Module 01 – Session 4

Data Models for

OLTP and OLAP

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Data Models for OLTP
ER Model

• ER Model = Entity Relationship Model

• Adopted by OLTP systems
• Used to define data elements and relationships
between entities for a specified system
• Graphical approach to database design
• Develops a conceptual design for the database
• Develops a very simple and easy to design view of the
data
• Uses Entity/Relationship to represent real world
objects
Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra
ER Model

• Entity = thing or object in real world that is

distinguishable from surrounding environment.
• For example, each individual employee of an
organization is a separate entity
• An entity has a set of properties
• Entity properties can have values

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

ER Model

• ‘A’, an employee at XYZ can have attributes (properties)

such as name, age, weight, height etc.
• Each attribute can have Values
• Single attributes have one value (Age), but attributes
can have multiple values also (Phone number).
• Entities can have relationships with each other; for
example between ‘A’ and his PC

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

Why use ER Models?

• Designers, developers and end-users tend to view data

and its usage differently
• Can produce database systems that do not meet the
requirements of the users
• Hence we require communications tools that can be
understood by all stakeholders
• ER is one such tool
• ER diagrams also increase user productivity as they can
be easily translated into relational tables

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

ER Model - Example

• Suppose we design a school database

• Student will be an entity with attributes like:
• Address, name, ID, age etc.
• Address can be another entity with attributes like
house/building number/name, street name, city, pin
code etc.
• There will be a relationship between them

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Components of ER Diagram

ER Model

Entity Attribute Relation

Weak Entity Key Attribute One-to-one

Composite
One-to-many
Attribute
Multi-valued
Many-to-one
Attribute
Derived
Many-to-many
Attribute

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

Components of ER Diagram

• Entity: represented as rectangles

Works
Employee for
Department

• Weak entity:
• that depends on another entity;
• doesn’t have any key attribute of its own;
• Represented by a double rectangle

Loan Installment

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

Components of ER Diagram

• Attribute: used to describe the property of an entity

• Represented by an ellipse

Name ID

Student

Phone
No.
Age

• Key Attribute: used to represent main characteristics

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Components of ER Diagram

• Composite Attribute: composed of many other

attributes
• Represented by an ellipse connected with another
Name

First Middle Last

Name Name Name

• Multi-valued Attribute: have more than one value

• Represented by double ellipse
Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra
Components of ER Diagram

• Derived Attribute: can be obtained from another

attribute, e.g., age from date of birth
• Represented by dashed ellipse
Date of
Name Birth

Student

Phone
No.
Age

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

Components of ER Diagram

• Relationship: Represented by diamond

1 1
Works
Employee for
Department

1 M
Department Has Employee

• What is the relationship between “student” and

“books to be issued” in a library?

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

ER Diagram: Example

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Data Models for OLAP
Data Models for OLAP

• Facts
• Numerical measures by which we want to analyze the
relationships between dimensions
• Total (sales in Rs.), Quantity (units sold), Discounts (in Rs.)
• Dimensions
• An entity with respect to which an organization wants to
keep records
• A department store might want to keep records of the store
sales with respect to “time”, “customer”, “product”,
“employee”
• Each dimension has an associated dimension table

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Star Schema

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Star Schema

• A central fact table

• Connected to 4 dimensions
• Each dimension is represented with a one-dimension
table
• Dimension table contains set of attributes
• Dimension tables are not joined to each other
• Optimized for querying large data sets

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

Snowflake Schema

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Snowflake Schema

• Extension of star schema

• A central fact table connected to 4 dimensions
• Some dimensions are further normalized
• Uses smaller disk space
• Normalization of the dimension tables helps in
reducing redundancy, but slows down performance
• More look up tables implies more maintenance

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra

Star vs. Snowflake
Star Schema
Contains a fact table
surrounded by dimension tables table, which in turn are surrounded by
Only a single join creates
relationship
Simple DB design
De-normalized data structure
High level of data redundancy
Single dimension table
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Snowflake Schema
One fact table surrounded by dimension
dimension tables
Requires many joins to fetch data
Complex DB design
Normalized data structure
Low level of data redundancy
Data split into different Dimension tables
By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra
Note

• When dimension table is relatively big in size, use

Snowflake schema as it reduces space
• When dimension table contains less number of rows,
go for Star schema

Business Analytics By : Prof. Subhasish Mitra