Data Warehouse Meta-Model
The meta-model of the Data Warehouse is a set of definitions that you use to construct the Data Warehouse logical schema, and map that logical schema to a physical schema. These definitions, or metadata, describe classes, data members, relations, and keys that are abstractions of SQL tables, columns and foreign key relations. The primary purpose of the metadata is to separate the logical schema from the physical schema. You can access and extend the logical schema without having detailed knowledge of the underlying physical store.
Using the values given to the metadata objects, the OLE DB Provider for Commerce Server 2009 creates the physical tables and columns to store the user data. The OLE DB Provider for Commerce Server 2009 guarantees consistency and simplifies the use of the Data Warehouse. For information about how to create a new class of objects, see Extending the Data Warehouse Logical Schema.
Warning
To avoid damaging the schema, use the OLE DB Provider for Commerce Server 2009 to access objects.
Warning
When trying to access the metadata tables through Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), fields appear in the returned Recordset object in addition to those listed in the tables. ADO does not recognize the objects that are contained in these fields and produces a run-time error. To access these objects, use the OLE DB Provider for Commerce Server 2009. The following is a partial list of these columns (ADO Field objects): __COMMIT, __NEXT, ALLMEMBERS, ATTRIBUTES, CHILDCLSDEF, CHILDREFMEMDEF, CLASSGUID, CLASS, DEFAULTVIEW, KEYDEFINITIONS, KEYMEMBERS, MEMBER, MEMDEFS, MEMNONREFDEFS, PARENTCLASSES, PARENTCLSDEF, PARENTKEYDEF, PERSISTENTKEYMEMBERS, REFERENCEMEMBERS, REFMEMBERS, RELMEMBERDEFS, TOPLEVELMEMBERS