Strives to be the point of reference for the most important issues in the field of multidimensional databases. This book provides a brief history of the field and distinguishes between what is new in recent research and what is merely a renaming of old concepts. The book reviews past papers and discusses current research projects in the hope to encourage the search for new solutions to the many problems that are still unsolved. In addition this outlines the incredible advances in technology and ever increasing demands from users in the most diverse applicative areas such as finance, medicine, statistics, business, and many more. Many of the most distinguished and well-known researchers have contributed to this book writing about their own specific field.