Dimensional Object Modeling

An object modeling approach offers advantages in supporting Dimensional Data Modeling (DDM) of data warehouses and data marts. The current approach to making the basic decisions in producing a DDM is a pragmatic one. The pragmatic approach has had considerable commercial success [1], but it still makes tight coupling of strategic goals and objectives to the DDM result a matter of art, rather than a product of an explicit method or procedure, results in a model composed of passive containers for data attributes, rather than components that combine both data and behavior, does not place DDM within a broader framework for integrating data and process -that is, the pragmatic approach is too data-centric, at a time when data warehousing is concerned with integrating a complex diversity of server-based decision support system functions.