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What Is A Star Schema

The document discusses different data warehouse schemas. It begins by describing a star schema, which has one central fact table connected to multiple dimension tables by foreign keys. Next, it describes a snowflake schema, which extends the star schema by normalizing dimensions into multiple tables. It then compares the key differences between star and snowflake schemas. Finally, it briefly introduces galaxy and star cluster schemas, which involve multiple fact tables connected through shared dimension tables.

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Jay Mehta
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353 views5 pages

What Is A Star Schema

The document discusses different data warehouse schemas. It begins by describing a star schema, which has one central fact table connected to multiple dimension tables by foreign keys. Next, it describes a snowflake schema, which extends the star schema by normalizing dimensions into multiple tables. It then compares the key differences between star and snowflake schemas. Finally, it briefly introduces galaxy and star cluster schemas, which involve multiple fact tables connected through shared dimension tables.

Uploaded by

Jay Mehta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is a Star Schema?

The star schema is the simplest type of Data Warehouse schema. It is known as star schema as its
structure resembles a star. In the Star schema, the center of the star can have one fact tables and
numbers of associated dimension tables. It is also known as Star Join Schema and is optimized for
querying large data sets.

For example, as you can see in the above-given image that fact table is at the center which contains keys
to every dimension table like Deal_ID, Model ID, Date_ID, Product_ID, Branch_ID & other attributes like
Units sold and revenue.

Characteristics of Star Schema:

 Every dimension in a star schema is represented with the only one-dimension table.

 The dimension table should contain the set of attributes.

 The dimension table is joined to the fact table using a foreign key

 The dimension table are not joined to each other


 Fact table would contain key and measure

 The Star schema is easy to understand and provides optimal disk usage.

 The dimension tables are not normalized. For instance, in the above figure, Country_ID does not
have Country lookup table as an OLTP design would have.

 The schema is widely supported by BI Tools

What is a Snowflake Schema?

A Snowflake Schema is an extension of a Star Schema, and it adds additional dimensions. It is called
snowflake because its diagram resembles a Snowflake.

The dimension tables are normalized which splits data into additional tables. In the following example,
Country is further normalized into an individual table.

Characteristics of Snowflake Schema:

 The main benefit of the snowflake schema it uses smaller disk space.

 Easier to implement a dimension is added to the Schema


 Due to multiple tables query performance is reduced

 The primary challenge that you will face while using the snowflake Schema is that you need to
perform more maintenance efforts because of the more lookup tables.

Star Vs Snowflake Schema: Key Differences

Star Schema Snow Flake Schema

Hierarchies for the dimensions are stored in the


Hierarchies are divided into separate tables.
dimensional table.

It contains a fact table surrounded by dimension One fact table surrounded by dimension table
tables. which are in turn surrounded by dimension table

In a star schema, only single join creates the


A snowflake schema requires many joins to fetch
relationship between the fact table and any
the data.
dimension tables.

Simple DB Design. Very Complex DB Design.

Denormalized Data structure and query also run


Normalized Data Structure.
faster.

High level of Data redundancy Very low-level data redundancy

Single Dimension table contains aggregated data. Data Split into different Dimension Tables.

Cube processing might be slow because of the


Cube processing is faster.
complex join.

Offers higher performing queries using Star Join The Snow Flake Schema is represented by
Query Optimization. Tables may be connected with centralized fact table which unlikely connected with
multiple dimensions. multiple dimensions.

What is a Galaxy schema?

A Galaxy Schema contains two fact table that shares dimension tables. It is also called Fact Constellation
Schema. The schema is viewed as a collection of stars hence the name Galaxy Schema.
As you can see in above figure, there are two facts table

1. Revenue

2. Product.

In Galaxy schema shares dimensions are called Conformed Dimensions.

Characteristics of Galaxy Schema:

 The dimensions in this schema are separated into separate dimensions based on the various
levels of hierarchy.

 For example, if geography has four levels of hierarchy like region, country, state, and city then
Galaxy schema should have four dimensions.

 Moreover, it is possible to build this type of schema by splitting the one-star schema into more
Star schemes.

 The dimensions are large in this schema which is needed to build based on the levels of
hierarchy.

 This schema is helpful for aggregating fact tables for better understanding.

What is Star Cluster Schema?


Snowflake schema contains fully expanded hierarchies. However, this can add complexity to the Schema
and requires extra joins. On the other hand, star schema contains fully collapsed hierarchies, which may
lead to redundancy. So, the best solution may be a balance between these two schemas which is star
cluster schema design.

Overlapping dimensions can be found as forks in hierarchies. A fork happens when an entity acts as a
parent in two different dimensional hierarchies. Fork entities then identified as classification with one-
to-many relationships.

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