surrogate key in the initial loading

cetzhbo · Post by **cetzhbo** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:28 am

Hello Gurus,

when creating job for initial loading dimension tables, do we have to make surrogate key column for these dimension tables with surrogate key stage ?

or I guess if we can leave the creation of all surrogate key to the phrase of recurring loading .

thanks very much!

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:44 am

This is more of a design question than a DS implementation one. Using a generated key from the beginning ensures that there are no duplicates and less "holes".

cetzhbo · Post by **cetzhbo** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:32 pm

thanks ArndW,

will you please give more detail about why there will occur duplicate or hole for surrogate key created when recurring loading ?

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Tue May 27, 2008 11:29 pm

I didn't say that these would occur, just that they could occur. If the initial load uses a different method from the recurrent one then there is a chance that the two methods won't synchronize (particularly after problems such as job aborts or retries with new data). If you only use one method then you have remove a potential source of error.