The Data Vault Handbook - Concepts and Applications

What is the difference between business keys and surrogate keys?

Surrogate keys are synthetic keys, meaning they are artificially generated by the operational system and should not have any business meaning. One of the biggest problems with using surrogate keys as our business keys to identify business objects is that, if we are integrating multiple systems in our Data Vault, they only make sense inside a single source system and therefore might generate collisions.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD BUSINESS KEY

— Low Propensity to Change: Should remain stable over time to avoid tracking issues

— Uniqueness: Must uniquely identify records to ensure data integrity

— Globally Recognized: Preferred to use universal identifiers over system-specific ones for consistency

— Known by the Business Users: Ideally they should be meaningful and familiar to stakeholders

— Natural Key over Surrogate Key: When possible use inherent business identifiers instead of generated ones