I am considering starting a web site for OLAP. In it I will be having
papers on various topics like: "How OLAP can help your organization",
"Sales Analysis for Retail Industry", and "Budgeting with OLAP". The
first paper is free, the other papers will cost a fixed amount. I
hope to have the web site running in one month. Write now I am
writing the papers (I am done with 3) and hope to done with a total of
10 papers in 4 weeks.

A little bit about myself: I have a MBA, and a BS Computer
Engineering from USA, and have worked as a consultant in USA
implementing OLAP at leading companies including Sales Analysis
systems and have provided training on OLAP to leading companies. I
have also worked in Singapore where I implemented data warehouse
reporting solutions and budgeting systems and provided training on
OLAP. I have also worked in India where I trained an entire data-
warehousing group on OLAP.

As a sample free paper I have included "How OLAP can help your
organization":

How OLAP can help your organization


OLAP is On-Line Analytical Processing. OLAP is a class of
applications and databases that are used for business reporting,
analysis and planning. OLAP is a database/application that typically
stores data in a hyper-cube, a multi-dimensional structure where each
dimension is hierarchical. Data is generally entered at the lowest
level of each dimensional hierarchy, and then aggregated up the
hierarchy. Business users of OLAP are business analysts, financial
analysts, marketing analysts, managers, and senior executives.
Typical applications built using OLAP databases are financial
budgeting/planning applications, sales reporting and analysis
applications, data warehouse reporting applications, and much more.


Traditional databases and applications are designed and optimized for
OLTP (On-Line Transaction Processing). Traditional relational
databases store data in two-dimensional tables, and allow the database
to be manipulated using SQL. These databases are not designed for
reporting, analysis, or planning applications. Creating summarized
reports require data to be aggregated at query time, resulting in slow
response to a query. Complicated SQL is required to query the
databases. In OLAP databases, data is generally pre-aggregated
resulting in faster query time, and front ends have user-friendly
point-and-click user interfaces for querying the database. OLAP
allows your users to directly query the database, and get instant
results, saving in time and cost (cost of IT resources).


Users can use their regular spreadsheet to retrieve data, and go over
the intranet to retrieve data. Users can also send data to the
application/database for the purpose of planning. As opposed to using
SQL, which requires days of training, only a few hours of training is
more than enough.


OLAP is also fast to implement, which results in cost savings.
Typically OLAP implementations take weeks, depending on the complexity
of the database. Usually an iterative approach is used, with a
prototype developed within a few days, a pilot project in a week or
two, and a full roll out to all users in four weeks or so. The
iterative approach allows changes to be made to the database/
application as it is being developed; this allows OLAP to better meet
user requirements.


With OLAP you have a system that is dedicated to applications for,
reporting, analysis, and planning. This takes the load of your OLTP
systems, and allows the OLTP system to have good performance in
transaction processing.


In an OLAP application you can store data collected from a diverse mix
of OLTP systems like ERP systems and other software. OLAP gives you
one consistent and true picture of your organizational data that can
be accessed by different classes of users.


OLAP can help your organization in many ways. It makes your user
analysts more productive (with quicker access to data), and less
dependent on your IT department. It gives your user analysts a
flexible reporting, analysis, and planning platform that was
previously unavailable. It results in cost savings of IT resources
needed for support and implementation. It saves on time for
implementation. Every large business that generates a lot of data,
whether it is financial, or sales, or manufacturing, can implement an
OLAP solution for reporting, analysis, and planning.


I hoped you liked the paper. If you want any of my other papers,
email me at al_lal1123 (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.in, and I will email them to you. If
you want consulting services over email and phone, I'm available;
please email or call me to discuss details.



A few questions for the general reader:

What are your favourite OLAP web sites?

How much would you be willing to pay for a paper on OLAP (like the
sample paper)?

What topics for the papers would you like to read?



Thank you for you patience in reading this document. Please contact
me if you have any questions or comments.

Al Lal
Tel: 91-124-4011259, Email: al_lal1123 (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.in

On Apr 29, 12:17 pm, lal... (AT) hotmail (DOT) com wrote:
I would like to contribute. We (teksouth.com) specializes in OLAP
systems, specifically ad hoc queries against relational databases w/o
using cubes. We have several papers that you might want to use.

On Apr 30, 8:59 pm, Brad <Brad.Marsh... (AT) Teksouth (DOT) com> wrote:

Send me you papers and I will have a look at them. Initially I am
thinking of making the web site have free papers. People can read the
papers and contact the authors for business if interested. If anyone
else is interested in contributing papers, please email them to me.

Al Lal
Tel: 91-124-4011259, Email: al_lal1... (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.in