Birla Institute of Science and Technology, Pilani

SS G515 (Data Warehousing) Quiz

Closed Book
30 Minutes 10 Marks
1. Consider the statement “Multiway array aggregation method is not applicable to
compute iceberg cubes because it cannot take advantage of the Apriori property”.
Justify this statement with an example. (2 marks)
Answer: Consider a base cuboid with three dimensions A, B, and C. Assume that each
dimension has only one level. Suppose each of A, B, and C have two distinct values
(a1, a2), (b1, b2), and (c1, c2) respectively, and the number tuples with each
combination of values (a1, b1, c1), (a1, b1, c2), . . ., (a2, b2, c2) is 1. If the minimum
support threshold is 4, then we cannot prune the cell (a1, b1, *) with count 2 in AB
cuboid, beecase (a1, *, *) in A cuboid satisfies the minimum support condition and
its computation needs (a1, b1, *). (2 marks)
2. Consider a base cuboid with three dimensions D1, D2, and D3. Assume that these
dimensions have one level, and the cardinalities of these dimensions are 800000, 80,
and 800, respectively. To divide the base cuboid into chunks, each dimension is evenly
partitioned into 8 partitions. In which order we should compute the chunks in the full
cube so that we consume the least amount of memory space and what is the total
amount of memory space required to compute 2-D cuboids. (5 marks)
Answer: D1D3, D1D2; D2D3 (2.5 marks)

80*800 + 8*10*100000+ 100000*100 = 64000 + 8000000+10000000 =

18064000 (2.5 marks)

3. What is the difference between a closed cube and a full cube? (1 mark)
Answer: The basic difference is: a full cube consists of all cells of all cuboids of the
data cube, where as a closed cube consists of only the closed cells. (1 mark)
4. How does the architecture of an online transaction processing system differ from that
of a data warehouse from the perspective of scope? (2 mark)
Answer: For data warehouse, the architectural considerations include number and extent
of data sources, number of legacy systems, internal data, archival data; scope may also be
measured in terms of data transformations and integration functions, scope in terms of data
granularity and data volume, scope in terms of impact on existing operational systems.
For OLTP systems, the architectural considerations include the file conversions,
initial population of the database, methods for data input, information delivery
through online screens, and the entire suite of online and batch reporting. (2 marks)