OLAP cube

An OLAP cube is a multi-dimensional array of data. Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a computer-based technique of analyzing data to look for insights. The term cube here refers to a multi-dimensional dataset, which is also sometimes called a hypercube if the number of dimensions is greater than three. A cube can be considered a multi-dimensional generalization of a two- or three-dimensional spreadsheet. For example, a company might wish to summarize financial data by product, by time-period, and by city to compare actual and budget expenses. Product, time, city and scenario (actual and budget) are the data's dimensions. Cube is a shorthand for multidimensional dataset, given that data can have an arbitrary number of dimensions. The term hypercube is sometimes used, especially for data with more than three dimensions. A cube is not a "cube" in the strict mathematical sense, as the sides are not all necessarily equal. But this term is used widely. A Slice is a term for a subset of the data, generated by picking a value for one dimension and only showing the data for that value (for instance only the data at one point in time). Spreadsheets are only 2-dimensional, so by (continued) slicing or other techniques, it becomes possible to visualise multidimensional data in them. Each cell of the cube holds a number that represents some measure of the business, such as sales, profits, expenses, budget and forecast. OLAP data is typically stored in a star schema or snowflake schema in a relational data warehouse or in a special-purpose data management system. Measures are derived from the records in the fact table and dimensions are derived from the dimension tables. The elements of a dimension can be organized as a hierarchy, a set of parent-child relationships, typically where a parent member summarizes its children. Parent elements can further be aggregated as the children of another parent. For example, May 2005's parent is Second Quarter 2005 which is in turn the child of Year 2005.