What is OLAP?

OLAP stands for

OnLine Analytical Processing” 

It is the most powerful and exciting business technology available for real-time decision making.

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Download the OLAP 101 eBook

This book offers context for newbies to OLAP technology. Learn where OLAP came from and how it developed into the Business Intelligence technology we know today.

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Download the eGuide OLAP and BI Terms

A quick reference guide to commonly used Business Intelligence and OLAP words. Keep up with the techie talk with this handy reference.

 Our Recent Blog Posts

Which OLAP is Best?

Which OLAP is Best?

OLAP technology has continued to develop, a good indicator of its broad applicability in the software solution market. And though newer doesn't always mean improved, our opinion is that the most recent OLAP technologies are faster and (generally) better than their...

Why Excel isn’t Enough for Businesses

Why Excel isn’t Enough for Businesses

The article, The File-less Organization: Why Excel Isn’t Enough for Businesses, from Dataversity.net is quite astute in the way it identifies Excel as a problem--noting that each manager gathers his or her own version of the numbers to bring to a meeting.  And so in...

4 Bad BI Habits to Drop in 2015

4 Bad BI Habits to Drop in 2015

This article from the Sisense blog has a valuable little list of Bad BI Habits to Break in 2015. To-dos for the new year are suggested, like "embracing big data" and "getting a grip on all data."  We tend to agree, because data is going to continue to grow in vastness...

Will Business Intelligence ever be Intelligent?

Will Business Intelligence ever be Intelligent?

From Forbes.com, this article sparked a lot of interaction on our social media outlets, and we think it is an important one: Business Intelligence (BI) Isn't Very Intelligent, Yet. Yes, big companies talk about BI like they know what is going on.  Fact is, very few...

Is HTAP the latest type of OLAP?

Is HTAP the latest type of OLAP?

Some vendors have run from the four letters OLAP…and yet, articles continue to be published, and assertions made, that “analytical processing” is entering a new phase. There’s a new acronym in the market, HTAP, which stands for Hybrid Transactional/Analytical...

The Need for Business Analytics, even Inside the Dean’s Office

The Need for Business Analytics, even Inside the Dean’s Office

You may not think that business analytics as a concept applies to academics, but access to meaningful and timely information is critical to the proper function of a dean’s office.  Anyone who has been a dean or worked in the dean's office knows that.  And, like in any...

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 Follow OLAP Tutorials

Exercises with a real OLAP product will teach you about Business Intelligence and OLAP basics.

These tutorials give you a chance to get hands on with data modeling and analysis with access to actual software and step-by-step instructions.   To follow these tutorials as they are intended, please first download the Free OLAP and Business Intelligence software provided by our sponsors at PARIS Tech.

OLAP Tutorials

 Learn about Types of OLAP Systems

Read about different types of OLAP and what is new in the market now.

First there was ROLAP, and then MOLAP, and Hybrid systems as well as in-memory systems.  Read about what defines different systems, their limitations and what is trending in the OLAP and Business Intelligence market now.

Types of OLAP

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Download the World Cup Analysis eBook

This eBook takes it beyond just business, showing what can be done with OLAP technology with any kind of data. In this case, it’s sports data, applying OLAP technology to World Cup data.