What are the Web-based tools in OLAP?

There are the various web-based tools which are as follows −

Arbor Essbase Web − This tool provides features as drilling up, down, across; slice and dice, and powerful reporting, all for OLAP. It also provides data entry, such as full multi-user concurrent write capabilities. Arbor Essbase is only a server product, no user package exists, thus assuring its own desktop client version market. The Web product does not restore administrative and development structures but it restores only user access for queries and updates.

Information Advantage Web OLAP − This product uses a server-centric messaging architecture, composed of a powerful analytic engine that creates SQL for the retrieval from a relational database, manipulates the results, and shares the results with a client.

Because it is all server-centric capability, executing Web OLAP to support web-based client is easy and simple. This architecture is equivalent to the one of Essbase with a Web gateway between the Web server and analytic engine, even though the data store and the engine are independent.

Microstrategy DSS Web − The flagship product DSS Agent from Microstrategy, initially a Window tool, is accessible on all platforms and also on the Web. DSS Agent, along with the complement product DSS server relational OLAP server, DSS Architect data-modeling tools, the DSS Executive design tool for developing an executive information system (EIS), create SQL automatically and dynamically.

It is based on the RDBMS server for implementing complex analysis, rather than creating a multidimensional ‘Cube’. Then it is providing ROLAP and not MOLAP. By adding a Web Gateway between the Web server and DSS server engine, Microstrategy is restoring the interactive DSS Agent front-end with a web browser which develops through it in terms of request to DSS server API.

HTML publishing − This method includes transforming an output of a query into the HTML page that can be downloaded into the browser. This method does not provide interactive access to data or reports.

Helper applications − In this method, a tool is configured as a helper application that consists of a browser. This is the case of a ‘fat’ client, in which, because the data is downloaded, users can take benefit of all capabilities of the tool to analyze data. However, maintaining these helper applications becomes another function for the system administrator.

Server-centric components − In this method, the vendor reconstructs a desktop tool as a server component, or makes a new server component that can be unified with the Web via a Web gateway (e.g. CGI or NSAPI scripts).