ONLINE TRANSACTION PROCESSING OLTP


Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) | Data Warehouse Tutorial | Minigranth

Online Transaction Processing(OLTP) : Introduction

  • Data sources including Databases and Data Warehouses generally have a very large size, hence managing them is certainly a difficult task to perform. So the concept of Online Transaction Processing(OLTP) & Online Analytical Processing(OLAP) is used.
  • In this, the whole Data source (i.e. either Databases or Data Warehouses) is divided into Online Transaction Processing(OLTP) & Online Analytical Processing(OLAP). Both of these systems have specific abilities and functionalities which makes data management of any data source easy and efficient.
  • Online Transaction Processing(OLTP) deals with the current operational data on which transactions can be performed. OLTP is used because performing operations on a large data sources is very difficult and time consuming process.
  • Hence, Online Transaction Processing allow users to perform certain operations on current data and simultaneously OLAP allow users to perform other operations on historical data.
  • So in order to generate quick results from data sources, OLTP and OLAP divides the whole data source.
  • As, historical data(OLAP) is rarely used as compared to current data(OLTP) which is used more frequently to generate user requested results.
  • For example: Consider a Data Source(Either Data Warehouse or Database) of a Bank “XYZ”. This Data Source of a Bank will contain all the information related to bank employees, customers, transactions etc. making it very big in size. It means the data source will contain the historical as well as the current operational data. Performing any operation on such a large data source is very difficult and slow. So, the whole data source is divided into two parts on the basis of historical data and current data i.e. OLAP and OLTP respectively. Let say, The total size of the data source is 100GB. Then OLAP will be about 93GB and OLTP will be 7GB in size approx.

This image describes the example through which concept of online transaction processing can be implemented.
OLTP : Example
 

Online Analytical Processing Vs. Online Transaction Processing

  • Maximum number of time, operations will be performed on current data(Online Transaction Processing) and the historical data(OLAP) will be used only for generating reports, making analysis and performing decision making.
This image describes a tabular representation of difference between online transaction processing and online analytical processing.
The Difference : OLAP Vs. OLTP