What is OLAP?

The OLAP Council defines OLAP as:
"... a category of software technology that enables analysts, managers and executives to gain insight into data through fast, consistent, interactive access to a wide variety of possible views of information that has been transformed from raw data to reflect the real dimensionality of the enterprise as understood by the user."

Data Based Advisor (article: Dec 1995 v13 n11 p38)
"OLAP spells success for users and developers"
"OLAP lets you give users easy, intuitive access to their data and make them self-sufficient. They can generate almost any analysis without intervention from IS and get out of the report-writing business. Users will be in control of their information--and they'll love you for it."

DBMS Magazine (article: August 1995 v8 n9 p40)
"The Truth About OLAP"
OLAP/multidimensional analysis "involves representing data (typically summary data) as user-defined dimensions, not tables. For example, a sales analysis database organizes data by product, territory, customer, and other dimensions. Dimensions are almost always related in hierarchies, and a multidimensional database can have multiple hierarchies. Product hierarchies can range from general groupings such as hardware, software, and services down to individual products. Geographic hierarchies can range from continents or countries down to sales offices or even individual salespersons. Time is common to almost all analytical applications, so most multidimensional servers have built-in time hierarchies (they know that weeks roll up into months) plus the ability to define custom accounting cycles."

Open Information Systems (article: Feb 1996 v11 n2 p3)
"Approaches to OLAP"
"On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP), has gained industry-wide acceptance as a powerful mechanism for enabling users to identify and understand the key trends and events driving their businesses. Users in every industry and functional department (i.e., finance, sales, marketing) have begun using OLAP tools to rapidly sift through and analyze large amounts of data that companies are making available to them. via data warehouses or staged data sets. OLAP tools are helping business managers at all levels make better decisions quicker. This is translating into larger corporate profits, improved customer service, and increased competitiveness."