Design question DW

From: <adba_at_eurosport.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 07:02:34 -0700
Message-ID: <F001.003AFCC1.20011019063521@fatcity.com>

Hello List,

I have a design question for a datawarehouse application. I have done OLTP design, but no DW design before. The issue is that this warehouse is being fed from an existing system that allows multi-values. What I mean by multi-values is a column that has comma delimited values in it. So for example, if there is a car table with a column that says tire_size, if the car can handle tire sizes of p200, p240, and p250 then for a select on the one row with that car in it, under the tire column you would have p200,p240,p250.
I would never even think about letting this thru in an OLTP system, and if I didn't have access to the list I wouldn't allow it in a data warehouse either. But, since I have the advantage of your expertise, I thought I might as well use it. There are about 40 of these columns in 5 tables in the proposed design by the developer. The developer is trying to say that they won't use these columns in the where clauses on most of them and that they are just detailed data for display. I have been around long enough to know how fast that changes, and all of a sudden the database is a dog and everyone is blaming the DBA.

So my question is, am I just an OLTP DBA in new territory, or the same principles apply, and multi-values are still one of the biggest relational design disasters regardless of OLTP or DW.

Any help is appreciated,
Mike

You too can have your own email address from Eurosport. http://www.eurosport.com

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