The Goals of Multi-dimensional data Models

The overarching goals of multi-dimensional models are:

• To present information to the business analyst in a way that corresponds to his normal understanding ofhis business i.e. to show the KPIs, key figures or facts from the different perspectives that influencethem (sales organization, product/ material or time). In other words, to deliver structured information thatthe business analyst can easily navigate by using any possible combination of business terms toillustrate the behavior of the KPIs.
• To offer the basis for a physical implementation that the software recognizes (the OLAP engine), thusallowing a program to easily access the data required.

The Multi-Dimensional Model (MDM) has been introduced in order to achieve the first. The most popularphysical implementation of multi-dimensional models on relational database system-based data warehousesis the Star schema implementation. BI uses the Star schema approach and extends it to support integrationwithin the data warehouse, to offer easy handling and allow high performance solutions