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People's Democratic Republic of Algeria

Abdelhamid Ibn Badis University – Mostaganem

Faculty of Exact Sciences and Computer Science
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

2nd Year Master's Degree in Information Systems Engineering

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

AND DATA WAREHOUSING

Presented by
Dr. ABDALLAH BENSALLOUA Charef

COURSE OUTLINE

1. DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

2. DATA WAREHOUSE
3. OLAP (ON-LINE ANALYTICAL PROCESSING)
4. MULTI-DIMENSIONAL MODELING

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I. Decision Support Systems

1. Def. DSS
“model-based set of procedures for processing data and judgments to
assist a manager in his decision making”
Assumption: the system is computer-based and extends the user’s
capabilities. Little (1970)

2. Characteristics of DSS
Although the term “Decision Support System” has many connotations, we can
identify the following three major characteristics:

 DSS are designed specifically to facilitate decision processes,

 DSS should support rather than automate decision making, and
 DSS should be able to respond quickly to the changing needs of
decision makers.

Little, J. (1970). Models and managers: The concept of a decision calculus. Management Science 16(8), 466–
485

3. Categories of DSS

1) Data-Driven DSS
2) Model-Driven DSS
3) Knowledge-Driven DSS
4) Document-Driven DSS
5) Communications-Driven and Group DSS
6) Interorganizational or Intraorganizational DSS
7) Function-Specific or General Purpose DSS
8) Web-Based DSS

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1. Data-Driven DSS
The first category of DSS, data-driven DSS, emphasizes analysis of large amounts of
structured data. These systems include data warehousing and analytical systems,
Executive Information Systems, and Spatial DSS (SDSS).

2. Model-Driven DSS
A second category, model-driven DSS, includes systems that use accounting and
financial models, representational models, and optimization models.

3. Knowledge-Driven DSS
These DSS are person-computer systems with specialized problem-solving
expertise.

4. Document-Driven DSS
This is evolving to help managers gather, retrieve, classify and manage unstructured
documents, including Web pages.

5. Communications-Driven and Group DSS

a broader category of communications-driven DSS can be identified. This type of DSS
includes communication and collaboration

6. Interorganizational or Intraorganizational DSS

A relatively new category of DSS made possible by new technologies and the rapid
growth of the public Internet is interorganizational DSS.

7. Function-Specific or General Purpose DSS

Many DSS are designed to support specific business functions or types of businesses
and industries.

8. Web-Based DSS
All of the above types of DSS can be implemented using Web technologies. When
the enabling technology used to build a DSS is the Internet and Web, it seems
appropriate to call the system a Web-based DSS.

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In this course we will focus on the first category,

Indeed, Data-driven DSS with On-Line Analytical Processing

provide the highest level of functionality and decision support that is
linked to analysis of large collections of historical data

II. Data Warehouses

1. Def. Data Warehouses

Defined in many different ways:

 A decision support database that is maintained separately from

the organization’s operational database.

 Which Supports information processing by providing a solid

platform of consolidated and historical data for analysis.

“A data warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, and

nonvolatile collection of data in support of management’s decision-making
process.”—W. H. Inmon

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 Subject-Oriented Organized around major subjects, such as

customer, product, sales

 Integrated Constructed by integrating multiple, heterogeneous

data sources

 Time Variant Data warehouse data: provide information from a

historical perspective (e.g., past 5-10 years)

 Nonvolatile Does not require transaction processing, like:

change, delete

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2. Data Marts
A data mart is a subset or an aggregation of the data stored to a primary data
warehouse. It includes a set of information pieces relevant to a specific business
area, corporate department, or category of users.

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3.Data Warehouse Architecture

The architecture of a Data Warehouse is as depicted in the figure bellow:

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Data Warehouse Architecture

1. Source layer A data warehouse system uses heterogeneous sources of data.

2. Data staging The data stored should be extracted, cleansed to remove

inconsistencies and fill gaps, and integrated to merge heterogeneous sources into
one common schema (DW).
The (ETL tool ) can merge heterogeneous schemata, extract, transform, cleanse,
validate, filter, and load source data into a data warehouse.

3. Data warehouse layer Information is stored to one logically centralized single

repository: a data warehouse.

