Data Warehousing - Relational OLAP

Relational OLAP servers are placed between relational back-end server and cpent front-end tools. To store and manage the warehouse data, the relational OLAP uses relational or extended-relational DBMS.

ROLAP includes the following −

Implementation of aggregation navigation logic

Optimization for each DBMS back-end

Additional tools and services

Points to Remember

ROLAP servers are highly scalable.

ROLAP tools analyze large volumes of data across multiple dimensions.

ROLAP tools store and analyze highly volatile and changeable data.

Relational OLAP Architecture

ROLAP includes the following components −

Database server

ROLAP server

Front-end tool.

Advantages

ROLAP servers can be easily used with existing RDBMS.

Data can be stored efficiently, since no zero facts can be stored.

ROLAP tools do not use pre-calculated data cubes.

DSS server of micro-strategy adopts the ROLAP approach.

Disadvantages

Poor query performance.

Some pmitations of scalabipty depending on the technology architecture that is utipzed.