What is OLTP (online transaction processing)?

OLTP databases sit behind the applications a business runs on: placing an order, updating a customer record, recording a payment. They are tuned for many small, concurrent transactions with strict correctness (ACID) guarantees.

Key characteristics:

• Row-oriented storage optimised for reading and writing whole records.
• Normalized schemas to avoid duplicated data and keep writes consistent.
• Short transactions measured in milliseconds, at high concurrency.
• Operational, current data rather than long historical archives.

The contrast is OLAP (online analytical processing), which is built for large aggregations and reporting. Running big analytical queries directly against a busy OLTP system can slow the app, which is one reason organisations copy data into warehouses.

iDBQuery connects directly to OLTP databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server and Oracle, typically through a read-only connection or a read replica so operational performance is protected. It writes the SQL for you, runs it against the live data, and cites each figure back to its source row, so you can analyse the numbers in your operational systems without exporting them into a separate warehouse first.