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AtScale Model Design Concepts

This section describes key concepts for data modeling in AtScale.

  • About AtScale Virtual Models An AtScale virtual model is a metadata layer that overlays a multi-dimensional model format on top of the datasets stored in a connected data warehouse, such as Google BigQuery. The model is virtual because the data is not moved or processed up front. Instead, the model contains the logic about how to process and optimize the data at query runtime.
  • About Star Schema Data Modeling A star (or snowflake) schema refers to a way of organizing data in a relational database in order to support OLAP queries. AtScale's virtual models rely on star schema data modeling concepts.
  • About Measures and Dimensions In business intelligence (BI) tools such as Tableau or Excel, data plays one of two major roles in an analysis: dimension or measure. An AtScale virtual model describes the underlying data in the connected data warehouse as dimensions and measures so that BI tools can work with this data more easily.