London Metropolitan University, School of Computing

CS7079 Coursework, Autumn Term 2023.

Academic year 2023/2024

The aim of this coursework is to design, implement, and test a data warehouse based
on a given business case scenario. It consists of 2 parts, Part A needs to be completed
as a team work and Part B is an individual coursework. The coursework contributes
60% to the overall CS7079 module mark.

Coursework Deadlines: The deadline for the Part A is week 6, and Part B is week
12.

Late submission will be penalised according to the University regulation.

Coursework Specification:

CASE STUDY SCENARIO: Blue Sky Online Consumer Electronics Retailer

Blue Sky Online is an online consumer electronics retailer founded in 1990. It conducts
online business across UK and Europe via different channels such as Amazon, eBay,
Tesco and its own website. Currently, the company offers more than ten thousand
products organised in about ten categories and in more than 500 brands.

The dynamic and highly competitive nature of the consumer electronics retail industry
means that businesses in this industry are experiencing different decision-making
challenges in relation to pricing, targeting high value consumers, consumer satisfaction
and product offerings. Retailers are always under huge pressure to invest in new
information and communication technologies to gain competitive advantages and
optimise business processes.

Blue Sky has a huge customer base across the UK and Europe. Marketing and Customer
Relationship managers couldn’t utilise the customer base since it is not maintained
properly, and some important information are missing. The details of customers and
transactions are managed by different applications such as spreadsheet and google docs.

The company is keen to manage and analyse customer interactions to improve its
business relationships with customers, facilitate customer retention and drive sale
growth. As a data warehouse developer, you are tasked to design dimensional data
models and build a data warehouse based on the following reporting and data analysis
requirements of the company compiled by a business analyst.

The implemented data warehouse should consolidate customer information and sale
transactions into a central corporate repository so that managers can produce reports

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London Metropolitan University, School of Computing
CS7079 Coursework, Autumn Term 2023.

and perform analysis that would enable them to provide useful information for their
decision-making activities.

Data and analysis requirements:

1. Maintain customer database.

2. Analyse purchase or transaction history based on demographic data such as age

3. Identify customer preferences in terms selling channels/ payment payments/.

4. Identify the best and most profitable customers at different periods (month,
quarter and year).

Description of Data Sources:

The data source includes customer details from a relational database and purchased web
services, details of selling channels, payment types, text file of generated date and
customer transaction. The required data sources will be uploaded to web learn. It is part
of your task to understand the structure of the provided data sources using profiling
techniques.

Part A: Task 1 below will be completed working as an agile development team and
the product will be a design on Conceptual Level; the architecture and the components
of the designed architecture needs to be explained clearly and justification needs to be
given.

Tasks:

1. Analysis & Design of Dimensional Data Model

1.1 Identify and define the grain (detail level) of a central fact table(tables) to
represent the main business activity(activities). Explain the hierarchies, if there
are any? (7 Marks)

1.2 Identify dimensions of central fact table/s based on the available data source
that will meet the reporting and analysis requirements mentioned in the
business case scenario. (7 Marks)

1.3 Identify attributes of dimensions and measures of fact table/s based on the
available data source descriptions that will meet the reporting and analysis
requirements mentioned in the business case scenario. . (8 Marks)

1.4 Use simple star schema to define the structure that shows how the fact tables
are related to their dimensions. Create a graphical representation of the four
simple star schemas in one page. (8 Marks)

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London Metropolitan University, School of Computing
CS7079 Coursework, Autumn Term 2023.

PART B: From the above Conceptual Design, a physical design needs to be

2. Create a Relational Database to store dimensions and fact tables using

2.1 Create a database. (5 Marks)

2.2 Create dimension tables (5 Marks)

2.3 Create fact tables. (5 Marks)

2.4 Add appropriate primary keys and foreign keys constraints. (5 Marks)

3. Populate the implemented data warehouse based on the provided data sources
using SQL Server Management Studio.

3.1 Implement ETL (extract, transform, and load) processes to populate

3.2 Implement ETL (extract, transform, and load) processes to populate a fact
table. (5 marks)

4. Migrate test data from the data warehouse to an Apache Hadoop platform for
further analysis of Big Data using Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP)

4.1 Populate the data warehouse database with some test data.
(5 Marks)

4.2 Export the data warehouse database data into an external data file.
(5 Marks)

4.3 Migrate the data file from the file system to Apache HDFS.
(5 Marks)

4.4 Create a suitable data structure for loading the data file into HIVE
(5 Marks)

4.5 Demonstrate the use of Apache Pig for manipulating the loaded data
(5 Marks)

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London Metropolitan University, School of Computing
CS7079 Coursework, Autumn Term 2023.

5. Written Report

The report, which you will submit, should be well written, structured and well-
presented and it must include:

• An introduction section that summarise the objectives of the course work

• The Analysis and design of a dimension data model. (3 Marks)

• The implementation and testing of the data warehouse (include screen shots
to show SQL commands and their results). (3 Marks)

• The implementation and testing of the Big Data storage on HDFS (including
the Pig commands and their results). (3 Marks)

• Provide a personal reflective conclusion of what you have learnt from your
overall coursework, including the reflection of working in agile
environment. (3 Marks)