Facts – Numerical information that can be analyzed by BI applications. E.g. total quantity sold, total sales dollars. Individual Facts are also called Measures

Dimensions – Qualifiers of Facts. E.g. Transaction date, Customer name, Sales territory

Star schema - Method of organizing facts and dimensions for BI purposes. Star schemas can be deployed into relational databases (in our case SQL Server) and into proprietary Cubes. Examples of the latter are Microsoft’s Analysis Services cubes or Cognos’ cubes.

Metadata – Data about data. For example: Columns in a fact table. Column names and formats.