Comparison of OLAP Servers

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of online analytical processing (OLAP) servers. Please see the individual products articles for further information.

General information

OLAP Server Company Website Latest stable version Software license License Pricing
Essbase Oracle [1] 11.1.2.4 Proprietary
icCube icCube [2] 4.8.2 Proprietary community/
Jedox OLAP Server Jedox [3] 5.1 SR4 GPL v2 or EULA, Proprietary -
Infor BI OLAP Server Infor [4] 10.6.0 Proprietary -
Microsoft Analysis Services Microsoft [5] 2014 Proprietary
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server MicroStrategy [6] 9 Proprietary -
Mondrian OLAP server Pentaho [7] 3.7 EPL free
Oracle Database OLAP Option Oracle [8] 11g R2 Proprietary
SAS OLAP Server SAS Institute [9] 9.4 Proprietary -
SAP NetWeaver BW SAP [10] 7.30 Proprietary -
Cognos TM1 IBM [11] 10.2.2 FP3 Proprietary -
Cubes Open source community [12] 1.0.1 MIT -

Data storage modes

OLAP Server MOLAP ROLAP HOLAP Offline
Essbase Yes Yes Yes
icCube Yes No No Offline Cubes
Infor BI OLAP Server Yes No No Local cubes
Jedox OLAP Server Yes Yes Yes No
Microsoft Analysis Services Yes Yes Yes Local cubes,
PowerPivot for Excel
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Yes Yes Yes MicroStrategy Office,
Dynamic Dashboards
Mondrian OLAP server Yes Yes Yes
Oracle Database OLAP Option Yes Yes Yes
SAS OLAP Server Yes Yes Yes
IBM TM1 Yes No No
IBM Cognos Yes Yes Yes
SAP NetWeaver BW Yes Yes No
Cubes (OLAP server) No Yes No

APIs and query languages

APIs and query languages OLAP servers support.

OLAP Server XML for Analysis OLE DB for OLAP MDX Stored procedures Custom functions SQL LINQ[13] Visualization JSON
Essbase Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes SmartView (Excel-AddIn), WebAnalysis, Financial Reports
icCube Yes Yes Yes Java,[14] R[15] Yes No Yes Java, Javascript
Infor BI OLAP Server Yes Yes Yes OLAP Rules, Push Rules, Application Engine Yes Yes No Application Studio
Jedox OLAP Server Yes Yes Yes Cube Rules, SVS Triggers Yes No Yes ?
Microsoft Analysis Services Yes Yes Yes .NET[16] Yes[17] Yes[18] Yes Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ?
Mondrian OLAP server Yes Yes[19] Yes Yes Yes[20] Yes Yes Yes
Oracle Database OLAP Option No Yes[21] Yes[21] Java, PL/SQL, OLAP DML Yes Yes[22] No ?
SAS OLAP Server Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Web Report Studio
SAP NetWeaver BW Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes ?
Cognos TM1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes TM1 Web/TM1 Contributor, IBM Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos Cafe for Excel
Cubes No No No No Yes No No Cubes Viewer[23] Yes

OLAP distinctive features

A list of OLAP features that are not supported by all vendors. All vendors support features such as parent-child, multilevel hierarchy, drilldown.

OLAP Server Real Time Semi-additive measures Write-back Many-to-Many Partitioning
Essbase ? Yes Yes ? Yes
icCube Yes[24] Yes[25] Yes[26] Yes[27] Yes[28]
Infor BI OLAP Server ? Yes Yes ? Yes
Jedox OLAP Server ? ? Yes ? ?
Microsoft Analysis Services ? Yes Yes Yes Yes
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server ? Yes Yes[29] ? Yes
Mondrian OLAP server Yes Yes[30] Planned ? Yes
Oracle Database OLAP Option ? Yes Yes ? Yes
TM1 ? Yes Yes ? No
IBM Cognos Yes Yes No Yes Yes
SAS OLAP Server ? Yes Yes ? Yes
SAP NetWeaver BW ? Yes Yes ? Yes
Cubes ? ? ? Yes ?

System limits

OLAP Server # cubes # measures # dimensions # dimensions in cube # hierarchies in dimension # levels in hierarchy # dimension members
Essbase[31] ? ? ? 24 256 ? 20,000,000 (ASO), 1,000,000 (BSO)
icCube 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647 ? 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647
Infor BI OLAP Server ? 10,000,000 ? 30 ? ? 10,000,000
Jedox OLAP Server 2^32 (32 bits) / 2^64 (64 bits) ? 2^32 (32 bits) / 2^64 (64 bits) 250 2^32 2^32 2^32
Microsoft Analysis Services[32] 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647 ? 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647 2,147,483,647
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] ? Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1]
SAS OLAP Server[33] Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] 1024 128 ? 128 19 4,294,967,296
TM1 Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] ? Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] 256 Unrestricted[lower-alpha 1] ? ?
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Please update as 'unrestricted', is just not possible

