Modeling the behavior of OLAP applications using an UML compliant approach

Abstract

We argue that current approaches in the area of conceptual modeling of OLAP applications are lacking in some basic multidimen- sional (MD) semantics as well as they do not consider the behavior of these systems properly. In this context, this paper describes an OO con- ceptual modeling approach (based on a subset of UML) to address the above-mentioned issues. Thus, the structure of the system is specified by a class diagram, and from then, we define cube classes for specific user requirements. Then, the behavior of the system is considered by means of state and interaction diagrams (based on certain OLAP operations) on these cube classes.