Delivering: Prepare for Presentation
The primary mission of the ETL system is the handoff of the dimension and fact tables in the delivery step. For this reason, the delivery subsystems are the most pivotal subsystems in the ETL architecture. Although there is considerable variation in source data structures and cleaning and conforming logic, the delivery processing techniques for preparing the dimensional table structures are more defined and disciplined. Use of these techniques is critical to building a successful dimensional data warehouse that is reliable, scalable, and maintainable.
Many of these subsystems focus on dimension table processing. Dimension tables are the heart of the data warehouse. They provide the context for the fact tables and hence for all the measurements. Although dimension tables are usually smaller than the fact tables, they are critical to the success of the DW/BI system as they provide the entry points into the fact tables. The delivering process begins with...