CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ssisintegrationetl
user45867
user45867

Reputation: 983

What is Master Data?

This is a terminology question in the context of business intelligence, ETL data integration, and data warehousing.

I've always learned that the data warehouses have transactional "fact tables" which reference "dimension tables". However, some other people are using the term "master data". Does this have a different meaning in the context of ETL and data warehousing and is it equivalent to "dimension tables"?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 5285

Answers (1)

Mark He
Mark He

Reputation: 741

Master data is critical business data that is shared across the enterprise and stored and used by multiple applications and systems.Typical candidates for master data are customers, locations, and products.

The main driver behind using master data is the ability to consolidate and re-use. Taking the example earlier, customer data is very likely to be shared across multiple applications. Under proper master data management, this data will be consistent across these applications and reduce the redundancy of multiple tables.

The key difference between master data and the dimension tables in a data warehouse is the purpose of each. Dimension tables provide information about the facts while master data provides information for the business as a whole.

Keep in mind that many dimension tables could also be candidates for master data. Read more about master data management (MDM) here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb190163.aspx

Upvotes: 4

Related Questions