From ER Models to Dimensional Models: Bridging the Gap between OLTP and OLAP Design, Part I

Dimensional modeling is a database design technique developed specifically for designing data warehouses. Its objectives are to create database structures that end users can easily understand and write queries against, and to optimize query performance. It has become the predominant approach to designing data warehouses in practice and has proven to be a major breakthrough in developing databases that can be used directly by end users. Dimensional modeling is not based on any theory, but has clearly been very successful in practice. This article, the first in a two-part series, examines the nature of dimensional modeling and proposes a possible explanation for why it has been so successful.