Authors: Barbara Dinter, Carsten Sapia, Gabriele Höfling, Markus Blaschka
Tags: 1998, conceptual modeling
Multidimensional data modeling plays a key role in the design of a data warehouse. We argue that the Entity Relationship Model is not suited for multidimensional conceptual modeling because the semantics of the main characteristics of the paradigm cannot be adequately represented. Consequently, we present a specialization of the E/R model — called Multidimensional Entity Relationship (ME/R) Model. In order to express the multidimensional structure of the data we define two specialized relationship sets and a specialized entity set. The resulting ME/R model allows the adequate conceptual representation of the multidimensional data view inherent to OLAP, namely the separation of qualifying and quantifying data and the complex structure of dimensions. We demonstrate the usability of the ME/R model by an example taken from an actual project dealing with the analysis of vehicle repairs.Read the full paper here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-49121-7_9
