🏛️ Data Warehouse Vocabulary
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A colleague explains: "The star schema has a central fact table and four dimension tables."
What type of data does a fact table contain?
Fact table vs. Dimension table — the core star schema distinction:
| Table type | Contains | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Fact table | Events/transactions with numeric metrics + FK references | order_fact: order_id, customer_id FK, amount, quantity |
| Dimension table | Descriptive context (names, categories, attributes) | customer_dim: customer name, segment, region |
Star schema: 1 fact + multiple dimensions, no joins between dimensions. Snowflake schema normalises dimensions further. Key vocabulary: granularity, fact grain, degenerate dimension, surrogate key.