What is datawarehouse and features of data ware house.

1) What is data warehouse:Data warehouse can be defined as Structural Repository of historic data. It is developed in evolutionary
process by integrating the data from non integrated systems like text files, excel sheets, databases(The
same is shown in the diagram below.)

Features of data warehouse:1) Subject oriented.

2) Integrated
3) Time variant
4) Non volatile.
5) Data Granularity.
1) Subject Oriented:-DWH is subject oriented in the sense that the data is integrated from disparate sources
unlike in OLTP, where we store the data according to the applications for example the applications for
keeping track of transactions which is happening on daily basis. In the case of OLAP, the data is not
stored according to the application but is stored according to subjects like customers, products, branches
etc.
Example:-the big market have the application called inventory management which basically manages
number of units sold and number of units present in inventory for particular product for certain period.This
application is OLTP since the data is available according to the application.In DWH the data will be stored
according to the subjects like product,region,branch and this data will be used data for analysis purpose.
2)Integrated:-The data in DWH is integrated in the sense that data from the disparate system as well as
the data from different application will be accumulated and will be stored in the single database called
DWH(This process is known as ETL in DWH.) for analysis and decision taking purpose.
Example:-The Big market have different applications like Point Of Sale(POS),inventory
management,vendor management.These applications are used to keep the track of number of SKUs
which are sold,number of SKUs which are present for the particular product and number of SKUs which
are taken from different vedors.
In case of OLTP systems,these application will be maintained in excel sheet,notepad,databases which
means that all the system are disparate.In DWH system data from the disparate system will be
accumulated in single database for analysis like :1)Which vendor is giving products at lower cost for particular product.
2)Which product is there in inventory for long time and have to be removed.
So the data from all the system will be collected and finally put in DWH in Integrated form in the sense
that all the data will be subject oriented.
3) Time variant
In OLTP the data will be stored according for current values unlike in DWH,the data will be stored for time
which may range from 1 year to 10 years.

For example:-If we take inventory management OLTP system,it will store the number of SKUs which are
present for different products like apparels,deodorant etc .On the other hand DWH is meant for analysis
and decision taking purpose which will help management to take decisions like:1)Which product is most liked by customer?
2)Which product is giving me profit?
3)Which product is not all taken by customers and order of that product should be stooped.
Difference between OLTP and DWH with respect to Time Variant:-

Sl. No.
1

Operational System
View of business today

2
3

Operational Time Frame

There may be no date key

Datawarehouse
View of business for a period of time
like time ranging between 3 to 10 yrs.
One Snapshot per cycle.
Date key is most important in DWH.

Note:-Data warehouse is an environment not a technology.

It is an environment which provides:1) The total view of company information.
2) Makes company data available for analysis and decision making.
3) Makes decision support transactions possible without hindering the operational systems.
4) Non-Updateable:DWH is not updateable in the sense that the data cannot be deleted or modified, it can only be viewed.
The DWH is used for analysing the data so it periodically get refreshed by picking up the data from
various OLTP systems.

Sl. No.
1

Operational systems
The business transactions update the data.

Updation or deletion of the records

can be done
Operational system is for keeping track of
day to day transaction

Data warehouse
The various disparate operational
systems updates the data.
Data cannot be modified or deleted,
only can be inserted.
Warehouse is only for query and
analysis.

5) Data Granularity:Data granularity can be defined as the level of details of data.In OLTP the data granuality is the number of
units for each unique products.They will have the details of how many units of product is sold and how
many are still remaining in the stock.In the case of DWH,the user will only look into the summary data
like:1)Sale of products across all the stores.
2)Which region have recorded the maximum sale.
3)Which store in that region has given maximum sale.
The lower the level of details, finer is the data granularity it means that if you have to data to be more
granular then lot of data has to be stored in the warehouse.