a Data Warehouse is a collection of data used by businesses to assist them in decision making with regards to the future of the business.
Specific and important data is stored and can then be compared against current data like the sales on a product 3 years ago in a particular location compared to the product sales now.
This information can all be provided in the form of graphs and tables so that it is easily useable and understandable.
We can impliment Data-Mining on this data and find ccustomer spending patterns etc.
Now the technology itself is very large it consists of:
System configuration managers.
System scheduling managers.
Event Managers
Supports it’s own back up features through software like Omniback from IBM.
You can make data as restrictive as you like. Some users having only access to for instance sales and marketing data.
Testing of the database is important.
I believe to integrate this type of a technology in a business is great for business wanting growth and a secure way to analyze their data and help them to make easy decisions when it comes to products, store locations and increasing all round revenue and business longevity.
To impliment this will require some knowledge, skill and time, as well as location, financing and the right team.
OR you could impliment from the start and let it grow with your business.
Like I said it is a huge technology with lots of potential, in the long it would make things much easier.
The system extracts data from your operational databases and stores them in the Data-Warehouse, Partitioning is also utilized in this technology.
It can be used in a small shop selling goods. Or in fully functioning billion dollar businesses to automate things and assist in the future growth of the organozation.
Data-Marts are separate from the warehouse and contain only data relevant to specific groups in an organization. They are small in size, customized by department and flexible. They do gather their info from the Data-Warehouse.
That is what a Data-Warehouse is. I hope you learnt something. Hope you found it usefull.
Have a great day.
Coding 101 