01 April 2009

DBMS: Atomic(-level) Data (Definitions)

"Data elements that represent the lowest level of granularity. Depending on the context, this term may refer all the way back to the transactions from the operational systems, or it may refer to the base granularity held in a data warehouse." (Microsoft Corporation, "Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Data Warehouse Training Kit", 2000)

"The most detailed granular data captured by a business process. Atomic data must be made available in the data presentation area to respond to unpredictable ad hoc queries." (Ralph Kimball & Margy Ross, "The Data Warehouse Toolkit 2nd Ed ", 2002)

"Data elements that represent the lowest level of detail. For example, in a daily sales report, the individual items sold would be atomic data, and roll-ups such as invoice and summary totals from invoices are aggregate data." (Sharon Allen & Evan Terry, "Beginning Relational Data Modeling 2nd Ed.", 2005)

"Data with the lowest level of granularity. Atomic-level data sits in a data warehouse and is time-variant (that is, accurate as of some moment in time now passed)." (William H Inmon, "Building the Data Warehouse", 2005)

"1.Data at the lowest chosen level of detail (granularity). The level of detail chosen depends on the information requirements of the enterprise. For example, address could be one atomic item, or address could be split into further composite items such as house identifier and city. Opposite of aggregate data. 2.Non-aggregated observations, or measurements of characteristics of individual units, which cannot be further decomposed and retain any useful meaning." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"Data at the lowest available level of detail or granularity." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

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