Online analytical processing, or OLAP, is an approach to answer multi-dimensional analytical (MDA) queries swiftly in computing. OLAP is part of the broader category of business intelligence, which also encompasses relational databases, report writing and data mining. Typical applications of OLAP include business reporting for sales, marketing, management reporting, business process management (BPM), budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting and similar areas, with new applications emerging, such as agriculture.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of relational database management systems. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.
Essbase is a multidimensional database management system (MDBMS) that provides a platform upon which to build analytic applications. Essbase began as a product from Arbor Software, which merged with Hyperion Software in 1998. Oracle Corporation acquired Hyperion Solutions Corporation in 2007. Until late 2005 IBM also marketed an OEM version of Essbase as DB2 OLAP Server.
A user-defined function (UDF) is a function provided by the user of a program or environment, in a context where the usual assumption is that functions are built into the program or environment. UDFs are usually written for the requirement of its creator.
In computer programming contexts, a data cube is a multi-dimensional ("n-D") array of values. Typically, the term data cube is applied in contexts where these arrays are massively larger than the hosting computer's main memory; examples include multi-terabyte/petabyte data warehouses and time series of image data.
A pivot table is a table of values which are aggregations of groups of individual values from a more extensive table within one or more discrete categories. The aggregations or summaries of the groups of the individual terms might include sums, averages, counts, or other statistics. A pivot table is the outcome of the statistical processing of tabularized raw data and can be used for decision-making.
Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) is a query language for online analytical processing (OLAP) using a database management system. Much like SQL, it is a query language for OLAP cubes. It is also a calculation language, with syntax similar to spreadsheet formulae.
Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) is an online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining tool in Microsoft SQL Server. SSAS is used as a tool by organizations to analyze and make sense of information possibly spread out across multiple databases, or in disparate tables or files. Microsoft has included a number of services in SQL Server related to business intelligence and data warehousing. These services include Integration Services, Reporting Services and Analysis Services. Analysis Services includes a group of OLAP and data mining capabilities and comes in two flavors multidimensional and tabular, where the difference between the two is how the data is presented. In a tabular model, the information is arranged in two-dimensional tables which can thus be more readable for a human. A multidimensional model can contain information with many degrees of freedom, and must be unfolded to increase readability by a human.
Business intelligence software is a type of application software designed to retrieve, analyze, transform and report data for business intelligence. The applications generally read data that has been previously stored, often - though not necessarily - in a data warehouse or data mart.
In computing, a materialized view is a database object that contains the results of a query. For example, it may be a local copy of data located remotely, or may be a subset of the rows and/or columns of a table or join result, or may be a summary using an aggregate function.
The Oracle Database OLAP Option implements On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP) within an Oracle database environment. Oracle Corporation markets the Oracle Database OLAP Option as an extra-cost option to supplement the "Enterprise Edition" of its database.
Microsoft SQL Server is a proprietary relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which may run either on the same computer or on another computer across a network. Microsoft markets at least a dozen different editions of Microsoft SQL Server, aimed at different audiences and for workloads ranging from small single-machine applications to large Internet-facing applications with many concurrent users.
Pentaho is business intelligence (BI) software that provides data integration, OLAP services, reporting, information dashboards, data mining and extract, transform, load (ETL) capabilities. Its headquarters are in Orlando, Florida. Pentaho was acquired by Hitachi Data Systems in 2015 and in 2017 became part of Hitachi Vantara.
CubePort is a commercial software application that converts from Oracle Essbase to the analogous Microsoft product Microsoft Analysis Services, which is built into Microsoft SQL Server. This application achieves this through various analogy mapping techniques, and is a standard client-server application that runs on a Windows computer but may connect to non-Windows servers. CubePort converts the various OLAP structures and syntaxes in the source through an extraction process, interprets, and recreates in the target. The objective is to simulate exactly the behavior of the original source system to the target system.
Sqoop is a command-line interface application for transferring data between relational databases and Hadoop.
Arcplan is a software for business intelligence (BI), budgeting, planning & forecasting (BP&F), business analytics and collaborative Business Intelligence. It is the enhancement of the enterprise software inSight® and dynaSight of the former German provider arcplan Information Services GmbH.
Apache Kylin is an open source distributed analytics engine designed to provide a SQL interface and multi-dimensional analysis (OLAP) on Hadoop and Alluxio supporting extremely large datasets.
ClickHouse is an open-source column-oriented DBMS for online analytical processing (OLAP) that allows users to generate analytical reports using SQL queries in real-time. ClickHouse Inc. is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with the subsidiary, ClickHouse B.V., based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Apache Pinot is a column-oriented, open-source, distributed data store written in Java. Pinot is designed to execute OLAP queries with low latency. It is suited in contexts where fast analytics, such as aggregations, are needed on immutable data, possibly, with real-time data ingestion. The name Pinot comes from the Pinot grape vines that are pressed into liquid that is used to produce a variety of different wines. The founders of the database chose the name as a metaphor for analyzing vast quantities of data from a variety of different file formats or streaming data sources.
