First let us look at the meaning of distributed databases. They are databases controlled by a central database management system (DBMS) in which storage devices are not all attached to a common Central Processing Unit (CPU). A distributed database is not always located in one computer but is stored in multiple computers that are located in the same physical location or they can be dispersed over a network of interconnected computers.

The collections of the date in a database can be distributed over multiple physical locations or into separate partitions or fragments. Each partition or fragment of distributed databases can be redundant or replicated fail-overs like RAID/

There are many distributed database design technologies, other than a distributed database replication or fragmentation. The needs of a business for the purposes of confidentiality or sensitivity for example may use autonomy, synchronous, or asynchronous distributed database technologies. The cost to a company for distributed databases is determined by need and willingness to pay for ensured data security, consistency and integrity within the management system. There are many advantages and disadvantages to the use of distributed databases.

The dimensions of a databases are types of implementation and they are basically the attributes of the databases from a relational point of view. For instance in a data warehouse, dimensions are data elements which categorize items in the a data set into non-overlapping regions. Data elements/dimensions is like a categorical variable in statistics. Conformed dimensions are created to avoid duplication as in the Kimball data warehouse methodology.
All databases are multidimensional. Dimensions of databases are the categories such as products, regions, customers, dates, gender, age day, month, year etc. Which represent different attributes of data. Dimensions can be object-oriented or relational and the purpose is to be able to create, collect and compare specific data.

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