OLAP, Data Warehouse, Data Mart, Three-tier, and ASP

OLAP, Data Warehouse, Data Mart, Three-tier, and ASP all have one thing in common. They all deal with databases and how the data is accessed.
OLAP is short for Online Analytical Processing, a category of software tools that provides analysis of data stored in a database. OLAP tools enable users to analyze different dimensions of multidimensional data. For example, it provides time series and trend analysis views. OLAP often is used in data mining.
The chief component of OLAP is the OLAP server, which sits between a client and a database management system (DBMS). The OLAP server understands…