Dimensional Modeling

The goal of a data warehouse/business intelligence (DW/BI) solution is to cultivate the “right” data and make it easily accessible to decision-makers through ‘Best of Breed’ tools. Successful DW/BI implementations rely on the foundation of a dimensional model to deliver ease-of-use, extensibility and query performance.

Effective dimensional models reflect the natural KPI’s and descriptive attributes of a business., When designed properly, a Dimensional model will survive reorganizations, acquisitions, and other business changes. Tantamount, most business partners will find a well designed dimensional model intuitive because it emulates the way they think about the business. Dimensional models are critical to enabling the business to leverage the organization’s valuable information assets and turn them into knowledge.

The United Software Associates will typically engage in a Dimensional Model Design project immediately following a full Business Requirement Review. United Software Associates consultants work closely with key business liaisons and IT professionals to facilitate the design of flexible dimensional models through a series of joint design sessions (JAD). The modeling process results in a detailed design specification describing the Star Schema (Relational Facts & Dimensions), ‘initial’ data dictionary, SCD dimensional policies, and required business transformation rules. The resulting logical data model is the starting point for the physical design, source to target mapping, and describe the ETL efforts that will follow. The model will be independent of database platform and is tool agnostic.