In the context of 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. Conceptual modeling is widely recognized to be the necessary foundation
for building a database that is well-documented and fully satisfies the user require-
Figure 1. The cube metaphor for multidimensional modeling
Conceptual Modeling Solutions for the Data Warehouse
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ments; usually, it relies on a graphical notation that facilitates writing, understanding,
and managing conceptual schemata by both designers and users.
Unfortunately, in the field of data warehousing there still is no consensus about a
formalism for conceptual modeling (Sen & Sinha, 2005). The entity/relationship
(E/R) model is widespread in the enterprises as a conceptual formalism to provide
standard documentation for relational information systems, and a great deal of effort
has been made to use E/R schemata as the input for designing nonrelational
databases as well (Fahrner & Vossen, 1995); nevertheless, as E/R is oriented to
support queries that navigate associations between data rather than synthesize
them, it is not well suited for data warehousing (Kimball, 1996).
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