A Solution to Ragged Dimension Problem in OLAP

One problem facing many existing OLAP (On-Line Analytical Process) systems is the so-called ragged dimensions. Ragged dimensions occur if the logical parents of some members in a dimension hierarchy are two or more levels apart. In other words, there exist empty holes in the dimension hierarchy. The problems caused by ragged dimension are two-fold. First, aggregation of measure data could be incorrect. Second, the pre-computation strategy, the most prevalent technique used to speed up query processing in current OLAP system, could be rendered invalid. This paper proposes a simple yet efficient solution to remedy the ragged dimension problem for existing OLAP systems.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

   Lin Yuan & Hengming Zou

2. Northwestern Polytechnical University, China

   Zhanhuai Li

Editors and Affiliations

1. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Block S1, Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore

   Lipo Wang

2. School of Software, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510275, Guangzhou, China

   Ke Chen

3. School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, BLK N4, 2b-39, Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore

   Yew Soon Ong

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