Appendix A. About OLTP and OLAP Workloads
Postgres Pro is traditionally used for transactional (OLTP) workloads. It determines architectural decisions on data layout and processing algorithms. OLTP workloads have the following characteristics:
operate on small volumes of data
perform read/write operations on most columns
require strict ACID guarantees
require short response time
With these characteristics, an optimal approach is to store and process the data in a row-based format.
Analytical (OLAP) workloads are significantly different:
process large volumes of data
perform read-only operations on a small subset of columns
do not require strict ACID guarantees
prioritize throughput over latency
Considering the difference, Postgres Pro AXE holds a significant advantage due to its architecture:
local, network, or S3 storage for better scalability and price-to-performance ratio
columnar layout on storage and in memory to work efficiently with individual columns and for higher level of compression
vectorized execution to process the data in batches
Postgres Pro AXE enhances the traditional Postgres Pro OLTP functionality by offering possibilities to operate with OLAP and HTAP workloads.