Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) vs Online Transaction Processing (OLTP)

Information technology systems can be broadly classified as either transactional (OLTP) or analytical (OLAP). Let’s take a look at each of them individually.

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

OLAP is characterized by a lower volume of transactions than OLTP, generally dealing with historical and archival data. This data is collected over a long period of time from OLTP transactions that are collected from everyday business and stored in a data warehouse. OLAP applications are used for data mining, and often require very complex queries and extensive processing time. The application is used to help make informed decisions and solve problems in an organizational environment.


Online Transaction Processing (OLTP)

OLTP is characterized by a very large number of short transactions such as INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE, etc. and is built for fast query processing, unlike OLAP. OLTP places high emphasis on data integrity due to the high volume of transactions. As stated in the OLAP description, OLTP is the original source of data from daily business transactions. While OLAP is for mining data for information, OLTP is operational in nature, managing fundamental business processes and recording all of the events. OLTP reveals a snapshot of the ongoing business activity with very low storage space requirements compared to OLAP. OLTP is typically highly normalized unlike OLAP, and requires frequent backups to ensure that the company does not lose highly valuable operational data.

Summary

OLTP collects the data by managing daily operations and OLAP stores the data over a long period of time for the purpose of data mining to reveal information to support decisions. OLTP is built for speed and data integrity while OLAP is built to store massive amounts of data at the cost of very slow processing speed. Both are vital features of the modern day business intelligence. 

References:

Coronel, C., Morris, S., & Rob, P. (2010). Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management (10th ed.). New Jersey: Cengage Learning, Course Technology, Inc.

Bose. (2012, March 8). Oracle Business Intelligence: OLTP VS. OLAP. Oracle Business Intelligence: OLTP VS. OLAP. Retrieved , from http://allaboutobiee.blogspot.com/2012/03/oltp-vs-olap.html

Differences between OLTP and OLAP. (n.d.). JKInfoLine. Retrieved , from http://www.jkinfoline.com/oltp-vs-olap.html

OLTP vs. OLAP. (n.d.). Datawarehouse4u. Retrieved , from http://datawarehouse4u.info/OLTP-vs-OLAP.html