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Star Schema in Data Warehouse modeling
Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025
A star schema is a type of data modeling technique used in data
warehousing to represent data in a structured and intuitive way. In a
star schema, data is organized into a central fact table that contains the
measures of interest, surrounded by dimension tables that describe the
attributes of the measures.
Star Schema
The fact table in a star schema contains the measures or metrics that
are of interest to the user or organization. For example, in a sales
data warehouse, the fact table might contain sales revenue, units
sold, and profit margins. Each record in the fact table represents a
specific event or transaction, such as a sale or order.
The dimension tables in a star schema contain the descriptive
attributes of the measures in the fact table. These attributes are used
to slice and dice the data in the fact table, allowing users to analyze
the data from different perspectives. For example, in a sales data
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warehouse, the dimension tables might include product, customer,
time, and location.
Each dimension table is joined to the fact table through a foreign key
relationship. This allows users to query the data in the fact table
using attributes from the dimension tables. For example, a user might
want to see sales revenue by product category, or by region and time
period.
It is said to be star as its physical model resembles to the star shape
having a fact table at its center and the dimension tables at its
peripheral representing the star’s points. It is the fundamental
schema among the data mart schema and it is simplest.
This schema is widely used to develop or build a data warehouse
and dimensional data marts. It includes one or more fact tables
indexing any number of dimensional tables. The star schema is a
necessary cause of the snowflake schema. It is also efficient for
handling basic queries.
Often, A Star Schema having multiple dimensions is termed as
Centipede Schema.
It is easy to handle a star schema which have dimensions of few
attributes.
Example of Star Schema
In the given demonstration, SALES is a fact table having attributes i.e.
(Product ID, Order ID, Customer ID, Employer ID, Total, Quantity,
Discount) which references to the dimension tables. Employee
dimension table contains the attributes: Emp ID, Emp Name, Title,
Department and Region. Product dimension table contains the
attributes: Product ID, Product Name, Product Category, Unit Price.
Customer dimension table contains the attributes: Customer ID,
Customer Name, Address, City, Zip. Time dimension table contains the
attributes: Order ID, Order Date, Year, Quarter, Month.
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Advantages of Star Schema
1. Simpler Queries
Join logic of star schema is quite cinch in comparison to other join
logic which are needed to fetch data from a transactional schema
that is highly normalized.
2. Simplified Business Reporting Logic
In comparison to a transactional schema that is highly normalized,
the star schema makes simpler common business reporting logic,
such as of reporting and period-over-period.
3. Feeding Cubes
Star schema is widely used by all OLAP systems to design OLAP
cubes efficiently. In fact, major OLAP systems deliver a ROLAP mode
of operation which can use a star schema as a source without
designing a cube structure.
Disadvantages of Star Schema
1. Data integrity is not enforced well since in a highly de-normalized
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schema state.
2. Not flexible in terms if analytical needs as a normalized data model.
3. Star schemas don't reinforce many-to-many relationships within
business entities - at least not frequently.
Features of Star Schema
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8/19/25, 4:06 PM Star Schema in Data Warehouse modeling - GeeksforGeeks
1. Central fact table: The star schema revolves around a central fact
table that contains the numerical data being analyzed. This table
contains foreign keys to link to dimension tables.
2. Dimension tables: Dimension tables are tables that contain
descriptive attributes about the data being analyzed. These attributes
provide context to the numerical data in the fact table. Each
dimension table is linked to the fact table through a foreign key.
3. Denormalized structure: A star schema is denormalized, which
means that redundancy is allowed in the schema design to improve
query performance. This is because it is easier and faster to join a
small number of tables than a large number of tables.
4. Simple queries: Star schema is designed to make queries simple and
fast. Queries can be written in a straightforward manner by joining
the fact table with the appropriate dimension tables.
5. Aggregated data: The numerical data in the fact table is usually
aggregated at different levels of granularity, such as daily, weekly, or
monthly. This allows for analysis at different levels of detail.
6. Fast performance: Star schema is designed for fast query
performance. This is because the schema is denormalized and data is
pre-aggregated, making queries faster and more efficient.
7. Easy to understand: The star schema is easy to understand and
interpret, even for non-technical users. This is because the schema is
designed to provide context to the numerical data through the use of
dimension tables.
Read about Differences between Star and Snowflake Schema
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