How to Choose an OLAP Tool: A Comprehensive Guide

Task 1: Define a set of criteria for evaluating an OLAP tool

There are many varieties of OLAP tools available in the marketplace, including: Multidimensional server-based (MOLAP) tools; a number of Relational OLAP (or ROLAP) alternatives; some Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP); a  number of Desktop OLAP (DOLAP) systems.  The OLAP marketplace is still diverse, with different tools competing for both marginal differentiation and substantial technical and operational advantages over their competitors.  How to choose an OLAP tool for a specific business scenario or a specific data warehouse ?  This choice has resulted in a considerable confusion among users, and a careful comparison and evaluation of the available commercial tools in the market will provide a useful guide to business users and contribute to the further development of data warehousing and business intelligence.  

To give a systematic evaluation to various OLAP tools in the market, it is necessary to establish a set of criteria first.  The criteria will serve for the judgement on the suitability of each tool under a specific situation.  It is also certainly essential to find out what tools are available and their associated architecture and functionality.  

Your Tasks

In a group of 2 – 4 students, you need to complete the following tasks. 

Task 1: Define a set of criteria for evaluating an OLAP tool

You need to do some research in literature and discuss with your group members to draw a sensible set of criteria.  You can certainly propose your own criteria if you can justify it by literature or other materials.  However, it has to be approved and shared by the whole group. 

Task 2: Investigate the available commercial OLAP tools in the market.  There are many tools available in the market, and you need to select some representative tools to do your evaluation.   You have to justify your selection of the tools according to what you have learnt from our module and your reading from literature.     

Task 3: Do research in library and the Internet to investigate your selected tools, identify their architecture and functionalities.  You should pay attention to their relationship with data warehouses and their strength and weakness under different situations according to your criteria.  

Task 4: Discuss in your group your findings with each other, and then come up with a critical evaluation and comparison between the involved tools.  

Task 5: Discuss in your group to identify one business scenario where one OLAP tool is clearly better than the others.  Explain your reasons.

Task 6: Based on your group discussion, derive a set of feasible future developments in OLAP tools  

Task 7: Write the group report that describes the work undertaken for tasks 1-6 above.  The report should be in a formal academic paper format.  It should include title, authors, abstract, key words, contents and references.  Each reference has to be cited somewhere in your texts.   It is expected that the tables or figures of your comparison should be included in your report.