Implementing operations to navigate semantic star schemas

Abstract

In the last years, lots of work have been devoted to multidimensional modeling, star shape schemas and OLAP operations. However, "drill-across" has not captured as much attention as other operations. This operation allows to change the subject of analysis keeping the same analysis space we were using to analyze another subject. It is assumed that this can be done if both subjects share exactly the same analysis dimensions. In this paper, besides the implementation of an algebraic set of operations on a RDBMS, we are going to show when and how we can change the subject of analysis in the presence of semantic relationships, even if the analysis dimensions do not exactly coincide.