The major task of online operational database systems is to perform online transaction and query processing. These systems are called online transaction processing (OLTP) systems. They cover most of the day-to-day. operations of an organization such as purchasing, inventory, manufacturing, banking, payroll, registration, and accounting.
Data warehouse systems, on the other hand, service users or knowledge workers in the role of data analysis and decision making. Such systems can organize and present data in various formats in order to accommodate the diverse needs of the different users. These systems are known as on-line-analytical-Processing (OLAP) systems. The major difference between OLTP (operational database or database) and OLAP (data warehouse) are given below —
Differance between OLTP and OLAP
| S. No. | Operational Data base (OLTP) | Data warehouse (OLAP) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | It is customer-oriented. | It is market-oriented. |
| 2 | It manages current data that, typically, are too detailed to be easily used for decision making. | It manages large amounts of historical data., provides facilities for summarization and aggregation. |
| 3 | It usually adopts an entity-relationship (ER) data model and an application-oriented database design. | It typically adopts either a star of snowflake model and a subject-oriented database design. |
| 4 | It focuses mainly on the current data within an enterprise or department, without referring to historical data. | It often spans multiple versions of a database schema, due to the evolutionary process of an organization, and deal with information that originates from different organizations. |
| 5 | The access pattern of an OLTP system consists mainly of short; atomic transactions. Such a system requires concurrency control and recovery. mechanisms. | Access to OLAP systems is mostly read-only operations. |
| 6 | OLTP is used for transaction and query processing by clerk clients and information technology professionals. | OLAP is used for data analysis by knowledge workers, including managers, executives, and analysts. |
