In a star schema, are foreign key constraints between facts and dimensions neccessary?

Question

I\'m getting my first exposure to data warehousing, and I’m wondering is it necessary to have foreign key constraints between facts and dimensions. Are there any major downs

Answer 1

I don't know about necessary, but I feel they are good for data integrity reasons. You want to make sure that your fact table is always pointing to a valid record in the dimension table. Even if you are sure this will happen, why not have the database validate the requirement for you?