Security

OLAP Server Authentication Network encryption On-the-Fly[lower-alpha 1] Data access
Cell security Dimension security Visual totals
Essbase Essbase authentication, LDAP authentication, Microsoft Active Directory SSL Yes Yes Yes Yes
icCube HTTP Basic/Form Authentication, Windows SSO (NTLM,Kerberos) SSL Yes Yes Yes Yes
Infor BI OLAP Server OLAP authentication, Infor Federation Services, LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory Yes Yes Yes Yes ?
Jedox OLAP Server Jedox authentication, LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory SSL Yes Yes Yes ?
Microsoft Analysis Services NTLM, Kerberos SSL and SSPI ? Yes Yes Yes
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Host authentication, database authentication, LDAP,
Microsoft Active Directory, NTLM, SiteMinder, Tivoli, SAP, Kerberos		 SSL, AES[34] ? Yes Yes Yes
Oracle Database OLAP Option Oracle Database authentication SSL ? Yes Yes ?
SAS OLAP Server[35] Host authentication,SAS token authentication, LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory Yes[36] ? Yes Yes Yes
TM1 Builtin, LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, NTLM, IBM Cognos BI authentication SSL Yes Yes Yes ?
  1. ↑ On-the-Fly : The ability to define authentication dynamically via programmatic interfaces. New users do not require restarting the server or redefining the security.

Operating systems

The OLAP servers can run on the following operating systems:

OLAP Server Windows Linux UNIX z/OS
Essbase Yes Yes Yes No
icCube Yes Yes Yes Yes
Infor BI OLAP Server Yes No No No
Jedox OLAP Server Yes Yes Yes No
Microsoft Analysis Services Yes No No No
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Yes Yes Yes No
Mondrian OLAP server Yes Yes Yes Yes
Oracle Database OLAP Option Yes Yes Yes Yes
SAS OLAP Server Yes Yes Yes Yes
SAP NetWeaver BW Yes Yes Yes Yes
TM1 Yes Yes Yes No
Cubes Yes Yes Yes No

Note (1):The server availability depends on Java Virtual Machine not on the operating system

Support information

OLAP Server Issue Tracking System Forum/Blog Roadmap Source code
Essbase myOracle Support Closed
icCube YouTrack Open
Infor BI OLAP Server Infor Xtreme Available upon request Closed
Jedox OLAP Server Mantis Open
Microsoft Analysis Services Connect - Closed
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server MicroStrategy Resource Center - Closed
Mondrian OLAP server Jira Open
Oracle Database OLAP Option myOracle Support Closed
SAS OLAP Server Support Closed
SAP NetWeaver BW OSS Closed
TM1 IBM Service Request Closed
Cubes Cubes – Github Issues Open

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Oracle Essbase".
  2. ↑ "icCube OLAP Server".
  3. ↑ "Jedox AG Business Intelligence".
  4. ↑ "Infor".
  5. ↑ "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services".
  6. ↑ "MicroStrategy Intelligence Server".
  7. ↑ "Pentaho Analysis Services: Mondrian Project".
  8. ↑ "Oracle OLAP Documentation".
  9. ↑ "SAS OLAP Server".
  10. ↑ "Components & Tools".
  11. ↑ "Cognos Business Intelligence and Financial Performance Management".
  12. ↑ "Cubes – Lightweight OLAP Python Toolkit".
  13. ↑ "SSAS Entity Framework Provider".
  14. ↑ "icCube Java integration documentation". icCube.
  15. ↑ "icCube R language integration documentation". icCube.
  16. ↑ "SQL Server 2008 Books Online (October 2009)Defining Stored Procedures". MSDN.
  17. ↑ "SQL Server 2008 Books Online (October 2009)Using Stored Procedures". MSDN.
  18. ↑ "How to perform a SQL Server distributed query with OLAP Server". MSDN.
  19. ↑ "Pentaho and Simba Technologies Partner to Bring World's Most Popular Open Source OLAP Project to Microsoft Excel Users".
  20. ↑ "How to Define a Mondrian Schema". Pentaho.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 "Oracle and Simba Technologies Introduce MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP".
  22. ↑ "Querying Oracle OLAP Cubes: Fast Answers to Tough Questions Using Simple SQL".
  23. ↑ "Cubes Viewer". jjmontes.
  24. ↑ "icCube Real Time walkthrough".
  25. ↑ "icCube Aggregatin types".
  26. ↑ "icCube Writeback/Update Cube".
  27. ↑ "icCube Many-to-Many".
  28. ↑ "icCube Partitioning".
  29. ↑ "Common Extensions of the MicroStrategy Platform".
  30. ↑ "Support for Non-Additive and Semi-Additive Measures".
  31. ↑ "Essbase Server Limits". Oracle.
  32. ↑ "SQL Server 2008 Books Online (October 2009)Maximum Capacity Specifications (Analysis Services - Multidimensional Data)". Microsoft.
  33. ↑ "SAS OLAP Cube Size Specifications".
  34. ↑ MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Features
  35. ↑ "SAS OLAP Security Totals and Permission Conditions".
  36. ↑ "How to Change Over-the-Wire Encryption Settings for SAS Servers".