Best Practices for Designing Semantic Layers in Business Intelligence Systems

Abstract

In Business Intelligence (BI) systems, semantic layers bridge analysis-friendly user interfaces and complicated raw data. They enable the existence of homogenous metrics, hierarchies, and dimensions and render them usable, more reliable, controlled, and scalable across data sources. The paper highlights the best practices of semantic layer design, such as theoretical backgrounds, architecture, implementation, and emerging problems. It places emphasis on governance, scalability, interoperability, and evolving with the evolving times, such as cloud elasticity, real-time analytics, compliance, and AI integration. This paper draws on academic literature and benchmarking research, which together provide a foundation for designing semantic layers that are uniform, replicable, and dynamic in the development of BI systems.