Star Schema
The star schema centers on one fact table with multiple dimension tables radiating from it, simplifying OLAP queries and optimization.
Purpose
To understand the classic data-warehouse schema and optimize multi-dimensional analytical query performance.
Mechanism
The fact table holds measures and dimension foreign keys (large); dimension tables hold descriptive attributes (small). Fact-to-dimension is one-to-many. Star-query optimizations: bitmap indexes, materialized views, join pruning. The simple structure helps optimizers.
Use cases
- Data warehouse design
- OLAP schema
- Multi-dimensional analysis