Schema Evaluation

Purpose

Evaluate and design data warehouse schemas for analytical workloads. Covers star schemas, snowflake schemas, data vault, and One Big Table (OBT) patterns. Assesses grain definition, normalization trade-offs, slowly changing dimension strategies, and data contracts between producers and consumers.

Scope Constraints

Reads schema definitions, DDL, ERDs, data dictionaries, and query patterns for analysis. Does not execute queries, modify databases, or manage pipeline orchestration.

Inputs

• Business domain and key entities (e.g., e-commerce: orders, products, customers)
• Analytical queries the schema must support (e.g., "revenue by product category by month")
• Data volume estimates (row counts, growth rate)
• Source systems and their update patterns (CDC, full refresh, event stream)
• Existing schema (if evaluating rather than designing from scratch)

Input Sanitization