Re: Data Warehouse and Constraints

shawe_at_indy.tce.com wrote in message <882370395.2082996227_at_dejanews.com>...
>We are creating a data warehouse and it has been suggested that we do
>not turn on foreign key constraints after loading data.
>
>Currently, we drop the foreign key constraints, SQLLOAD data into our
>tables and then turn on the foreign key constraints. If there is a
>problem with the constraint we then look into why constraint was unable
>to be turned on.

<snip>

Contraints, foreign keys?! What on earth is that? :-)

Nope, I don't bother with fk's at all. It's not the warehouse's job to check OLTP data IMO. Sure, having fk's may have made it easier to identify the holes in the OLTP data, but it would have had a severe impact on the production runs to load the data (how do you automate the checking and correcting of data that fails fk contraints?). Afterall, we can guarantee that every single byte of OLTP data is correctly loaded, but it's up to the business to check that the data makes business sense. It's their data, they captured it, and they (should!) understand the business rules. And as they also insists to be empowered, IMHO its high time that business stops lumping all their responsibilities on IT/IS and actually get their hands dirty with (dirty?) data.

My 2'c worth... :-)

regards,
Billy Received on Thu Dec 18 1997 - 00:00:00 CST