OLAP

Online Analytical Processing

Analytical workload pattern -- complex queries on aggregated data.

When you'd see it: Analytics and BI architecture, almost always contrasted with OLTP.

Why it matters: OLAP systems are built to read and aggregate large amounts of data for analysis, the opposite of the small fast writes a transactional system handles. Data warehouses and BI tools are OLAP.

Common mistakes: Running heavy analytical queries against the live transactional database. That is an OLTP system, and the analytics will slow the app down or take it offline.