The Different Between An OLAP and An OLTP System

Data warehouse (including Business Information Warehouse – SAP BW) as analytical system or known as OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) system are fundamentally different compare to transactional system or known as OLTP (Online transactional Processing) system.

Here are the different between OLAP and OLTP:

Target

OLTP is used in operative environment to get efficiency through automation of business processes. OLAP is used in informative environment, usually used by management to support in decisions making.

Priorities

As transactional system, OLTP has high availability and higher data volume. Contrary, OLAP as analytical system is very simple data and has flexible data access.

Level of detail

OLTP stores data in a very high level of detail, whereas OLAP stores data in aggregation.

Age of data

OLTP data are current data. It means the data stored in OLTP with minimal history. OLAP data are historical data.

Database operation

Frequent data changes are a feature of operative system. So, in OLTP system we can read, add, change, delete or refresh data. In OLAP, we only can read the data since they are frozen after a certain point for analysis purpose.

Integration of data from various applications (system)

Since the OLTP system is for operation, it has minimal integration with other applications. In contrast to the OLTP system, OLAP need high integration of information from many application or system because it used for analysis.

Normalization in database

Due to reduction in data redundancy, normalization is very high requirement in OLTP. In OLAP, the reasons why one finds less normalization are data staging and lower performance.

Conclusion: OLAP and OLTP are two absolutely different system since they have different purpose and enviroments. OLAP for analitical compare to OLTP for transactional.

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