Performance of NoSQL Graph Implementations of Star vs. Snowflake Schemas

Abstract

Nowadays, the data used for decision-making come from a wide variety of sources which are difficult to manage using relational databases. To address this problem, many researchers have turned to Not only SQL (NoSQL) databases to provide scalability and flexibility for On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) systems. In this paper, we propose a set of formal rules to convert a multidimensional data model into a graph data model (MDM2G). These rules allow conventional star and snowflake schemas to fit into NoSQL graph databases. We apply the proposed rules to implement star-like and snowflake-like graph data warehouses. We compare their performances to similar relational ones focusing on the data model, dimensionality, and size. The experimental results show large differences between relational and graph implementations of a data warehouse. A relational implementation performs better for queries on a couple of tables, but conversely, a graph implementation is better when queries involve many tables. Surprisingly the performances of a star-like and snowflake-like graph data warehouses are very close. Hence a snowflake schema could be used in order to easily consider new sub-dimensions in a graph data warehouse.