preview

Data Warehousing and Data Mining

Better Essays

Data Warehouses and Data Marts: A Dynamic View

file:///E|/FrontPage Webs/Content/EISWEB/DWDMDV.html

Data Warehouses and Data Marts: A Dynamic View By Joseph M. Firestone, Ph.D. White Paper No. Three March 27, 1997

Patterns of Data Mart Development In the beginning, there were only the islands of information: the operational data stores and legacy systems that needed enterprise-wide integration; and the data warehouse: the solution to the problem of integration of diverse and often redundant corporate information assets. Data marts were not a part of the vision. Soon though, it was clear that the vision was too sweeping. It is too difficult, too costly, too impolitic, and requires too long a development period, for many …show more content…

Moreover, its relation to the data warehouse turns the first pattern of development on its head. Here multiple data marts are parents to the data warehouse, which evolves from them organically. The third pattern of development attempts to synthesize and remove the conflict inherent in the first two. Here data marts are seen as developing in parallel with the data warehouse. Both develop from islands of information, but data marts don’t have to wait for the data warehouse to be implemented. It is enough that each data mart is guided by the enterprise data model developed for the data warehouse, and is developed in a manner consistent with this data model. Then the data marts can be finished quickly, and can be modified later when the enterprise data warehouse is finished. These three patterns of data mart development have in common a viewpoint that does not explicitly consider the role of user feedback in the development process. Each view assumes that the relationship between data warehouses and data marts is relatively static. The data mart is a subset of the data warehouse, or the data warehouse is an outgrowth of the data marts, or there is parallel development, with the data marts guided by the data warehouse data model, and ultimately superseded by the data warehouse, which provides a final answer to the islands of information problem. Whatever view is taken, the role of users in the dynamics of data warehouse/data

Get Access