OLAP Vs Relational

OLAP Analysis vs Relational Reporting

TOPIC	OLAP	RELATIONAL
Data Analysis	OLAP provides for online interaction with the data. Users can investigate relationships within the data with simple navigation tools. OLAP also provides context, relevance and visualization of the data.	Some relational reporting can provide limited interactivity. Overall not nearly as robust for analysis.
Numeric Calculations	OLAP technology is based upon calculations and aggregations. Cubes are very good at providing very complex calculations.	Relational reporting can also provide numeric calculations, but complex calculations are oftentimes difficult to implement.
Formatted Reports	OLAP client tools usually provide for very limited formatting capabilities. For the most part, OLAP should be used for interactive analysis, not formatted hard copy reports.	Relational reporting tools are very good at providing report formatting. Relational reporting is well suited to nicely formatted hard copy reporting.
Query Performance	OLAP usually provides for very fast query performance. The usual OLAP query is returned in under 4 seconds.	Relational reporting can be fast but oftentimes it is slow. (This is dependant on the underlying schema)
Textual Data	Although some OLAP tools will provide a means at viewing textual meta-data, overall OLAP is not the tool for storing or providing textual data. Example: OLAP cubes are not designed to store names, addresses, contact information, etc.	Relational Reporting is well suited to handle textual information.
Database Maintenance	OLAP may provide less maintenance since all aggregations are automatically provided within the cube.	Relational Reporting can be maintenance intensive if numerous "aggregation tables" are necessary.
Ad Hoc Query Creation	Most OLAP client tools make it very easy to create new "views" of the data. There are no complex joins to create. Most users can easily create their own analytic views.	Depends on how the underlying database is designed. Oftentimes user can become frustrated with table joins.