Wednesday, March 7, 2012

fact or dimension table

Hi
How does one decide if data should go into a fact or dimension table?
I have 1 primary key and lots of textual information (5 fields) which
suggests dimension.
However, the data is extremely unlikely to change, which suggets fact'
AntNeither of these suggests "fact" vs. "dimension".
A fact is a record of something that occurred -- a sales transaction, for
instance, is a fact. A dimension is information that can be used to
identify the fact -- when it occurred, who was involved, etc.
Facts and dimensions are decided based on the logical context of the data,
not on the basis of when or how the data operates.
Adam Machanic
Pro SQL Server 2005, available now
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=457
--
"-ants-" <ants@.inurpants.com> wrote in message
news:T9udnVc4pNyZl8DZRVny1g@.pipex.net...
> Hi
> How does one decide if data should go into a fact or dimension table?
> I have 1 primary key and lots of textual information (5 fields) which
> suggests dimension.
> However, the data is extremely unlikely to change, which suggets fact'
>
> Ant
>|||"Adam Machanic" <amachanic@.hotmail._removetoemail_.com> wrote in message
news:us8kK6UcGHA.3344@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Neither of these suggests "fact" vs. "dimension".
Hi
could we talk about this via private email please? Is your email address
valid?
Ant|||I would be happy to dicuss this with you privately, but please keep in mind
that I consider private help to be a type of consulting service, so we'll
have to work out contractual terms first. If you'd like to proceed with
that, you can e-mail me at the e-mail address I've used here, minus
"_removetoemail_".
Otherwise, we can keep discussing here in the public group.
Also, you might want to read this book, which someone recently posted a link
to here:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstrac...47138.html?Open
It is a free book from IBM on dimensional modeling. I flipped through it
and it seems like a great intro text (especially given its price!
Adam Machanic
Pro SQL Server 2005, available now
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=457
--
"-ants-" <ants@.inurpants.com> wrote in message
news:jt2dnek5tKugk8DZRVnyvQ@.pipex.net...
> "Adam Machanic" <amachanic@.hotmail._removetoemail_.com> wrote in message
> news:us8kK6UcGHA.3344@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Hi
> could we talk about this via private email please? Is your email address
> valid?
> Ant
>

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