A Seminar on

OLAP
(Online Analytical Processing)

Compiled by:
Manoj Verma [Assistant Professor & GL-ICT] APIIT SD INDIA PANIPAT

Contents

Evolution of Business Intelligence. Data Storage is Changing. Characteristics of Organizational Data. Current Challenges for Databases. Database Design Methodology. Why Multidimensional Database? What OLAP enables? Typical OLAP Architecture. OLAP Storage Strategies. OLAP Operations. Application Basis of OLAP. OLAP Data Sources. Applications of OLAP.

The Evolution of Business Intelligence

Active

What to do about it What it means Whats important

1986
1991 1996

2001

Act

(Intelligent Agents)

Recommend
(Data Mining)

Action

Analyze (OLAP) Focus (EIS)

Summarize (MIS)

Passive

Report
Human

Type of Analysis

Technology

Data Storage is Changing!

Application requirements--not just data requirements--are now driving need.
Customer Relationship Mgmt.

Call Center

Campaign ERP Management

Knowledge Management

ERP

Target Marketing

Supply Chain

E-commerce

Characteristics of Organizational Data

Subject-oriented Integrated Time-variant Nonvolatile To support decision making

Current Challenges for Databases

Make organizational data accessible To facilitate data consistency Adaptable and yet resilient to change Secure and reliable Design with a focus on supportive decision making and Fact gathering Generate an environment in which data can be sliced and diced in multiple ways Tools to query, analyze and present information The place where operational data can be published (cleaned up, assembled etc.)

*All this can be achieved by implementing Data Warehouse and OLAP.

Database Design Methodology

Most of Data warehouses use a star schema to represent the multi-dimensional model. Each dimension is represented by a dimensiontable that describes it. A fact-table connects to all dimension-tables with a multiple join. Each tuple in the fact-table consists of a pointer to each of the dimension-tables. The links between the fact-table in the centre and the dimension-tables form a shape like a star. (Star Schema)

Why Multidimensional Modeling?

Decision support applications are dominated by queries involved aggregations and group-bys. Data need to be represented in the form of Cubic Dimensions (Time, Product, City,.) Facts gathered need to be processed to show consolidations. OLAP is an acronym for On Line Analytical Processing. OLAP performs multidimensional analysis of business data and provides the capability for complex calculations, trend analysis, and sophisticated data modeling.

What is OLAP?

What OLAP enables?

Intelligent solutions to business performance. Planning Budgeting Material Forecasting Financial Reporting Data Analysis (ad-hoc and consolidated) Simulation Modeling Knowledge Discovery Data warehouse Reporting

Typical OLAP Architecture

Basics of OLAP

The FASMI rule

Fast response delivery. Analysis of business logic and statistical business terms. Shared data access with Security control & Locking mechanisms. Multidimensional overview of conceptual data. Information relevant to the application.

The techniques used to achieve it include many flavors of client/server architecture, time series analysis, object-orientation, optimized proprietary data storage, multithreading and various patented ideas.

OLAP Storage Strategies

Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) Relational OLAP (ROLAP) Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP) Desktop OLAP (DOLAP)

MOLAP ?

It processes over data already stored/indexed in multi- dimensional arrays called Cubes. Faster in data retrieval and optimal for slicing and dicing operations. Can perform complex calculations quickly. Limited amount of data can be handled. Requires additional investments.

ROLAP ?

Performs multi-dimensional analysis of relational data. N-Tier architecture can be implemented and query can be generated on-the-fly. It can handle large amount of data as compared to MOLAP. RDBMS functionalities can be leveraged. Performance can be slow. Limited by SQL functionalities.

HOLAP & DOLAP ?

HOLAP Combines the features of MOLAP & ROLAP. Can store data in both relational & multidimensional databases. Concept of Materializing data improves performance.

DOLAP Client-based OLAP products, easy to deploy and low cost per seat, limited functionality and capacity

OLAP Operations ?

Slicing & Dicing. Pivoting (Rotating). Drilling Down. Roll-Up

Slicing & Dicing Data.

Selecting in One dimension (Slicing).

E.g. Selectwhere city = Nagpur

Selecting in more then One dimension (Dicing).

E.g. Selectwhere month = Jan and prod_id = P001

Pivoting (Rotating) Data.

Rotate data along any axes.

Drilling down and Roll-up

Drilling down.
Aggregating data by going up in hierarchy. Reducing dimensions.

Roll-Up

Reverse of Drill-down.

Application basis of OLAP

Data Warehousing. Data Mining. Web Mining. Decision Support System.

OLAP Data Sources

Essbase Cube IBM DB2 OLAP Server Info OLAP Cube Holos HDC Cube OLEDB for OLAP Sources Informix Metacube

Applications of OLAP

Marketing and Sales Analysis Clickstream Analysis Database Marketing Budgeting Financial Reporting & Consolidations Management Reporting EIS (Executive Information System) Balanced Scorecard Profitability Analysis Quality Analysis

Conclusion

We define OLAP as Fast Analysis of Shared Multidimensional Information FASMI. There are many applications where this approach is relevant. In an increasing number of cases, specialist OLAP applications have been pre-built and you can buy a solution that only needs limited customizing; in others, a generalpurpose OLAP tool can be used. A general-purpose tool will usually be versatile enough to be used for many applications, but there may be much more application development required for each. The overall software costs should be lower, and skills are transferable, but implementation costs may rise and end-users may get less ad hoc flexibility if a more technical product is used. In general, it is probably better to have a general-purpose product which can be used for multiple applications, but some applications, such as financial reporting, are sufficiently complex that it may be better to use a pre-built application, and there are several available.

References
[Text References]

[T1] Alex Berson, Stephen J. Smith, Data warehousing, data mining, & OLAP, Tata McGraw Hill, 2005. [T2] META Group Application Development Strategies: "Data Mining for Data Warehouses: Uncovering Hidden Patterns.", 1995. [T3] Jill K. Howe , Scott M. Spanbauer, Prima Guide to Seagete Crystal Reports, BPB Publication, Ist ed. 2000. [E1] www.olap.com/final.htm [E2] www.olapreport.com.fasmi.htm [E3] http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r10/bombay/news2/issue2.htm [E4] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822220.htm [E5] www.olapreport.com/applications.htm [E6] http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/sDefinition/sid11_gci21356700.html [E7] http://technet.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/ms176117.aspx [E8] http://www.informationbuilders.com/products/webfocus/index.html

[Electronic References]

Thanks.

Queries ?