4. Analysis In this layer, integrated data is efficiently and flexibly accessed to issue
reports, dynamically analyze information

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Data Warehouse Architecture

Fig. The three-dimensional cube modeling sales in a store chain: 10 packs of Shiny
were sold on 4/5/2008 in the EverMore store, totaling $25.

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3. OLAP (ON-LINE ANALYTICAL PROCESSING)

OLAP (online analytical processing) is a computing method that enables

users to easily and selectively extract and query data in order to analyze
it from different points of view.

OLAP business intelligence queries often aid in trends analysis, financial

reporting, sales forecasting, budgeting and other planning purposes.

For example,
a user can request that data must be analyzed to display a spreadsheet
showing all of a company's football products sold in Florida in the month of
July, compare revenue figures with those for the same products in
September and then see a comparison of other product sales in Florida in
the same time period.

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Fig. OLAP vs OLTP

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TYPICAL OLAP OPERATIONS

 OLAP Server must allow different operation on the data

warehouse,
 As a result we have multiple OLAP Operators among others:
 Roll-up
 Drill-down
 Slice
 Dice
 Pivot
 …etc

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Roll up (drill-up): summarize data

by climbing up hierarchy or by dimension reduction
Example: view sales by countries instead of by states

Fig. Roll Up

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(Drill down): reverse of roll-up

from higher level summary to lower level summary
Example: view sales by states instead of by countries

Fig. Drill down

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Slice and dice: project and select

•Slice. This enables an analyst to take one
level of information for display, such as
"sales in 2017."

•Dice. This allows an analyst to select data

from multiple dimensions to analyze, such
as "sales of blue beach balls in Iowa in 20
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2017."

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Pivot (rotate):
reorient the cube, visualization

PIVOT 21
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IV.MULTI DIMENSIONAL MODELING

MULTI DIMENSIONAL MODELING

CONCEPTUAL MODELING

LOGICAL MODELING

PHYSICAL MODELING

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1- CONCEPTUAL MODELING

It is a technique for formalizing and visualizing data models as a set of

measures that are defined by common aspects of the business
processes.
Business Dimensional modeling has two basic concepts: facts and
dimensions

1) Fact table:
• A fact is a focus of interest for the decision making Business process.
• Measures are continuously valued results that describe facts.

2) Dimension:
• The parameter over which we have to perform analysis of facts and
data.
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II. MULTI DIMENSIONAL MODELING

Fig. CONCEPTUAL Components

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Data Warehouse Architecture

Fig. Aggregation hierarchies built on the product and store dimensions

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 Modeling data warehouses: dimensions & measures

 Star schema: A fact table in the middle connected to
a set of dimension tables *)
 Snowflake schema: A refinement of star schema
where some dimensional hierarchy is normalized into a
set of smaller dimension tables, forming a shape similar
to snowflake
 Fact constellations: Multiple fact tables share
dimension tables, viewed as a collection of stars,
therefore called galaxy schema or fact constellation
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EXAMPLE:
STAR SCHEMA

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EXAMPLE:
SNOWFLAKE SCHEMA

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EXAMPLE:
FACT CONSTELLATION

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2- LOGICAL MODELING

For the logical modeling, there are 3 approaches :

1. Relational OLAP (ROLAP)
 Use relational or extended-relational DBMS to store and manage
warehouse data and OLAP middle ware
2. Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP)
 Use native multidimensional storage engine
3. Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP) (e.g., Microsoft SQLServer)
 Flexibility, e.g., low level: relational, high-level: array

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3- PHYSICAL MODELING

 A Physical Data Model describes a database-specific

implementation of the data model.

 It offers database abstraction and helps generate the schema.

 The physical data model also helps in visualizing database

structure by replicating database column keys, constraints, indexes,
triggers, and other RDBMS features.

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VIEW OF WAREHOUSES
& HIERARCHIES

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VISUALIZATION
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COURSE CONTENT
1. DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
2. DATA WAREHOUSE
3. OLAP (ON-LINE ANALYTICAL PROCESSING)
4. MULTI-DIMENSIONAL MODELING

 LANGUAGES FOR MANIPULATING DW

 SPATIAL OLAP & SPATIAL DW
 DATA QUALITY IN DATA WAREHOUSE
 … ETC.

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