OLAP (Online Analytical Processing)

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a computer technology used to quickly analyze large volumes of multi-dimensional historical data from multiple perspectives. It powers business intelligence, budgeting, forecasting, and complex reporting by enabling fast queries across massive datasets without slowing down daily transactional systems.

Key OLAP Operations

• Roll-up: Summarize data by moving up a concept hierarchy (e.g., daily sales to monthly sales).
• Drill-down: Move from summary data down to detailed data (e.g., yearly sales down to specific days).
• Slice: Isolate a single dimension from a data structure to create a specific sub-view.
• Dice: Select specific values across multiple dimensions to analyze a focused subset.
• Pivot: Rotate the axes of a data view to see relationships from a new angle.

OLAP vs. OLTP Comparison

• OLAP (Online Analytical Processing): Optimized for complex read-heavy analytical queries, historical tracking, and large aggregations across billions of rows using columnar storage. Examples include Snowflake, Google BigQuery, and ClickHouse.
• OLTP (Online Transaction Processing): Optimized for real-time, high-concurrency operational tasks like fast individual row inserts, updates, and daily customer transactions. Examples include MySQL and PostgreSQL.

source: AI overview

OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) is the technology behind many Business Intelligence (BI) applications. OLAP is a powerful technology for data discovery, including capabilities for limitless report viewing, complex analytical calculations, and predictive “what if” scenario (budget, forecast) planning.

Unlike relational databases, OLAP tools do not store individual transaction records in two-dimensional, row-by-column format, like a worksheet, but instead use multidimensional database structures—known as Cubes in OLAP terminology—to store arrays of consolidated information. The data and formulas are stored in an optimized multidimensional database, while views of the data are created on demand.

source: https://olap.com/olap-definition/