Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) makes use of background knowledge regarding the domain of the data being studied in order to allow the presentation of data at different levels of abstraction. It is different form data mining in the sense that it does not provide any patterns for making predictions; rather the information stored in databases can be presented/ viewed in a convenient format in case of Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) at different levels that facilitates decision makers or managers.
The result of Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is displayed in the form of a data Note that in the above diagram, time, item type and location are the three dimensions. OLAP data cube indicates the sale of 605 and 825 units of furniture and computers, respectively, in the first quarter of the year in Lahore, 440 units of furniture and 345 phone sets in Karachi in the first quarter, respectively, and 400 grocery items in Lahore during second quarter. Results can be displayed through data cube against more than three dimensions. For instance, variables, ‘warehouse’ and ‘customer type’ may also be added as dimensions to view the sale results. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tool allows the use of different processes, namely, drill-down, roll-up, slice, dice etc. Using drill-down we can further dig the data to receive some specific information.
For example using that I can find the sale of furniture in a specific month of the first quarter, say, February. Roll-up is the reverse of drill-down. In it we can sum-up or integrate the information in a particular dimension to show the result. For example the sale of furniture or computers in a particular year (rather than a specific quarter) can be viewed using roll-up. Similarly, through slice and dice information can be presented which is specific to certain dimensions of the data cube. SAS (Enterprise Miner) and DB miner are the names of two commonly used tools for data mining and OLAP. Note that characterization can be used in respect of any data type whereas Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is generally used for numeric data alone.
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