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Message Posted: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 @ 09:43:59 GMT

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The OLAP tool you are looking for is one that supports the term HOLAP (Hybrid OLAP) which is a mixture of ROLAP and MOLAP (Multidimensional OLAP).

These tools where initially build to support large multidimensional cubes with sometimes millions of dimension members. The way they work is that the cubes fetches data from a relational model when you select data from the lower levels of the dimensional hierarchies and from a multidimensional perhaps pre-aggregated/calculated structure when you select higher levels from the dimensional hierarchies.

What you could do in a HOLAP tool is to pre-calculate nothing or as little as possible in the multidimensional structure but have the tool calculate or aggregate on the fly. This would mean a decrease in the performance for the users, but enable you to continuously feed the relational part of the "cube" with data.

Personallyl, what you are asking for is in my humble opinion a contradiction in terms, since multidimensional cubes weren't build for these kind of data load, but for more traditional weekly or monthly loads, which the analysts could then use to twist and turn data. Analysts and accounting people often like these multidimensional models, because it enables them to look at data in a variety of different ways.

Looking at data in a multidimensional cube, I think was build for strategical decision making, not for operational / tactical descision making where reports, event messages etc. is much more relevant.

Besides Microsoft analysis server, there is Pilot Analysis Server 6.x (if it still exists) and perhaps Microstrategy also supports HOLAP.

Hope this helps you

kind regards

Morten Wiingaard

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