10 January 2010

Data Warehousing: Dimension (Definitions)

"A structural attribute of a cube, which is an organized hierarchy of categories (levels) that describe data in the fact table. These categories typically describe a similar set of members upon which the user wants to base an analysis. For example, a geography dimension might include levels for Country, Region, State or Province, and City. See also level; measure." (Microsoft Corporation, "SQL Server 7.0 System Administration Training Kit", 1999)

"A list of labels that can be used to cross-tabulate values from other dimensions." (Reed Jacobsen & Stacia Misner, "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Step by Step", 2006)

"A shorthand term that is used to refer to a dimension table or a dimension attribute." (Christopher Adamson, "Mastering Data Warehouse Aggregates", 2006)

"A group of related objects within a cube that's used to provide information about related data. For example, a product dimension could include a product name, a product category, a product size, product cost, and product price." (Robert D. Schneider and Darril Gibson, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies", 2008)

"A structural attribute of a cube upon which the user wants to base an analysis (for example, geography dimension). Dimension describes data in a fact table." (Jim Joseph, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed", 2009)

"Major business categories of information or groupings to describe business data. Dimensions contain information used for constraining queries, report headings, and defining drill paths. Within a dimension, specific attributes are the data elements that are used as row and column headers on reports. Dimensional attributes are also considered to be reference data. When describing the need to report information by region, by week, and by month, the attributes following ''by'' are dimensions. Each of these would be included in a dimension." (Laura Reeves, "A Manager's Guide to Data Warehousing", 2009)

"An aspect of data that provides a way to divide it in an OLAP database (for example, a carmaker's OLAP database may organize product data by the dimensions of model, body style, engine type, and price point)." (Ken Withee, "Microsoft® Business Intelligence For Dummies®", 2010)

"A slice of data used in analysis and reporting. For example, in a report that shows sales by customer and product for the year ending December 2009, "customer," "product," and "time" would be the dimensions used." (Janice M Roehl-Anderson, "IT Best Practices for Financial Managers", 2010)

"In a data warehouse, a data element that categorizes each item in a data set into nonoverlapping regions." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"In multidimensional data, a structural attribute of a cube that organizes data to enable in-depth business analysis." (Sybase, "Open Server Server-Library/C Reference Manual", 2019)

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