On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) on Networks

We propose a framework for efficient OLAP on networks with a focus on the most interesting kind, the topological OLAP (called “TOLAP”), which incurs topological changes in the underlying networks. Topological OLAP operations generate new networks from the original ones by rolling up a subset of nodes chosen by certain constraint criteria. The key challenge is to efficiently compute measures for the newly generated networks and handle user queries with varied constraints. The effective computational techniques, Topological-Distributiveness is proposed to achieve efficient query processing and cube materialization. We also provide a Topological OLAP query processing framework into which this technique is weaved.