System and method of providing relational set operations for multidimensional data sources

1. A method of processing a data agnostic business intelligence query against one or more data sources, the method comprising:

detecting and intercepting, by a computer, a data agnostic business intelligence query that is issued against one or more multidimensional data sources;

decomposing a relational set operation contained in the data agnostic business intelligence query into two or more sub-queries handled by an online analytical processing (OLAP) query provider that queries the one or more multidimensional data sources, wherein the relational set operation is not natively supported by the OLAP query provider, and wherein each sub-query is supported by the OLAP query provider and represents an operand of the relational set operation;

sending the two or more sub-queries to the OLAP query provider for execution;

receiving resultant OLAP data streams generated from the execution of the two or more sub-queries, each resultant OLAP data stream corresponding to a sub-query operand for the relational set operation; and

sending the resultant OLAP data streams to a relational query provider for execution of the relational set operation.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the decomposed sub-queries comprise multidimensional sub-queries sent to the OLAP query provider that is capable of executing multidimensional query operations.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the relational set operation and the resultant OLAP data streams are sent to the relational query provider that is capable of executing relational query operations.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the decomposing includes identifying sub-queries that represent operands of the relational set operation that is unsupported by the OLAP query provider, and extracting relational set operands into the sub-queries that are supported by the OLAP query provider, and wherein the method further comprises:

creating one query for the relational query provider and executing the relational set operation along with sub-query operands represented by the resultant OLAP data streams; and

preparing a post processing plan to return a data set that is consistent with the data agnostic business intelligence query.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the decomposing includes using an operation support table describing operations supported by the OLAP query provider.

6. A query framework system for processing data agnostic business intelligence queries, the system comprising:

a computer;

a query interceptor, executable by the computer, to detect and intercept a data agnostic business intelligence query that is issued against one or more multidimensional data sources;

a query decomposer, executable by the computer, to decompose a relational set operation contained in the data agnostic business intelligence query into two or more sub-queries handled by an online analytical processing (OLAP) query provider that queries the one or more multidimensional data sources, wherein the relational set operation is not natively supported by the OLAP query provider, and wherein each sub-query is supported by the OLAP query provider and represents an operand of the relational set operation;

an OLAP query provider interface, executable by the computer, to send the two or more sub-queries to the OLAP query provider for execution and receiving the resultant OLAP data streams generated from the execution of the two or more sub-queries, each resultant OLAP data stream corresponding to a sub-query operand for the relational set operation; and

an operation module, executable by the computer, to send the resultant OLAP data streams to a relational query provider for execution of the relational set operation.

7. The system as recited in claim 6 , wherein the OLAP query provider is capable of executing multidimensional query operations.

8. The system as recited in claim 6 , wherein the relational query provider is capable of executing relational query operations.

9. The system as recited in claim 6 , wherein the query decomposer further comprises:

a set operation identifier to identify the operands of the relational set operation that is not natively supported by the OLAP query provider;

an OLAP sub-queries extractor to extract each of the operands into one of the two or more sub-queries that are supported by the OLAP query provider;

a relational set operation creator to create one query for the relational query provider using the resultant OLAP data streams; and

a post-processing query creator to prepare a post processing plan to return a data set that is consistent with the data agnostic business intelligence query.

10. The system as recited in claim 6 , wherein the query decomposer uses an operation support table describing operations supported by the OLAP query provider.

11. A computer readable storage medium containing computer executable instructions for causing a computer to:

detect and intercepting a data agnostic business intelligence query that is issued against one or more multidimensional data sources;

decompose a relational set operation contained in the data agnostic business intelligence query into two or more sub-queries handled by an online analytical processing (OLAP) query provider that queries the one or more multidimensional data sources, wherein the relational set operation is not natively supported by the OLAP query provider, and wherein each sub-query is supported by the OLAP query provider and represents an operand of the relational set operation;

send the two or more sub-queries to the OLAP query provider for execution;

receiving resultant OLAP data streams generated from the execution of the two or more sub-queries, each resultant OLAP data stream corresponding to a sub-query operand for the relational set operation; and

send the resultant OLAP data streams to a relational query provider for execution of the relational set operation.