What are Online Analytical Processing Tools?

OLAP, Online Analytical Processing tools enable to analyze multidimensional data interactively from multiple perspectives. OLAP involves relational database, report writing and data mining and consists of three basic analytical operations consolidation such as roll up, drill down, slicing and dicing.

Consolidation is the aggregation of data that can be accumulated and computed in one or more dimensions. Drill down allows users to navigate through the details. Slicing and dicing let the users do slicing and dicing, by taking out a specific set of data of the OLAP cube and view the slices from different viewpoints.

OLAP databases uses a multidimensional data model, allowing for complex analytical and ad hoc queries with a rapid execution time and also includes features of navigational databases, hierarchical databases and relational databases. OLAP system consists of an OLAP cube , which is also known as multidimensional cube or a hypercube .

OLAP cube consists of numeric facts called measures which are categorized by dimensions. The measures are placed at the intersections of the hypercube, which is spanned by the dimensions as a vector space. The cube metadata is typically created from a star schema of tables in a relational database. Measures are derived from the records in the fact table and dimensions are derived from the dimension tables.

Online Analytical Processing Tools

Online Analytical Processing tools are classified as MOLAP - multi-dimensional online analytical processing, ROLAP- relational online analytical processing, HOLAP-hybrid online analytical processing, WOLAP-web based online analytical processing, DOLAP- desktop online analytical processing and ROLAP- real time online analytical processing

MOLAP - Multi-Dimensional Online Analytical Processing

MOLAP is the classic form of OLAP and is sometimes referred to as just OLAP. MOLAP stores the data in an optimized multi dimensional array storage and requires the pre-computation and storage of information in the cube.

IBM Cognos, SAP NetWeaver BW, Microsoft Analysis Services, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, Mondrian OLAP server, Essbase, icCube, Infor BI OLAP Server, Jedox OLAP Server, Oracle Database OLAP Option, SAS OLAP Server, IBM TM1 are some of the top MOLAP Servers.

Online Analytical Processing Tools

1.IBM Cognos

IBM Cognos provides a toolset for reporting, analysis, scorecarding, and monitoring of events and metrics.

2.SAP NetWeaver BW

SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse delivers reporting, analysis and interpretation of business data to enhance the competitive edge of companies by optimizing processes and enabling them to react quickly to meet market opportunity. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, also known as SAP Business Warehouse or SAP BW runs on industry standard RDBMS and SAP's HANA in-memory DBMS.

3.Microsoft Analysis Services

Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services are used by organizations to analyze and make sense of information possibly spread out across multiple databases, or in disparate tables and is an online analytical processing, data mining and reporting tool in Microsoft SQL Server.

4.MicroStrategy Intelligence Server

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server helps companies standardize on a single open platform for all business intelligence needs, lowering the total cost of maintaining and operating their BI applications.

5.Mondrian OLAP server

Mondrian is an open source online analytical processing server, written in Java. It supports the multidimensional expressions query language and the XML for Analysis and olap4j interface specifications. It reads from SQL and other data sources and aggregates data in a memory cache.

6.Essbase

Oracle Essbase is an Online Analytical Processing Server that provides an environment for deploying pre-packaged applications or developing custom analytic and enterprise performance management applications.

7.icCube

The icCube Server is an in memory multidimensional online analytical processing server written in Java and is used as a business intelligence tool to analyze and get insights from a wide range of types of data possibly spread out across multiple data-source.

8.Infor BI OLAP Server

Infor ION BI OLAP Server is a real-time, in-memory, OLAP database for multidimensional analysis, planning, and modeling. The Infor ION BI suite combines all the relevant business intelligence tools into one solution with consistent data, interface, and audit trail for financial and operational planning, reporting, and analysis.

9.Jedox OLAP Server

Jedox OLAP Server is a cell-oriented, multi-dimensional in-memory OLAP server that has been especially designed for planning, analysis, reporting, and data consolidation and is used to create Business Intelligence and Performance Management solutions for systematic data analysis.

10.Oracle Database OLAP Option

Oracle Database OLAP Option implements Online Analytical Processing within an Oracle database environment. Oracle database optimizer can transparently redirect SQL queries to levels within the OLAP Option cubes. The cubes are managed and can take the place of multi-dimensional materialized views, simplifying Oracle data-warehouse management and speeding up query response.

11.SAS OLAP Server

SAS OLAP multidimensional data store provides quick access to pre summarized data generated from vast amounts of detailed data. OLAP cubes can be surfaced via the Web, through Microsoft Excel and through SAS or other standards-based browsers.

12.IBM TM1

IBM Cognos TM1 implements collaborative planning, budgeting and forecasting solutions, as well as analytical and reporting applications. Data in IBM Cognos TM1 are stored and represented as multidimensional OLAP cubes, with data being stored at the leaf level and computations on the leaf data are performed in real-time.

ROLAP- Relational Online Analytical Processing

ROLAP stores the data in relational databases and depends on a specialized schema design. The base data and the dimension tables are stored as relational tables and new tables are created to hold the aggregated information.

IBM Cognos, SAP NetWeaver BW, Microsoft Analysis Services, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, Mondrian OLAP server, Essbase, Jedox OLAP Server, Oracle Database OLAP Option, SAS OLAP Server are some of the top ROLAP Servers.

HOLAP- Hybrid Online Analytical Processing

HOLAP addresses the shortcomings of MOLAP and ROLAP by combining the capabilities of both approaches where a database will divide data between relational and specialized storage.

IBM Cognos, Microsoft Analysis Services, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, Mondrian OLAP server, Essbase, Jedox OLAP Server, Oracle Database OLAP Option, SAS OLAP Server are some of the top HOLAP Servers.

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