"Enterprise customers want scalability, reliability, redundancy and security, but some database programmers are looking for features such as solid transaction support, stored procedures and more functions. How do IT managers decide what features are most important?
"Scott Noyes: Two terms come into play when choosing a data storage engine for business. OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) generally concerns analysis of data to support business decisions--comparing yearly profits, building cross tabs or aggregating customer demographics. OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) generally concerns the daily process of business--shopping carts, inventory and the general ledger..."
