Dickeson--The Analytical Power of OLAP

Until recently we've mostly used two-dimensional databasing (RDBMS—relational database management systems), where the elements appear in rows and columns like a spreadsheet. With the RDBMS applications, we're confined to OLTP (online transactional processing). OLTP is optimized for creating, updating and retrieving individual records, such as our accounting systems, for receivables, payables, payrolls, etc.