2 Understanding Multidimensional Databases
Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a multidimensional, multiuser, client-server computing environment for users who need to analyze enterprise data. Key features of OLAP applications include multidimensional views of data and calculation-intensive capabilities. Review the topics in this chapter to understand basic concepts of an Essbase database.
Some information in this chapter applies only to block storage databases and is not relevant to aggregate storage databases. Also see Comparison of Aggregate and Block Storage.