A correlation database is a database management system (DBMS) that is data-model-independent and designed to efficiently handle unplanned, ad hoc queries in an analytical system environment. Unlike row-oriented relational database management systems, which use a records-based storage approach, or column-oriented databases which use a column-based storage method, a correlation database uses a value-based storage (VBS) architecture in which each unique data value is stored only once and an auto-generated indexing system maintains the context for all values.