1. The star schema shown in the scenario above describes part of the database that will provide decision-support for a property sales company. Describe the main characteristics of fact and dimension tables, and discuss the purpose of the tables shown in the star schema.
2. Identify three types of analysis that the star schema (shown in the scenario) can support about property sales.
3. What do Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCDs) represent to a database designed for decision-support?
4. What are the three key features that all Online Analytical Applications (OLAP) share?
5. Explain why a data warehouse is well equipped for providing the data for data mining.
6. Identify the factors that have led to the growing popularity of data mining.
7. Discuss the relationship between data mining, OLAP and data warehousing.
8. There are a growing number of data mining tools. Describe four key features that these tools offer the analyst.