At the core of the OLAP concept, is an OLAP Cube. The OLAP cube is a data structure
optimized for very quick data analysis.

The OLAP Cube consists of numeric facts called measures which are categorized by dimensions.
OLAP Cube is also called the hypercube.

Usually, data operations and analysis are performed using the simple spreadsheet, where data
values are arranged in row and column format. This is ideal for two-dimensional data. However,
OLAP contains multidimensional data, with data usually obtained from a different and unrelated
source. Using a spreadsheet is not an optimal option. The cube can store and analyze
multidimensional data in a logical and orderly manner.

How does it work?

A Data warehouse would extract information from multiple data sources and formats like text
files, excel sheet, multimedia files, etc.
The extracted data is cleaned and transformed. Data is loaded into an OLAP server (or OLAP
cube) where information is pre-calculated in advance for further analysis.

Basic analytical operations of OLAP

Four types of analytical operations in OLAP are:

1. Roll-up

2. Drill-down

3. Slice and dice

4. Pivot (rotate)

1) Roll-up:

Roll-up is also known as "consolidation" or "aggregation." The Roll-up operation can be

performed in 2 ways:

1. Reducing dimensions

2. Climbing up concept hierarchy. Concept hierarchy is a system of grouping things based

on their order or level.

Consider the following diagram:

  In this example, cities New jersey and Lost Angles and rolled up into country USA.

 The sales figure of New Jersey and Los Angeles are 440 and 1560, respectively. They
become 2000 after roll-up.

 In this aggregation process, data is location hierarchy moves up from city to the country.

 In the roll-up process at least one or more dimensions need to be removed. In this
example, Quarter dimension is removed.

2) Drill-down

In drill-down data is fragmented into smaller parts. It is the opposite of the rollup process. It can
be done via

 Moving down the concept hierarchy

 Increasing a dimension

Consider the diagram above!

 Quarter Q1 is drilled down to months January, February, and March. Corresponding sales
are also registers.

 In this example, dimension months are added.

3) Slice:

Here, one dimension is selected, and a new sub-cube is created.

Following diagram explain how slice operation performed:

 Dimension Time is Sliced with Q1 as the filter.

 A new cube is created altogether.

Dice:

This operation is like a slice. The difference in dice is you select 2 or more dimensions that result
in the creation of a sub-cube.
4) Pivot

In Pivot, you rotate the data axes to provide a substitute presentation of data.

In the following example, the pivot is based on item types.

Types of OLAP systems

Comparison Chart

BASIS FOR ROLAP MOLAP

COMPARISON

Full Form ROLAP stands for Relational MOLAP stands for Multidimensional
Online Analytical Processing. Online Analytical Processing.

Storage & Fetched Data is stored and fetched Data is Stored and fetched from the
from the main data warehouse. Proprietary database MDDBs.

Data Form Data is stored in the form of Data is Stored in the large
relational tables. multidimensional array made of data
cubes.

Data volumes Large data volumes. Limited summaries data is kept in

MDDBs.

Technology Uses Complex SQL queries to MOLAP engine created a precalculated

fetch data from the main and prefabricated data cubes for
warehouse. multidimensional data views.
Sparse matrix technology is used to
manage data sparsity.

View ROLAP creates a MOLAP already stores the static

multidimensional view of data multidimensional view of data in
dynamically. MDDBs.

Access Slow access. Faster access.

ROLAP
ROLAP works with data that exist in a relational database. Facts and dimension tables are stored
as relational tables. It also allows multidimensional analysis of data and is the fastest growing
OLAP.

ROLAP is Relational Online Analytical Processing model, where the data is stored as in

relational database i.e., rows and columns in the data warehouse. In the ROLAP model data is
present in the front of the user in the multidimensional form. To display the data, in a
multidimensional view, a semantic layer of metadata is created that maps dimension to the
relational tables. Metadata also supports aggregation of the data.

Whenever the ROLAP engine in analytical server issues a complex query, it fetches data from
the main warehouse and dynamically creates a multidimensional view of data for the user. Here,
it differs from MOLAP because MOLAP already has a static multidimensional view of data
stored in proprietary databases MDDBs.

As the multidimensional view of data is created dynamically it processes slower in comparison

to MOLAP. ROLAP engine deals with large volumes of data.

