Understanding Facts and Dimensions in SQL Server

If you want to edge into data warehousing and Analysis Services you need to start with the language. Facts and dimensions are still data, but stored in a very specific way that is a bit different than how we approach most transactional processing databases. Once you get the differences though, it's smooth sailing. Join Kathi for a smooth five minute walk through of these key concepts.

Kathi Kellenberger, is a former SQL Server MVP, who works for Microsoft in St. Louis, MO. Before joining Microsoft, she was a DBA for Bryan Cave LLP. She is co-author of "Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services" (Wrox 2006), author of "Beginning T-SQL 2008" (Apress 2009), and author of several articles appearing in Simple-Talk.com, SQLServerCentral.com, SQLTeam.com, and SQL Server Magazi...

Piyush on 8/9/2010

I was expecting more for this.

Piyush on 8/9/2010

Hi This was good but I would like too see more of this.

Asim on 8/9/2010

Looking forward for more videos on Data Warehouse Concepts from this author.

Ranjith on 8/9/2010

Examples can be better

Vincent Pernice on 8/9/2010

It would be nice if you went a little deeper. Maybe in another video? Thanks.

Tim Bochard on 8/9/2010

Very good, basic explanation of facts and dimensions.

Ram on 8/9/2010

i second piyush ! the introduction was good, but the author could have probed further instead of stopping abruptly.

Michael Clement on 8/9/2010

More BI.

Rob Schripsema on 8/9/2010

Very good, as far as it went.

Stephanie Brown on 8/9/2010

A nice, straight-forward explanation of Facts versus Dimensions, with good examples. It's much clearer to me now - thanks!

Gil on 8/9/2010

I think the best practice recommendation is for the date dimension's primary key to actually be the meaningful value in yyyymmdd format (e.g. 20020101) rather than a meaningless identity value. Perhaps there wasn't time to mention it in the video, but showing something that contradicts it seems to be a problem.

Don Weigend on 8/10/2010

Nice summary of what a fact and dimension table is for a novice like me.

Ron on 8/10/2010

Poor presentation skills.

Sudhanshu Shekhar on 8/11/2010

Excellent video

Steve Culshaw on 8/11/2010

Good overview, looking forward to more in-depth sessions

Don Gilman on 8/13/2010

Good summary, a wee bit too fast.

Kenneth Wymore on 8/25/2010

Good but I would like to see a second video showing a little more about hierarchies, attributes and cases where you would use a snowflake schema vs a star schema. A video explaining how this work in Analysis Services would be nice too.

Mary Myers-Devlugt on 9/7/2010

I'd like to see more from this author.

matt shea on 9/20/2010

Very nicely done. Excellent and clear explanations.

Francisco Solorzano on 9/30/2010

nice intro.

Jason Yousef on 10/1/2010

I would say, this video needs to be removed!

Jason Yousef on 10/1/2010

I would say, this video needs to be removed!

Dick Rosenberg on 10/22/2010

She didn't say why the ProductID couldn't be the primary key, it had to be the ProductKey - the reason why is that, since the information in the Product Dimension could be from many disparate data sources, there is no guarantee that the ProductID will be unique - hence the use of the ProductKey which she rightly mentioned would be an Identity column, thereby guaranteeing uniqueness

nilesh bilimoria on 11/16/2010

Great basic intro to Facts and Dimension.

Don Nesbitt on 11/22/2010

Great for a beginner...can't find this so well presented anywhere else.