Ad-hoc-Analysis on large Data volumes

It´s in the nature of Ad-hoc-Analysis, that users at first do not always know exactly what they want to analyze. Users develop their analysis based on the results they have gathered so far. For example, they want to calculate the key metrics regarding clients, products, markets and payment behaviour, in order to generate an overview of the business, and to use this overview in driving decision making.
Thus, appropriate tools must be provided, so that users can compose their own analysis dynamically. To make this possible, the data must be made available with high granularity. Users can then can decide themselves wether to compress the key metrics or go deeper into detail. Using Drill-Down or a graphical display users are free to decide how to visualize their metrics. These various options for analysis damand high performance systems and the OLAP-tools must be highly flexible and easy to use.