A Semantic Resource Based Approach for Star Schemas Matching

The hybrid approach is widely used in constructing data warehouse (DW) schemas. It relies on a complex process for matching two sets of multidimensional star schemas: schemas built from business requirements (BR-Star schemas) and schemas constructed on the organization data source (DS-Star schemas). Using a semantic resource during this matching helps solving heterogeneity problems. This paper suggests a semiautomatic approach for the construction of approved star schemas by matching DS-Star schemas with BRStars, and by using WordNet as a semantic resource for solving heterogeneity issues. This approach consists of three steps: i) Match DS-Stars with BR-Stars; ii) Involve the DW designer for approval of the matching process; and then iii) Generate approved star schemas. We have defined two Boolean functions and four semantic metrics for the matching process. We have developed a software prototype for testing our approach.