SCIT: A Schema Change Interpretation Tool for Dynamic-Schema Data Warehouses

Abstract

Data Warehouses (DW) have to continuously adapt to evolving business requirements, which implies structure modification (schema changes) and data migration requirements in the system design. However, it is challenging for designers to control the performance and cost overhead of different schema change implementations. In this paper, we demonstrate SCIT, a tool for DW designers to test and implement different logical design alternatives in a two-fold manner. As a main functionality, SCIT translates common DW schema modifications into directly executable SQL scripts for relational database systems, facilitating design and testing automation. At the same time, SCIT assesses changes and recommends alternative design decisions to help designers improve logical designs and avoid common dimensional modeling pitfalls and mistakes. This paper serves as a walk-through of the system features, showcasing the interaction with the tool’s user interface in order to easily and effectively modify DW schemata and enable schema change analysis.