Dimensional modeling

Dimensional modeling (DM) is part of the Business Dimensional Lifecycle methodology developed by Ralph Kimball which includes a set of methods, techniques and concepts for use in data warehouse design.^{: 1258–1260} The approach focuses on identifying the key business processes within a business and modelling and implementing these first before adding additional business processes, as a bottom-up approach.^{: 1258–1260} An alternative approach from Inmon advocates a top down design of the model of all the enterprise data using tools such as entity-relationship modeling (ER).^{: 1258–1260}