Document Type

Thesis - University Access Only

Award Date

1998

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Abstract

A Data Warehouse (DW) has become the new trend in the real business world, and the main stream of recent Data Base (DB) development, after the shock which was brought about by the introduction of a Relational Data Base (ROB). The most fundamental and important advantage of a DW is the simplicity. This simplicity cultivates many benefits: understandability, eligibility for end-user, flexibility for future demands, and economization of system resources. Despite the fact that many companies are involved in the development of a DW, developing a DW is difficult because it is expensive and complicated. A DW is an integrated set of Dimensional Models. With the appearance of a DW, a Dimensional Model (DM), with star schema, has become the basic standard model and element of DW designs because of the structural simplicity of the star schema. The job of designing DMs is mainly classified into two categories: conversion and creation. Both conversion and creation are necessary in whatever approach is used from among the renowned three approaches: Top-Down, Bottom-Up, and a Hybrid of the previous two. However, designing DMs even with the simple star schema is not easy. There are no existing heuristic designing methods that can be applied generally for conversion and creation using all three approaches. This thesis will provide heuristic designing rules as a general design guidance for DMs on the consideration of integration into a DW. These heuristic rules can be used as a unique tool during the period of DM design as well as DW development. These detailed heuristic rules are systematically organized by cycles of five design phases. Then they are divided again into two sections by their characteristics: General Rules and Fine-tuning Rules. These heuristic rules will make DM design and DW development significantly easier and useful for many different DB applications. By simplifying the designing procedures, one of the main factors for failure of DW development, complexity, may be reduced while the other main factors, such as high cost, can be resolved by the benefits led by the introduction of a DW into the company. The heuristic rules can also be implemented in software engineering as criteria for DW development.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Data warehousing
Database design

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

84

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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Rights Statement

In Copyright