Toward evolution models for data warehouses

A Data warehouse (DW) is characterized by a complex architecture, designed in order to integrate data derived from operational data sources (DS), hence providing advanced analytical tools of these data. The DW is highly dependent on its DS. Hence, evolutions of the DS schema need to be propagated to the DW schema and content. This paper presents a model-driven approach for the evolution of a multidimensional DW. It is based on two evolution models: a first evolution model for the DS and another for the DW. These two models concern the data structure aspects as well as the evolution operations. The transition between these two models is performed through specific transformation rules defined in QVT (QueryViewTransformation).