Exploring Model Driven Architecture Approach to Design Star Schema for a Data Warehouse

Data Integration Technologies have experienced explosive growth in the last few years, and data warehousing has played a major role in this context. This has become one of the most important applications of database technology today. A large number of data warehousing methodologies and tools are available to support the growing market needs but it is generally agreed that warehouse design is a key problem and that multidimensional data models and star schemata are the two focus areas. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is a framework defined by the Object Management Group (OMG) for model driven software development. It is possible to have architecture in MDA that will be language, vendor and middleware neutral. This approach places the emphasis on models, provides high levels of abstractions during development and enables significant decoupling between Platform Independent Models (PIMs) and Platform Specific Models (PSMs). Although a lot of research has been carried out on how to design a data warehouse, there is no consensus on a design method. This paper proposes a Model Driven Architecture approach to design star schema for a data warehouse and highlights the significance of using this approach.