A common practice in data warehousing to ensure consistency and to improve join performance is to use _______ keys in fact tables.

  • Aggregate
  • Composite
  • Natural
  • Surrogate
Surrogate keys are artificial keys used in fact tables to ensure consistency and improve join performance. They are typically system-generated and have no business meaning, making them suitable for data warehousing purposes. Surrogate keys simplify data integration and maintain data integrity.

In the context of data transformation, what does "binning" involve?

  • Converting data to binary format
  • Data compression technique
  • Data encryption method
  • Sorting data into categories or intervals
In data transformation, "binning" involves sorting data into categories or intervals. It is used to reduce the complexity of continuous data by grouping it into bins. Binning can help in simplifying analysis, visualizations, and modeling, especially when dealing with large datasets.

A large multinational corporation wants to unify its data infrastructure. They seek a solution that aggregates data from all departments, regions, and functions. What should they consider implementing?

  • Data Lake
  • Data Mart
  • Data Silo
  • Data Warehouse
For a multinational corporation looking to unify its data infrastructure and aggregate data from various departments, regions, and functions, a Data Warehouse is the appropriate choice. Data Warehouses are designed to consolidate and centralize data from across the organization, providing a unified platform for analysis and reporting. They ensure that data is consistent and easily accessible for decision-makers across the corporation.

Which component in a data warehousing environment is primarily responsible for extracting, transforming, and loading data?

  • Data Mining Tool
  • Data Visualization Tool
  • Database Management System
  • ETL Tool
The component responsible for extracting, transforming, and loading (ETL) data in a data warehousing environment is the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool. ETL tools ensure that data from various sources is collected, cleansed, and loaded into the data warehouse efficiently and accurately.

How does "data lineage" aid in the ETL process?

  • It ensures data security during transfer
  • It helps track the origin and transformation of data
  • It optimizes database indexing
  • It provides documentation for regulatory compliance
"Data lineage" in the ETL process is crucial for tracking the origin and transformation of data. It provides a visual representation of how data flows from source to destination, helping data professionals understand the data's journey and ensuring data quality, compliance, and troubleshooting.

You notice that certain queries are running slower over time in your data warehouse. Which strategy might help improve their performance without changing the query itself?

  • Adding more data sources
  • Creating appropriate indexes
  • Increasing the server's CPU
  • Redesigning the database schema
One way to enhance the performance of slow-running queries in a data warehouse without modifying the query itself is to create appropriate indexes. Indexes improve query execution by allowing the database system to quickly locate the required data, reducing the need for full table scans.

An organization is experiencing slower query performance during peak business hours on their traditional data warehouse system. Which solution might alleviate this problem?

  • Adding more indexes to the database
  • Implementing a data warehouse appliance
  • Implementing data partitioning
  • Scaling up the hardware resources
Slower query performance during peak business hours is often caused by excessive data volume. Data partitioning is a technique where large data sets are divided into smaller, more manageable partitions. By implementing data partitioning, the data warehouse can distribute the query workload more efficiently, resulting in faster query performance during peak times. This is a common optimization strategy for traditional data warehouses.

You are working with a dataset where city names have been entered in various formats (e.g., "NYC," "New York City," "New York"). To standardize these entries, which data cleaning technique would be most appropriate?

  • Data Imputation
  • Data Normalization
  • One-Hot Encoding
  • String Matching
When dealing with diverse formats of city names, string matching is the most suitable data cleaning technique. It involves comparing and matching strings to standardize them. This ensures that all variations of city names are transformed into a consistent format, making data analysis and aggregation more straightforward.

What is the primary function of a data warehouse?

  • Data extraction
  • Data processing
  • Storing and organizing data for analysis
  • Storing raw data
The primary function of a data warehouse is to store and organize data for analysis. It acts as a centralized repository where data from various sources is integrated, cleaned, and structured to facilitate business intelligence and reporting. Data warehouses are designed to support complex queries and reporting, providing a foundation for data-driven decision-making.

In BI reporting, what type of visualization would best represent the distribution of sales over a year?

  • Bar Chart
  • Line Chart
  • Pie Chart
  • Scatter Plot
A line chart is the best choice to represent the distribution of sales over a year. It allows you to track trends and variations in data over time, making it suitable for visualizing sales performance throughout the year.