Advantages of ROLAP model:

 High data efficiency. It offers high data efficiency because query performance and
access language are optimized particularly for the multidimensional data analysis.

 Scalability. This type of OLAP system offers scalability for managing large volumes of
data, and even when the data is steadily increasing.
Drawbacks of ROLAP model:

 Demand for higher resources: ROLAP needs high utilization of manpower, software,

and hardware resources.

 Aggregately data limitations. ROLAP tools use SQL for all calculation of aggregate
data. However, there are no set limits to the for-handling computations.

 Slow query performance. Query performance in this model is slow when compared

with MOLAP.

MOLAP

MOLAP uses array-based multidimensional storage engines to display multidimensional views

of data. Basically, they use an OLAP cube.

MOLAP is a Multidimensional Online Analytical Processing model. The data used for analysis

is stored in specialized multidimensional databases (MDDBs). The multidimensional database
management systems are proprietary software systems.

These multidimensional databases are formed from the large multidimensional array. The cells
or data cubes of this multidimensional databases carry precalculated and prefabricated data.
Proprietary software systems create this precalculated and fabricated data, while the data is
loaded to MDDBs from the main databases.

Now, it is the work of MOLAP engine, which reside there in the application layer, provide the
multidimensional view of data from MDDBs to the user. Thus, when a user request for the data,
no time is wasted in calculating the data and the system responses fast.
MOLAP Advantages

 MOLAP can manage, analyze and store considerable amounts of multidimensional data.

 Fast Query Performance due to optimized storage, indexing, and caching.

 Smaller sizes of data as compared to the relational database.

 Automated computation of higher level of aggregates data.

 Help users to analyze larger, less-defined data.

 MOLAP is easier to the user that's why It is a suitable model for inexperienced users.

 MOLAP cubes are built for fast data retrieval and are optimal for slicing and dicing
operations.

 All calculations are pre-generated when the cube is created.

MOLAP Disadvantages

 One major weakness of MOLAP is that it is less scalable than ROLAP as it handles only
a limited amount of data.

 The MOLAP also introduces data redundancy as it is resource intensive.

  MOLAP Solutions may be lengthy, particularly on large data volumes.

 MOLAP products may face issues while updating and querying models when dimensions
are more than ten.

 MOLAP is not capable of containing detailed data.

 The storage utilization can be low if the data set is highly scattered.

 It can handle the only limited amount of data therefore, it's impossible to include a large
amount of data in the cube itself.

Advantages of OLAP

 OLAP is a platform for all type of business includes planning, budgeting, reporting, and
analysis.

 Information and calculations are consistent in an OLAP cube. This is a crucial benefit.

 Quickly create and analyze "What if" scenarios.

 Easily search OLAP database for broad or specific terms.

 OLAP provides the building blocks for business modeling tools, Data mining tools,
performance reporting tools.

 Allows users to do slice and dice cube data all by various dimensions, measures, and
filters.

 It is good for analyzing time series.

 Finding some clusters and outliers is easy with OLAP.

 It is a powerful visualization online analytical process system which provides faster

response times.

Disadvantages of OLAP

 OLAP requires organizing data into a star or snowflake schema. These schemas are
complicated to implement and administer.

 You cannot have large number of dimensions in a single OLAP cube.

 Transactional data cannot be accessed with OLAP system.

  Any modification in an OLAP cube needs a full update of the cube. This is a time-
consuming process.

Summary:

 OLAP is a technology that enables analysts to extract and view business data from
different points of view.

 At the core of the OLAP concept, is an OLAP Cube.

 Various business applications and other data operations require the use of OLAP Cube.

 There is primary five types of analytical operations in OLAP.

1) Roll-up 2) Drill-down 3) Slice 4) Dice and 5) Pivot

 Three types of widely used OLAP systems are MOLAP, ROLAP, and Hybrid OLAP.

 Desktop OLAP, Web OLAP, and Mobile OLAP are some other types of OLAP systems.

 Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) is a classical OLAP that facilitates data analysis by

using a multidimensional data cube.

 MOLAP tools process information with the same amount of response time irrespective of
the level of summarizing.

 MOLAP server implements two level of storage to manage dense and sparse data sets.

 MOLAP can manage, analyze, and store considerable amounts of multidimensional data.

 It helps to automate computation of higher level of aggregates data.

 It is less scalable than ROLAP as it handles only a limited amount of data.