Operational systems maintain records of daily business transactions whereas a Data Warehouse is a special database that

serves as the integrated repository of company data, for reporting and decision support purpose. An Operational
System (also called OLTP, for OnLine Transaction Processing) is typically optimized for quick inserts and updates, and
lookups of single rows or a small collection of rows.

An Information system is an organized system that affects the interplay between people, processes, and technology in an
organization.Information systems are used all over the place. They are used by banks to manage their investments,
hospitals to better care for their patients, and B2B companies to automate their marketing. Information systems are
designed to improve the way people work, and take what they can do to a new level.

Comparison Chart

Operational Systems Informational Systems

Current Values are the Data Content Data is Archived, Derived, Summarized

Data structure is Optimized for transactions Data structure is Optimized for complex queries.

Access frequency is High Access frequency is Medium to low

Data Access type is Read, update,Delete Data access type is only Read

Usage is Predictable, Repetitive Usage is Ad hoc, Random, Heuristic

Response time is in Sub-seconds Response time is in Several seconds to minutes

Large Number of users Relatively small number of users

Operational Systems

 Operational systems are tuned for known transactions and workloads, while the workload is not known a
priori in a data warehouse.
 Special data organization, access methods, and implementation methods are needed to support data
warehouse queries (typically multidimensional queries)
 E.g., the average amount spent on phone calls between 9AM-5PM in Pune during the month of December.