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 Can a Data Warehouse be Normalized?

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DBADave
Constraint Violating Yak Guru

366 Posts

Posted - 2006-09-14 : 12:22:33
I only have a basic understanding of data warehouse design. I've always thought a data warehouse is primarily a denormalized model, but recently we have been speaking with a data warehouse vendor who says their product is normalized and is not a Star or Snowflake schema. This sounds more like a data store. Can a data warehouse have a primarily normalized model?

Thanks, Dave

mwjdavidson
Aged Yak Warrior

735 Posts

Posted - 2006-09-14 : 12:40:11
Dave,
In a word, yes. People tend to come down on either the Kimball side or the Inmon side of the debate. Kimball is associated with denormalised 'star' schemas. In this approach, the warehouse comprises all the individual marts within the enterprise. In Bill Inmon's paradigm, the warehouse is a normalised data model storing data at the atomic level. This is the source of denormalised data marts.


Mark
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DBADave
Constraint Violating Yak Guru

366 Posts

Posted - 2006-09-14 : 12:52:28
Thanks. Just after my post I found a few articles discussing an Enterprise Data Warehouse. Both indicated an EDW's design is typically normalized. I'll keep that in mind since the warehouse we are looking to implement would be considered EDW.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1834993,00.asp

http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=17800088

Dave
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