A Web Survey: Just a Symbolic Study of Star-Schemas

There are databases and there are some special databases. For me and for a lot of you these special databases are databases that hold the data marts; the databases that were modeled using dimensional modeling techniques. There is an inherent symmetry in the way star-schemas are represented in presentations, books, blogs, personal notes, depiction on white boards, etc.

I was once drawing a top level architecture for one of our project managers on the white board and I instinctively drew this symbol to represent the database that was meant to hold a star-schema; and I didn’t feel good about it.

I told my project manager, I wanted to draw a real star with an extension in the 3rd dimension; this is what I approximately came up with; a cylindrical star (this one I drew using Google SketchUp; a wonderful 3D modeling software. I drew a 2D star and just stretched it in the 3rd; exactly the way I had envisioned it to begin with):

Ever since I drew this 3D star on the white-board, I have been craving to find out what others have come up with, in the DW industry. Recently, I did a simple Google image-search for “Star Schema” and other similar phrases and these images caught my attention. I didn’t quite get what I was looking for, but whatever I got is quite interesting. A quick look, I promise, will be very satisfying Go scroll down ….

A classical hub and spoke architecture(Excerpted From: http://www.inti.ca/ )

A cool way to represent a Bus-Matrix with only the Conformed dimensions?(Excerpted From: http://mifosforge.jira.com/wiki/download/attachments/5276074/mifos_datawarehouse_all.jpg )

A simple and elegant star; conveys the top level design clearly(Excerpted From: http://www.maia-intelligence.com/images/star.gif )

A representation of a generic star-schema; I would make the FACT circle a little bigger(Excerpted From: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XubNNhxqLSM/TaxzliCmDRI/AAAAAAAAAIA/91PJ_tAPiX8/s1600/star.GIF )

A representation of a generic star-schema with some slow flaking. Icing on the cake?(Excerpted From: http://www.emadmokhtar.com/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/MultidimensionModelTerminology_11824/Snowflakes

%20Schema_thumb.jpg )

Aha: An end to end depiction from robotics era; very cool(Excerpted From: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ce7ot3ZjHpg/TckSLRORbZI/AAAAAAAACEM/TDEfuyTs9hg/s1600/BI+Example.PNG )

Why force the star when it can’t? Interesting nonetheless (Excerpted From: http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/chapters/10-sql-server/graphics/03fig04.jpg )

This is perfect; A generic star(Excerpted From: http://sandensconsulting.com/Images/DataWarehousing.jpg )

Nice looking; like an Indian Swastic(Excerpted From: http://lh6.ggpht.com/_toA00pxrCRM/SuhduXhAnII/AAAAAAAAAMM/5wf2fh-jXco/image_thumb%5B4%5D.png

)

A realistic Star: From a real data modeling tool?(Excerpted From: http://gerardnico.com/wiki/_media/dat/obiee/star_schema.jpg )

Nice Meaningful Star(Excerpted From: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/07/0626_johnson/StyleStarSchema.gif )

A realistic and colorful Star: Keys are in colors(Excerpted From: http://www.rapid-business-intelligence-success.com/images/snowflake.jpg )

A simple realistic star(Excerpted From: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E05553_01/books/admintool/images/10AS_StarSchema_V.png )

Another Simple and neat star(Excerpted From: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/tividd/td/TEDW/SC32-1497-00/en_US/HTML/starschema2.gif )

Not so interesting, but still noteworthy(Excerpted From: http://truckingnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/star.gif )

A different kind of star with turtle looks(Excerpted From: (Excerpted From: http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/servicemanager/WindowsLiveWriter/DeepDiveintotheDataWarehouseCustomFactTa_147BB/Star%20Schema_thumb.png )

Yet another different kind of star with “breadboard” looks

(Excerpted From: http://s4.hubimg.com/u/55639_f520.jpg )

Am I not the simplest?(Excerpted From: http://www.dba-oracle.com/images/cube_fact_table.jpg )

The hop-hop Star(Excerpted From: http://mondrian.pentaho.com/images/aggregate_tables_1.png )

The lazy manager’s PPT star(Excerpted From: http://bksinha.com/images/skills.gif )

The best star: Isn’t this the thing missing in all the star creating teams?(Excerpted From: http://mikanassociates.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Star_Schema_--_People.19092737_std.jpg )

The elegant Star(Excerpted From: http://www.sadev.co.za/files/blogimages/SQLBIBootCampDay1MorningSession_A9FD/3.png )

The Spider Star; I like the looks of it (Excerpted From: http://mifosforge.jira.com/wiki/download/attachments/5276074/mifos_datawarehouse_repayments.jpg?

version=1&modificationDate=1286432663947 )