Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
as new projects. Chapter 13 includes a discussion of defining the work for the
expansion and growth of the data warehouse.
Staffing Production Activities
Once the data warehouse project is complete, that does not mean that all of
the resources are now freed up for new projects. As with any other system,
a team of people needs to be in place to provide support and maintain the
data warehouse. The data warehouse manager, as described in Chapter 4, is
the focal point for maintaining the production data warehouse. In addition
to the DW manager, the following types of resources (which are outlined in
Chapter 4) are needed (the activities for each of these are discussed in the
following sections):
Staff to provide technical support for the environment
ETL development staff to maintain the ETL system
BI developers and power users to maintain and develop new BI reports,
analyses, and applications
Helpdesk support
Ongoing education
There are many different ways that these resources could be organized.
For the purposes of this text, these are collectively called the
data warehouse
support team
. They are also called
centers of excellence
for data warehousing
or business intelligence. Regardless of what you call it, these functions are
needed. Considerations for larger enterprises are discussed in Chapter 13.
Maintaining the Environment
Several primary components must be maintained over time: the technical
environment, the ETL system, and the BI application. The BI application
typically gets attention through regular use, but often the technical platform
does not get the appropriate level of care and the data loads are launched with
no additional attention. These are each worthy of a closer look.
Keeping Up with Technology
It seems elementary to discuss basic maintenance, but too many organizations
allow the technical environment to lag behind. While the work to keep the
technology current is done by IT, the funding is often tied to business support
of the data warehouse. Managers from both IT and the business need to ensure
that the appropriate funding and personnel resources are allocated in order to
do this work. While it is up to IT to do the work described next, it is helpful
