Hi,

in the real world there are always compromises from the ideal. The most recent warehouse that I built is laid out with fact and dimensional tables. The naming convention is whs_fact_xxx_vvv or whs_dim_xxx_vvv where xxx describes the source system that the data came from, vvv describes the contents of the table. So for customers :whs_dim_crm_customer. The customers details are stored in a flattened table i.e all of their details in one table. There are no tables customer town, customer county etc. This layout works very well for cubes and and for information gatherers it works very well (less joins to do).

I have had to incorporate some elements of relational design in some parts as it is required for relational style reporting and is pretty much the same layout as the source system. The relational elemnent stays in a seperate data mart.

Hope this helps.

Ells