Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Relational data modeling is the process of capturing how the business
works
by precisely
representing business rules, while dimensional data modeling is the process of capturing
how the business is
monitored
by precisely representing business questions.
The major difference between relational and dimensional data models is in the meaning of
the relationships. On a relational data model, a relationship communicates a business rule,
while on a dimensional data model, the relationship communicates a navigation path. On a
relational data model, for example, we can represent the business rule “A
Customer
must
have at least one
Account
.” On a dimensional data model, we can display the measure
Gross Sales Amount
and all of the navigation paths from which a user needs to see
Gross
Sales Amount
such as by day, month, year, region, account, and customer. The dimension-
al data model is all about answering business questions by viewing measures at different
levels of granularity.
