In particular, to Jan
Travers and Mehdi Khosrow-Pour who gave us the opportunity to publish the book.
Thank you also to our development editor, Kristin Roth, who assisted us through
the process of editing the book.
Robert Wrembel
Pozna?„, Poland
Christian Koncilia
Munich, Germany
June 2006
xxv
Section I
Modeling and Designing
xxvi
Conceptual Modeling Solutions for the Data Warehouse
Copyright ?© 2007, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission
of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.
Chapter.I
Conceptual.Modeling.
Solutions.for.the.
Data.Warehouse
Stefano Rizzi
DEIS-University of Bologna, Italy
Abstract
In the context of data warehouse design, a basic role is played by conceptual modeling,
that provides a higher level of abstraction in describing the warehousing
process and architecture in all its aspects, aimed at achieving independence of
implementation issues. This chapter focuses on a conceptual model called the DFM
that suits the variety of modeling situations that may be encountered in real projects
of small to large complexity. The aim of the chapter is to propose a comprehensive
set of solutions for conceptual modeling according to the DFM and to give the designer
a practical guide for applying them in the context of a design methodology.
Besides the basic concepts of multidimensional modeling, the other issues discussed
are descriptive and cross-dimension attributes; convergences; shared, incomplete,
recursive, and dynamic hierarchies; multiple and optional arcs; and additivity.
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