- The fact table mainly consists of business facts and foreign keys that refer to primary keys in the dimension tables. A dimension table consists mainly of descriptive attributes that are textual fields.
- A dimension table contains a surrogate key, natural key, and a set of attributes. On the contrary, a fact table contains a foreign key, measurements, and degenerated dimensions.
- Dimension tables provide descriptive or contextual information for the measurement of a fact table. On the other hand, fact tables provide the measurements of an enterprise.
- When comparing the size of the two tables, a fact table is bigger than a dimensional table. In a comparison table, more dimensions are presented than the fact tables. In a fact table, less numbers of facts are observed.
- The dimension table has to be loaded first. While loading the fact tables, one should have to look at the dimension table. This is because the fact table has measures, facts, and foreign keys that are the primary keys in the dimension table.
Read more: Dimension Table and Fact Table | Difference Between | Dimension Table vs Fact Table http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/hardware-technology/dimension-table-and-fact-table/#ixzz3SBp8kPzo