In order to efficiently deliver information to business users, many organizations have implemented a data warehouse. A data warehouse, a copy of transaction data specifically structured for querying and reporting, can deliver many benefits to the business:
- Offload querying and reporting tasks from the transaction processing systems
- Scrubbed transaction data can remove redundant logic and speed up the writing of reports and queries
- Data from multiple transaction processing systems can be blended making querying easier
- A data warehouse can be a repository of data from a longer span of time than can be efficiently retained in a transaction processing system
- Reporting-only users can be separated and removed from the transaction processing system
Firms often choose to outsource their data warehouse project for the simple reason that it is easily segregated from day-to-day I.T. activities and doesn’t require constant interaction between the business and the development team.
Comp Three has developed data warehouses for several customers using Oracle and ColdFusion, SQLServer, Unix and Informix, and SAP Business Warehouse. Our approach to creating a data warehouse includes:
- An understanding of the business and reporting needs driving the development of a data warehouse
- A detailed analysis of all the databases that will contribute to the data warehouse, especially the data and system interrelationships. This includes identifying data that is different, but equivalent, across systems or tables.
- Creating metadata, or data about data, which is required to both develop and maintain the data warehouse.
- Creating the ETL (extract, transform, load) process, which is where most of the effort in creating the data warehouse will be spent. This task includes performance considerations so that the data may be loaded in a timely manner
- Defining and implementing a state-of-the-art information delivery method, so that reporting and querying from the data warehouse is as easy as possible
Please review Therma Data Warehouse to learn about a data warehouse we created for Therma Corporation. Developing a data warehouse requires the right people, a sound methodology, and practical experience; Comp Three brings all these qualities to the table and is the right choice for your data warehouse project.