Model-Driven Metadata for OLAP Cubes from the Conceptual Modelling of Data Warehouses

摘要

The development of a data warehouse is based on the definition of a conceptual multidimensional model. This model is used to obtain the required database metadata for implementing the data-warehouse repository. Surprisingly, current approaches for multidimensional modelling overlook the necessity of generating additional data-cube metadata to allow end-user tools to query the data warehouse. To overcome this situation, we propose an approach based on "model-driven engineering" techniques in order to automatically derive both kinds of metadata in a systematic and integrated way. Specifically, in this paper, we describe how to obtain the data-cube metadata for "on-line analytical processing" (OLAP) tools. As a proof of concept, our approach has been implemented in the Eclipse development platform, thus showing its feasibility.