OLTP vs OLAP: Top Differences Every Data Professional Should Know

What is OLTP?

OLTP stands for Online Transaction Processing and its primary objective is the processing of data. An OLTP system administers the day to day transaction of data under a 3-tier architecture (usually 3NF). Each of these transactions involves individual records made up of multiple fields. The main emphasis of OLTP is fast query processing and data integrity in multi-access environments. Some OLTP examples are credit card activity, order entry, and ATM transactions.

OLTP Example

The ATM centre is an example of an OLTP system. Assume that a couple has a joint bank account. One day, they arrive at different ATMs simultaneously and want to withdraw the whole amount from their bank accounts.

The user who completes the authentication procedure first, however, will be eligible to receive money. In this situation, the OLTP system ensures that the withdrawn amount is never more significant than the amount in the bank. The critical thing to remember here is that OLTP systems are designed for transactional excellence instead of data analysis.

OLTP Benefits

• Solves and maintains the challenge of daily transaction management
• Simplifies individual procedures and complex duties
• Offers fast transactions

OLTP Challenges

• Transactions are severely affected if the OLTP system fails
• OLTP systems enable several users to view and modify the same data simultaneously, frequently resulting in an unusual and confusing situation.

OLTP Tools

An OLTP system is, in itself, a data processing system. For normal transactions, OLTP uses client/server processing to perform multiple transactions. For bigger applications, OLTP uses software, such as CICS for sophisticated transaction management.

What is OLAP?

OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing and its primary objective is the analysis of data. It is generally described as a category of software tools used to provide data analysis for business decisions. With the help of OLAP, data analysts can get an insight into the information on multiple databases and analyze them at a time. The main emphasis of OLAP is the response time to complex queries. 

OLAP Example

Online Analytical Processing, or OLAP, is a computer approach that allows users to extract and query data conveniently and selectively to examine it from many perspectives. OLAP business intelligence queries are frequently used for financial reporting, trend analysis, budgeting, sales forecasting, and other types of planning.

For instance, a user may request that data be analysed to present a spreadsheet exhibiting all of an enterprise's clothing products sold in Kolkata in December, compare revenue figures with the ones for the same items in February, and then see a comparison of other product sales in Kolkata during the same period.

Some more OLAP examples are:

• Personalized homepage for different customers (Netflix, Amazon)
• Comparison of sales in different months stored in separate databases.

An OLAP database uses a multidimensional data model, which includes features of relational, navigational, and hierarchical databases. It also consists of an OLAP cube which consists of multiple types of data.

Fig: OLAP cube (source)

OLAP Benefits

• Provides consistency of information and calculations
• Security restrictions can be easily applied to different users
• The primary advantage of OLAP over OLTP is a single platform for all corporate analytics needs.
• Consistency and correctness of information and calculations.
• High-security level since it is simple to set limitations on users and store sensitive information.
• Allows for the execution of complicated queries.

OLAP Drawbacks

• Only users with data analyst skills can handle OLAP systems 
• It requires the cooperation between people of various departments which may not always be feasible
• Complex and time-consuming implementation procedure that needs the aid of an IT professional.
• The cost of implementation is on the higher side.
• Cooperation across departments is required for efficient work, which is only sometimes attainable.

OLAP Tools

OLAP tools can be classified based on the three main types of OLAP - multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP), relational OLAP (ROLAP), and hybrid OLAP (HOLAP). 

• MOLAP stores data in a multidimensional database and requires a pre-computation of data. 
• ROLAP stores data in a relational database and does not require a precomputation of data. 
• HOLAP allows data analysts to decide whether to store their data in a MOLAP or ROLAP structure.

Although not widely used, these are some important OLAP types to keep in mind - Real-Time OLAP (RTOLAP), Web-based OLAP (WOLAP), Graph OLAP (GOLAP), Desktop OLAP (DOLAP), and Context-aware semantic OLAP (CaseOLAP).

• MOLAP Tools - IBM Cognos, SAS OLAP Server, Microsoft Analysis Services
• ROLAP tools - SAP Netweaver BW, Jedox OLAP Server, Microstrategy Intelligence Server
• HOLAP tools - Mondrian OLAP server, Essbase, SAS OLAP server

OLTP vs OLAP: Differences

The main difference between OLTP vs OLAP is that OLTP is operational, whereas OLAP is informational. 

Fig: OLTP vs OLAP (source)

Here is a list of OLTP vs OLAP's top 15 key features that illustrate both their differences and how they need to work together.

What Holds OLTP and OLAP Together?

In order to get actionable insights from the OLTP data, it must be first ingested into a data warehouse for analysis. OLAP systems integrate the data from multiple OLTP databases through an ETL (extract, transform, load) tool. You can collect and copy data from multiple sources using ETL tools and send it to an OLAP data warehouse where data is processed and analyzed to develop useful insights.

ETL tools also remove the need for constant code maintenance, thus enabling data professionals to focus on more value-added activities.

Here are some of the best ETL tools out there:

• Oracle Data Integrator
• Xplenty
• Informatica PowerCenter 
• Skyvia 
• Fivetran

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