The data in a Guided Search application has both a physical structure and a logical structure that support your MDEX Engine queries.

To understand the difference between physical structure and logical structure, consider a relational database. A relational database has a set of tables, each of which contains its own data. Relationships exist among the tables that allow you to create logical records from data spread across multiple tables. The database’s physical structure is a set of individual tables, and its logical structure is a set of records whose data is drawn from those tables.

A Guided Search implementation also imposes both a physical structure and a logical structure on your data. Records, Dimensions, and Properties describes these structures and how the MDEX Engine uses them to respond to queries.