112 Customer Relationship Management Systems Handbook
organization of data hierarchically in multiple dimensions, allowing users to
make advanced analyses of small portions of data from the data warehouse.
The technology is understandably embraced by many in the industry because
of its increased usability and superior analytical functionality.
As a stand-alone technology, multidimensional OLAP is inferior to a real
data warehouse for a variety of reasons. The main drawback is that the
technology is not able to handle more than 20 to 30 gigabytes of data, which
is unacceptable for most larger corporations, where data storage needs range
from 100 gigabytes to several terabytes.
Furthermore, multidimensional databases do not have the flexibility and
measurability ...