Relational OLAP

Relational OLAP or ROLAP is a type of online analytical processing (OLAP) database that is based on relational database technology. ROLAP stores data in a relational database as opposed to a multidimensional database and uses SQL queries to access the data.

ROLAP is often used when dealing with large amounts of data or when data is distributed across many databases. It is also useful when standard relational database operations such as joins and aggregations are needed. ROLAP can take advantage of existing database design and query optimization techniques to reduce the complexity of large queries.

The main advantage of ROLAP is its scalability. It can scale to hundreds or thousands of users without sacrificing performance. ROLAP also makes it easier to integrate with other technologies such as web services.

On the other hand, ROLAP is limited in its ability to provide more sophisticated features such as data mining and advanced analytics. Also, ROLAP databases tend to be more expensive than multidimensional OLAP databases.

ROLAP is most commonly used for applications such as data warehousing, data exploration and data mining. It can also be used for real-time operational analytics and online transaction processing.