Entity-Relationship Diagrams

This paper examines the translation of star schemas into entity-relationship diagrams
(ERD) [1]. A commonly used tool, entity-relationship diagramming is principally enlisted in the
development of conceptual models for on-line transaction processing (OLTP) database
management systems (DBMS). It is the tool of choice for relational database modeling, and it has
also been applied to hierarchical, network, and to object-oriented database design. Further, it is
the source from which table structure is translated. It is the defacto standard among DBMS
semantic modeling techniques.
With the advent of data warehousing--the use of static and large scale read-only databases
to support complex queries of decision support systems (DSS)--a new data model and a requisite
table structure have evolved [4]. This model which consists of a simplified table structure
minimizing joins and speeding the execution of queries is referred to as the star schema
such as: