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Q and A
Asked and Answered
After reading "
The OLAP Aware Database
," by
Michael L. Gonzales and Gary Robinson, I have the following questions:
- In which version of DB2 UDB will the
OLAP functionality be available?
- Will the OLAP functionality also become available on the mainframe?
- Does the DB2 OLAP awareness require a dimensional model or will the same functionality and performance be possible via an ER model similar to the one used for the transactional systems?
- Does the DB2 OLAP awareness (partly) replace the need for a DB2 OLAP Server because the OLAP functionality is now embedded in the RDBMS itself, or will they both coexist because they are offering
different functionality?
Jeff Jones of IBM responds:
We haven't yet made public any details on when DB2 UDB for Unix, Linux, and Windows will have this new capability,
but more information should be coming fairly soon. We also haven't yet disclosed plans for this capability to emerge on DB2 for z/OS.
Regarding the other questions, I spoke with the team working on DB2 OLAP awareness changes and got the following answers:
- A dimensional model will be the right way to leverage these planned features of DB2. Although you could map an ER schema through views and other methods, the additional complexity introduced will make the optimizer's job very difficult
— and the results wouldn't be optimal.
- The planned features aim to make DB2 the best relational database platform for OLAP, so cube loading, drill-through, and hybrid analysis are the targets. All of these are relevant to OLAP servers such as DB2 OLAP Server. It will be possible to deliver OLAP directly out of DB2, but DB2 won't offer all the features and functionality of DB2 OLAP Server. Think of the two as complementary; DB2 will help speed deployment and optimize performance for OLAP
servers, and it will give you the opportunity to deploy some very simple analytics directly from DB2 at very low cost.
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