MDAC 2.5 SDK - OLE DB Programmer's Reference
Chapter 23: Rowsets in OLE DB for OLAP

Role of the Rowset Object in OLE DB for OLAP

The rowset object is the OLE DB universal abstraction for tabular data. Rowsets are used extensively by OLE DB for OLAP, and the following three types of rowsets are returned:

• Schema rowsets—These are used to return schema information.
  
  
• Axis rowsets—These are used to return information about the axes of a dataset.
  
  
• Range rowsets—Each cell in a dataset is modeled as a row, and the collection of cells that can be updated by the application is presented as a range rowset.

This means that an OLE DB for OLAP provider must implement the rowset object and all the mandatory interfaces on that object. However, OLE DB for OLAP rowsets are usually much simpler than the typical OLE DB rowset. For instance, they do not need to implement bookmarks or scrolling, and the axis rowsets and the schema rowsets need not implement updatability.

Nothing prevents a provider from implementing a rowset with all of the above features, but full implementation of all these features is not a requirement for compliance with OLE DB for OLAP.