APB-1 OLAP Benchmark Specification Release II

OLAP CouncilAPB-1 OLAP BenchmarkRelease IINovember 1998OLAP Council APB-1 Benchmark Release IIIntroductionThe OLAP Council has sponsored the development of an analytical processing benchmark, theAPB-1. The benchmark simulates a realistic On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) businesssituation that exercises server-based software. The goal of the APB-1 is to measure a server'soverall OLAP performance rather than the performance of specific tasks. To ensure therelevance of the APB-1 to actual business environments, the operations performed on thedatabase have been carefully chosen to reflect common business operations. These operationsinclude the following:Bulk loading of data from internal or external data sourcesIncremental loading of data from operational systemsAggregation of input level data along hierarchiesCalculation of new data based on business modelsTime series analysisQueries with a high degree of complexityDrill-down through hierarchiesAd hoc queriesMultiple on-line sessionsSuccessful OLAP applications must provide "just-in-time information". The key to effectivedecision-making is having the right information at the right time. Judging a server's ability toaccomplish this goal is more than simply measuring an OLAP server's processingperformance. Its abilities to represent complex business relationships and to respond tochanging business requirements are equally important.While the APB-1 does not try to measure a system's ...