This "report" is fundamentally confused about basic data management architecture.
OLAP technology is used for large volume data warehousing problems where statements like SELECT SUM(SALES_AMOUNT) won't scale. It basically is a sophisticated set of techniques for pre-computing aggregates and derived data, supporting drilldowns and drillthroughs, and other business intelligence requirements.
Relating data across a variety of physical datastores is a very well understood problem and by no means unique to CMDBs. The federated CMDB problem he is discussing does not call for OLAP. It might call for SOA, ETL, or EII.
Relational databases handle CMDBs just fine. Queries do not need to be "pre built" in them; ad hoc reporting works just fine. These are only some of the issues with this article. Very disappointing that something so technically misleading and inaccurate has been presented as a contribution to the critical conversations around CMDB.
If you really want to know more about how data architecture and CMDBs might relate, get involved with the Data Management Association (www.dama.org).
Charles Betz
