Normalization in a Mixed OLTP and OLAP Workload Scenario

The historically introduced separation of online analytical processing (OLAP) from online transaction processing (OLTP) is in question considering the current developments of databases. Column-oriented databases mainly used in the OLAP environment so far, with the addition of in-memory data storage are adapted to accommodate OLTP as well, thus paving the way for mixed OLTP and OLAP process-ing. To assess mixed workload systems benchmarking has to evolve along with the database technology. Especially in mixed workload scenarios the question arises of how to layout the database. In this paper, we present a case study on the impact of database design focusing on normalization with respect to various workload mixes and database implementations. We use a novel benchmark methodology that provides mixed OLTP and OLAP workloads based on a real scenario.