Data Warehousing Concepts What are the best ways to use data warehouses to help your business intelligence?

February 24, 2012 by admin in data warehousing concepts | Comments Off

Data Warehousing Concepts

Data warehousing concepts are definitions and terminology within the field of data warehousing, which entails the storage of datamore specifically, computer data, network data. One of the concepts most vital to data warehousing is data warehouses. Data warehouses (DW) are massive amounts of data extracted from multiple sources and placed together to help influence future business decisions. DWs consist of data marts, places where data from various sources are brought together. Extracted data are placed in a data mart before it is assimilated. Another data warehousing concept, business intelligence (BI) or decision support system (DSS), pertains to analysis of business data, such as consumer sales, percentage of sales growth, determination of high-demand products, what positive savings campaigns customers respond to most, the time of the month and year in which customers spend the most money (and time in which they spend the least), convenient computer applications that enable customers to pay and purchase company products, and so on.

Other concepts of data warehousing consist of the following terms:

Star schema Snowflake schema Conceptual data model Logical data model Physical data model Dimensional data model Data mining Staging area Operational Data Store Multidimensional Analysis On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) Multidimensional database Hypercube OLAP tools

Data mining is another important concept concerning data warehousing. Data mining is the process by which data are extracted from various sources and a pattern is established by the data that provide a piece of knowledge for the person who understands the pattern. A good example of a pattern would be a person who notices that no products are sold on the second and fourth weeks of each month. Perhaps products are never sold in those two weeks due to small income: working individuals have already used their checks to pay bills, so they have little money left over. Another example pertains to the pattern that no one buys portable DVD players anymore. This pattern reveals that individuals no longer buy the portable players because 1) computers include DVD players and 2) sites like Amazon Instant Video offer you video rentals and plays on Internet stream, rather than DVD play. Patterns such as book sales declining or restaurants sales declining over a three-month period may indicate that the bookstore or restaurant is doing something wrong. The exact issue may be a matter of speculation to some extent, but the pattern is clear: sales are in decline. Usually, customer savings, sales, rebates, and special offers like buy one, get one free are what stores and owners turn to as a way to increase sales in a time of financial decline. Data architecture (DA) pertains to models or policies that govern how data is collected, stored, arranged, and used for business purposes. DA answers questions such as Why are data bits arranged as they are? and What types of data are collected? What does the business expect from an examination of the various data that exist in the system?

Data warehousing occurs when data are extracted from business applications (DW), put into one place (data mart), and used to influence company policy and business actions by converting the information into physical data modelscharts, graphs, and tables that can be seen by employees and clearly understood. The extracted information then reformatted, reorganized, summarized, and provided with other extracted data. Once the data has gone through a process of refinement, it is then ready for reports, presentations (Powerpoint, for example) by way of charts, graphs, and other business documents. All the steps by which data is extracted and stored in the data warehouse are all ways the DW is used to increase BI. One such way that DW can help BI is data integration (DI). DI is the process by which information is extracted from various sources of data and combined into one set of data in a DW. In professional circles, DI is often called Enterprise Information Integration or EII.

Data modelling (DM) is the process by which data is organized into different displays that are then used to process information onto graphs and charts for business presentation. There are three models used to organize data in DM: (1) Conceptual data model, (2) Logical data model, and (3) physical data model. The conceptual data model details the concepts of the extracted data and relationships between the extracted data. This then gives way to a logical data model in which concepts and relationships are specifically tied to the business or company. That is, logical data models take a look at not just consumer demand for more mobile phone applications (if the company is a mobile phone giant) or what kinds of mobile apps are trending in the consumer public at the moment, but what trending mobile apps indicate for a mobile phone companyin order for the company to continue to thrive, it may have to offer a new app that fits consumer demand. The logical data model then gives way to the physical data model that places data into tables, graphs, and charts for audiences to see.

The best ways to use data warehouses to help your business intelligence are to use DWs to organize information into charts, graphs, and tables so your business can understand trends and changes in consumer preference and sales. Next, DW enables new information to be assembled into the current warehouse when it arrives. Two other ways to put DWs to excellent use are to make data figures understandable for business employers and employees and to create a data library that organizes knowledge efficiently, such that knowledge can be read and obtained on any source. There are manydata warehousing concepts that make business success possible.