Star Schema The Complete Reference

Book excerpt: The definitive guide to dimensional design for your data warehouse Learn the best practices of dimensional design. Star Schema: The Complete Reference offers in-depth coverage of design principles and their underlying rationales. Organized around design concepts and illustrated with detailed examples, this is a step-by-step guidebook for beginners and a comprehensive resource for experts. This all-inclusive volume begins with dimensional design fundamentals and shows how they fit into diverse data warehouse architectures, including those of W.H. Inmon and Ralph Kimball. The book progresses through a series of advanced techniques that help you address real-world complexity, maximize performance, and adapt to the requirements of BI and ETL software products. You are furnished with design tasks and deliverables that can be incorporated into any project, regardless of architecture or methodology. Master the fundamentals of star schema design and slow change processing Identify situations that call for multiple stars or cubes Ensure compatibility across subject areas as your data warehouse grows Accommodate repeating attributes, recursive hierarchies, and poor data quality Support conflicting requirements for historic data Handle variation within a business process and correlation of disparate activities Boost performance using derived schemas and aggregates Learn when it's appropriate to adjust designs for BI and ETL tools