This is a common question that we’ve encountered in the past during our PoC process.

Question:

Can I use aggregates with ICE to get the same query performance benefits I would with other database engines?  If so, does ICE support drill-downs to the detail data?

Answer :

Absolutely!.  You would need to generate the aggregates in your ETL process and load them into an aggregate table.  Drill-downs are usually driven by a BI tool.  As long as you associate the aggregate and detail table in the BI tool, it will be able to do drill downs.

A better option would be to take advantage of ICE’s compression and knowledge grid.  Aggregation queries run very fast, and both aggregates and drill downs can be had against the same table.