OLAP
An OLAP (Online analytical processing) cube is a data structure that allows fast analysis of data.It can also be defined as the capability of manipulating and analyzing data from multiple perspectives.
The arrangement of data into cubes overcomes a limitation of relational databases. Relational databases are not well suited for near instantaneous analysis and display of large amounts of data.
Instead, they are better suited for creating records from a series of transactions known as OLTP or On-Line Transaction Processing. Although many report-writing tools exist for relational databases, these are slow when the whole database must be summarized.
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