OLAP technologies should provide for both stand-alone and server solutions. Having the information centralised is probably preferencial so that there is "ONE VERSION OF THE TRUTH" and then you do not have little data islands that are independent and that may have to be consolidated at some point.


OLAP SERVER

An OLAP server is a high-capacity, multi-user data manipulation engine specifically designed to support and operate on multi-dimensional data structures. A multi- dimensional structure is arranged so that every data item is located and accessed based on the intersection of the dimension members which define that item. The design of the server and the structure of the data are optimized for rapid ad-hoc information retrieval in any orientation, as well as for fast, flexible calculation and transformation of raw data based on formulaic relationships. The OLAP Server may either physically stage the processed multi-dimensional information to deliver consistent and rapid response times to end users, or it may populate its data structures in real-time from relational or other databases, or offer a choice of both. Given the current state of technology and the end user requirement for consistent and rapid response times, staging the multi-dimensional data in the OLAP Server is often the preferred method. [Source © 1997 OLAP Council, all rights reserved]