Building an Effective Data Warehouse
This case study provides insight into how a data warehouse was built for a firm in the financial sector using its existing Microsoft technology. It touches on the current form of "static reports" currently used within the company, which we have identified as problematic. This case study showcases a step-by-step method of how this DW is built. After reading, you should understand the theory and practical application of the DW approach. How would you apply a similar framework to a large department store chain's supply chain?
2. Literature Review
The origin of the concept of data warehousing can be traced back to the early 1980s, when relational database management systems emerged as commercial products. The foundation of the relational model with its simplicity, together with the query capabilities provided by the Structured Query Language (SQL) language, supported the growing interest in business intelligence and decision support systems.
Since its inception, DW has been introduced in many industries, from manufacturing and production areas (order management and customer support), telecommunications and logistics, to health and financial services (analysis risk, fraud detection).
As a consequence of the increasing changes in the current competitive world, the organizations need to perform sophisticated data analysis that supports your processes decision. Traditional databases typically associated with the operating systems do not meet the requirements for analysis of the information because they are targeted to support the daily basic operations. Therefore DW systems appear to be more suitable for the growing demands of decision-makers.
As referred by Ponniah, P., a DW can be seen as an informational environment that: (i) provides an integrated and total view of the enterprise; (ii) makes the enterprise's current and historical information easily available for strategic decision making; (iii) makes decision-support transactions possible without hindering operational systems; (iv) renders the organization's information consistent; (v) presents a flexible and interactive source of strategic information.
A DW is not a single software or hardware product that can be purchased to provide strategic information. It is, rather, a computing environment where users can find strategic information, and where they are put directly in touch with the data they need in order to make better decisions. For that reason, DW must be seen as a user-centric environment.
The building steps of a DW can be decomposed into three parts: (i) Data capture/acquisition, (ii) Data storage and (iii) Data access & analysis.