Build a dimensional data model in EA

[themitch]

Hi

Just do an evaluation of EA and, so far, I like it, however, one of the things I'd like to use it for is data modelling.

I can see that for a straight forward data model (ie relational; physical or logical/conceptual) it works pretty well. Just wondered if anyone has used it for dimensional modelling?

If I create a fact table, then some dimensions, I was surprised to see the primary keys created in the dimension table didn't appear as foreign keys in the fact table - unless I'm doing something wrong?

Thanks for your help.

[Ian Mitchell]

I had a look at this a while ago, and EA seemed to have all of the bits we needed.
The basic Fact/Dimension model was quite simple - just Class diagrams, but the bit which took a while to find was defining the attribute-level ETL processing. We did this using EA Element Features (just look it up on the EA Help). This let us link ETL modules to the transformations of individual attributes, which was what my ETL guys needed.
The bit which really impressed The Management was being able to hook it all together: initial requirements, reverse-engineered source DBs and files, the central Kimball-style structure, the ETL needed to do the work, and the definition of some final reports. We couldn't find anything apart from EA which could do this, especially at the price.
If you want to know more. please contact me separately: I'm planning a white paper on EA & DW, and I'm short on other example projects.