Dimensional Modeling (DM)

• Easy to use, write queries quickly and effectively

• Fast data retrieval

• Historical data

• Dimensions give the context (who, where, when, what)

• Facts are measurements and metrics

Fact and Dimension

Fact Table

• Include numerical values (Amount, Quantity)

• Include foreign Keys to associated dimension tables

Dimension Table

• Descriptive characteristics of the facts

• Join to fact table via a foreign key

• Denormalized tables

• Use a surrogate key

• Store the history

Dimensional and 3NF