Introducing dimensional modeling
So far you have dealt with the Jigsaw puzzles database, a database used for daily operational work. In the real-world, a database like this is maintained by an On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) system. The users of an OLTP system perform operational tasks—sell products, process orders, control stock, and so on.
As a counterpart, a datawarehouse is a nonoperational database; it is a specialized database designed for decision support purposes. Users of a datawarehouse analyze the data, and they do it from different points of view.
The most used technique for delivering data to datawarehouse users is dimensional modeling. This technique makes databases simple and understandable.
The primary table in a dimensional ...
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