System and method for generating multi-representations of a data cube

Abstract

An apparatus and method for approximating the data stored in a databases by generating multiple projections and representations from the database such that the OLAP queries for the original database (such as aggregation and histogram operations) may be applied to the approximated version of the database, which can be much smaller than the original databases. Other aspects optimize a mapping, via a mapping (or dimension) table, of non-numeric or numeric attributes to other numeric attributes such that the error incurred on applying queries to the approximated version of the database is minimized. Still further aspects define boundaries of approximations so that the boundaries are preserved when approximated versions of the databases are generated.

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