oltp	Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) systems represent "classic" database applications, where the emphasis is placed on relatively short, reading and mainly writing operations ("transactions"). Data timeliness, correctness, and consistency play an important role; so do degree of parallelism and response time. OLTP systems are an important component of our competence portfolio. The projects we have contributed to in this context come from various domains, such as cost settlement systems, planning tools, or steering programs (CRM, Supply Chain Management), etc. Independently of their background, these projects had a series of common characteristics, whereby the most important ones are: OLTP systems must cope with large numbers of users, many of them working simultaneously on the database. The main load on the database is caused by many relatively short transactions. In the design of an OLTP system, the emphasis is placed on normalization, relations between tables, efficient joins (often FK-PK), usage of indexes, etc. The database must guarantee short response times for targeted queries and DML operations. For this purpose, the execution plans for queries/DML operations must be optimal; nested loops are often used therein. Many OLTP system are highly available databases, and require as such special high-availability constructs, like stand-by instances/data guards, etc. Data correctness, consistency, and timeliness have a crucial importance in OLTP systems; they must be guaranteed even across database or hardware crashes (no transaction may get lost, unfinished transactions must be rolled back, etc. . . .