Applying UML for Modeling the Physical Design of Data Warehouses

Abstract

In previous work, we have shown how to use unified modeling language (UML) as the primary representation mechanism to model conceptual design, logical design, modeling of extraction, transformation, loading (ETL) processes, and defining online analytical processing (OLAP) requirements of data warehouses (DW). Continuing our work on using UML throughout the DW development lifecycle, in this chapter, we present our modeling techniques of physical design of DW using component diagrams and deployment diagrams of UML. Our approach allows the DW designer to anticipate important physical design decisions that may reduce the overall development time of a DW such as replicating dimension tables, vertical and horizontal partitioning of a fact table, and the use of particular servers for certain ETL processes. We illustrate our techniques with a case study.