A Conceptual Model for Multidimensional Data

This paper introduces a Conceptual Data Model for Data Warehouse including multidimensional aggregation. It is based on Entity-Relationships data model. The conceptual data model gracefully extends standard Entity-Relationship data model with multidimensional aggregated entities. The model has a clear mathematical theoretic semantics grounded on standard ER semantics and the GMD logic-based multidimensional data model. The aim of this work is not to propose yet another conceptual data model, but to find the most general and precise formalism considering all the proposals for a conceptual data model in the data warehouse field, making therefore a possible formal comparison of the differences of the models in the literature, and to study the formal properties or extensions of such data models.