Bridging the semantic gap in OLAP models: platform-independent queries

Abstract

The development of data warehouses is based on a three-stage process that starts specifying both the static and dynamic properties of on-line analytical processing (OLAP) applications by means of an intuitive, semantically rich abstraction, namely the conceptual model. Then, developers design its logical counterpart where platform-specific details such as performance or storage are also considered. Nevertheless, it is well known the existence of a semantic gap between the conceptual and logical levels that decreases the feasibility of their mapping. In order to bridge this gap, we propose the use of conceptual OLAP queries, i.e., platform-independent, that can be automatically traced to their logical implementation in a coherent and integrated way. For this aim, in this paper, we focus on describing the specification of an OLAP algebra at the conceptual level by using the object-constraint language (OCL). Its operations are then translated into a particular OLAP system by using a model-driven architecture (MDA). The great advantage of our approach is that we allow analysts to query data warehouses without being aware of logical details.