Data aggregation module supporting dynamic query responsive aggregation during the servicing of database query requests provided by one or more client machines

A method comprising:

• (a) providing a parallel computing platform comprising one or more processors and one or more storage volumes, wherein each processor is associated with space within said storage volumes for physically storing data elements therein, and wherein the location of each data element in a multidimensional database (MDB) is specified in MDB space by business dimensions associated with said data element;
• (b) loading in the business dimensions and associated data elements from a data warehouse;
• (c) mapping the business dimensions associated with each said data element to a processor identifier, and mapping the business dimensions associated with each said data element into a data storage address within space associated with a specific processor identified by the processor identifier corresponding to said business dimensions;
• and
• (d) using said data storage addresses to access said data elements from said one or more storage volumes.

A system comprising:

• a hardware platform on which a stand-alone data aggregation server resides, the stand-alone data aggregation server comprising at least:
• an aggregation engine that is integrated with a multidimensional data store and an interface, the aggregation engine performing a query directed on-the-fly roll-up data aggregation operations along multiple dimensions on data loaded from a database and storing the resultant aggregated data in a multidimensional datastore,
• wherein the on-the-fly roll-up data aggregation operations are performed at least partly in response to a query received while at least one aggregation operation is already being performed;
• and
• the interface configured to receive requests communicated from any one of a plurality of different client nodes, configured to access the aggregation engine to retrieve from the multidimensional datastore aggregated data pertaining to said requests, and configured to communicate the aggregated data corresponding to said requests to said respective node that communicated said requests.