What is a DOLAP?
Information Management Online, April 2, 2003
Q: | Advertisement What is a DOLAP? |
A: | Les Barbusinski’s Answer: It’s an acronym for Desktop OLAP (Online analytical processing). It’s an arcane term used to denote single- tier, desktop-based business intelligence software. Its most distinguishing feature is its ability to download a relatively small hypercube from a central point (usually a data mart or data warehouse) and perform multidimensional analyses while disconnected from the source. This functionality is particularly useful for mobile users who can’t always connect to the data warehouse. DOLAP is often contrasted with MOLAP (i.e., cube-based) and ROLAP (i.e., star schema based) business intelligence tools. Hope this helps. Chuck Kelley’s Answer: DOLAP is desktop OLAP. There can be some inferences made on what desktop OLAP is but I think it is an OLAP product that does everything on the desktop (after extracting the data). I am sure there are others who will have a differing opinion. The big question to me is what does the business community need to do their job? Whatever that is called, that’s what I want to provide them. Clay Rehm’s Answer: First of all, OLAP stands for online analytical processing. There are different types of OLAP, which usually have another letter in front of it to describe the data storage option for a business intelligence tool. These include:
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Chuck Kelley is an internationally known expert in database and data warehousing technology. He has 30 years of experience in designing and implementing operational/production systems and data warehouses. Kelley has worked in some facet of the design and implementation phase of more than 50 data warehouses and data marts. He also teaches seminars, co-authored four books on data warehousing and has been published in many trade magazines on database technology, data warehousing and enterprise data strategies. He can be contacted at chuckkelley@usa.net.
Clay Rehm, CCP, PMP, is president of Rehm Technology (www.rehmtech.com), a consulting firm specializing in data integration solutions. Rehm provides hands-on expertise in project management, assessments, methodologies, data modeling, database design, metadata and systems analysis, design and development. He has worked in multiple platforms and his experience spans operational and data warehouse environments. Rehm is a technical book editor and is a co-author of the book, Impossible Data Warehouse Situations with Solutions from the Experts. In addition, he is a Certified Computing Professional (CCP), a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Software Engineering from Carroll College. He can be reached at clay.rehm@rehmtech.com.
Les Barbusinski is vice president of technology and co-founder of Digital Symmetry, LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in the design and development of data warehousing and business intelligence solutions. He has more than 20 years of experience in data warehouse and operational systems development and provides hands-on expertise in data warehouse design, development and project management. Les can be reached at dwexpert@dsym.com.
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