Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
13
Achieving Long-Term
Success
The data warehouse project has been completed and appropriate measures
have been taken to maintain it. Now the business should be getting used to
using the data warehouse and learning how to make it work for them. This is
not the end, but really the beginning. This chapter looks to the future so that
proper planning can be done to support expansion and growth of the data
warehouse. Several ideas are offered to help manage data warehouse resources
across a large enterprise. After a quick look at the future of data warehousing,
the chapter ends by highlighting techniques to measure business value and
sustain success.
Planning for Expansion and Growth
Use of the data warehouse environment will generate new requirements, and
problems will need to be fixed as part of maintaining it. The data warehouse
support team may be able to accommodate some minor enhancements. Beyond
this basic support, enhancement requests and new requirements will need to
be addressed.
Periodically, these requests must be reviewed and evaluated. This can be
done as part of a scheduled planning process. These requests may be bundled
into releases. Each release should be handled as a separate project to ensure
the coordination of sound design and development, complete testing, quality
assurance, documentation, and associated education.
This planning is typically done annually in order to ensure appropriate
funding for the upcoming year. In addition to maintenance releases, brand-new
projects may be defined to tackle the work of adding new data sources or
supporting completely different business groups. In preparation for planning,
the requests for changes and/or additions to the data warehouse need to be
identified.
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