Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
what products are best for you. However, once the data warehouse has been
built, you may still wonder whether you have the right technology in place.
Answer
In order to determine the viability of your technology choices, several key
questions must be answered:
Does the environment work?
Is the environment stable?
Does it work fast enough?
Can you maintain it?
Do you have enough functionality to meet both current and near-future
needs?
Can you afford to keep using it?
While these questions can be asked of the overall environment, if there are
any major concerns, then you need to look more closely at each of the different
parts. Perhaps the ETL system is working fine but you don't have acceptable
query performance or the data access tool cannot perform all the calculations
that you need.
There may also be a different level of satisfaction between the IT and
business groups. The data access tool may be easy to install and keep up and
running, but if it cannot perform all the calculations that the business groups
need, then it really is not working.
Problems with the current environment can result from many contributing
factors. Sometimes the tool itself no longer meets your needs. However, in
many cases, a closer look may reveal that the tool does provide that function
but is limited by how you have implemented it. Before tossing out any tools,
make sure you look carefully at how they are installed and are being used.
Perhaps you merely need to ensure you are running the current release of that
product, or you may be able to make simple changes that enable you to better
exploit what you already have. Look at Chapter 9 to learn more about technical
architecture, and at Chapter 12 to understand what is needed to maintain the
technical environment of a production data warehouse.
Question: Are we the only company with data
warehouse problems?
It can seem as though everyone else is having fantastic success with little or no
trouble building and leveraging their data warehouse. The vendors describe
