SCD Docs
SCD Docs
Type 1 Slowly Changing Dimension data warehouse architecture applies when no history is kept in the database. The new, changed
data simply overwrites old entries. This approach is used quite often with data which change over the time and it is caused by
correcting data quality errors (misspells, data consolidations, trimming spaces, language specific characters).
Type 1 SCD is easy to maintain and used mainly when losing the ability to track the old history is not an issue.
The database is updated in a target ODBC stage (with the 'update existing rows' update action)
SCD Type 2
Slowly changing dimension Type 2 is a model where the whole history is stored in the database. An additional dimension record is
created and the segmenting between the old record values and the new (current) value is easy to extract and the history is clear.
The fields 'effective date' and 'current indicator' are very often used in that dimension and the fact table usually stores dimension key
and version number.
There is a hashed file (Hash_NewCust) which handles a lookup of the new data coming from the text file.
A T001_Lookups transformer does a lookup into a hashed file and maps new and old values to separate columns.
SCD 2 lookup transformer
A T002_Check_Discrepacies_exist transformer compares old and new values of records and passes through only records that differ.
SCD 2 check discrepancies transformer
A T003 transformer handles the UPDATE and INSERT actions of a record. The old record is updated with current indictator flag set
to no and the new record is inserted with current indictator flag set to yes, increased record version by 1 and the current date.
SCD 2 insert-update record transformer
ODBC Update stage (O_DW_Customers_SCD2_Upd) - update action 'Update existing rows only' and the selected key columns
are CUST_ID and REC_VERSION so they will appear in the constructed where part of an SQL statement.
ODBC Insert stage (O_DW_Customers_SCD2_Ins) - insert action 'insert rows without clearing' and the key column is CUST_ID.
CUST_ CUST_ CUST_ CUST_ REC_ REC_ REC_
CUST_ID
NAME GROUP_ID TYPE_ID COUNTRY_ID VERSION EFFDT CURRENT_IND
DRBOUA7 Dream Basket EL S PL 1 10/1/2006 Y
ETIMAA5 ETL tools info BI C FI 1 9/29/2006 N
FAMMFA0 Fajatso FD S CD 1 9/27/2006 Y
FICILA0 First Pactonic FD C IT 1 9/25/2006 Y
FRDXXA2 Frasir EL C SK 1 9/23/2006 Y
GAMOPA9 Ganpa LTD. FD C US 1 9/21/2006 Y
GG
GGMOPA9 electronics EL S RU 1 9/19/2006 Y
GLMFIA6 Glasithklini FD S PL 1 9/17/2006 Y
GLMPEA9 Globiteleco TC S FI 1 9/15/2006 Y
GONDWA5 Goli Airlines BN S GB 1 9/13/2006 Y
ETIMAA5 ETL-Tools.info BI C ES 2 12/2/2006 Y
SCD Type 3
In the Type 3 Slowly Changing Dimension only the information about a previous value of a dimension is written into the database.
An 'old 'or 'previous' column is created which stores the immediate previous attribute. In Type 3 SCD users are able to describe history
immediately and can report both forward and backward from the change.
However, that model can't track all historical changes, such as when a dimension changes twice or more. It would require creating
next columns to store historical data and could make the whole data warehouse schema very complex.
To implement SCD Type 3 in Datastage use the same processing as in the SCD-2 example, only changing the destination stages to
update the old value with a new one and update the previous value field.
SCD Type 4
The Type 4 SCD idea is to store all historical changes in a separate historical data table for each of the dimensions.
To implement SCD Type 4 in Datastage use the same processing as in the SCD-2 example, only changing the destination stages to
insert an old value into the destionation stage connected to the historical data table (D_CUSTOMER_HIST for example) and update
the old value with a new one.