Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Recommendation
: A short project can be undertaken to study what needs to
be done to improve the data warehouse's ability to support the business.
Chapter 12 discusses several ideas to help jump-start a stalled data
warehouse. This will likely spawn one or more additional projects to
address the specific recommendations of the study.
The organization has a well-defined data warehouse strategy with a core
set of data already loaded into the data warehouse. It supports several
key business groups but additional analyses are needed, which require
additional data.
Recommendation
: Define a project to expand the data warehouse by loading
this additional data. This project should also design and deliver the reports
and analyses needed to continue to support the business. Keep up the
good work!
There are multiple non-integrating data marts. Each was built a number
of years ago and has provided value, but there are new requirements for
which the data must be used together.
Recommendation
: Assess the effort that would be involved to merge the
appropriate data marts. Depending upon how each is designed, this may
be an opportunity to create a new solution or it may be better to enhance
one of the marts to accommodate the other data. This will likely result in
a project for the new design or expansion.
One of the most relied upon reporting systems is not able to keep up with
the demand for new reports and analyses. There have been rumblings for
years about how much it costs to maintain this system. It is no longer cost
effective to continue to run this system as is.
Recommendation
: If there is business need to continue using the data that
currently lives in the old reporting system, then this is a good candidate to
be loaded into a data warehouse. A new project can be defined to design
and build the solution. This must focus on what the business wants to
do with that data, rather than simply replace each existing report. Where
possible, additional functionality should be delivered to the business that
will increase the value of using this data once it is in the data warehouse.
The organization has dozens of reporting systems and several separate
data warehouses already. There doesn't appear to be any cohesive strategy
to tackle reporting and analysis.
Recommendation
: Initiate a project to develop a data warehouse strategy
and define what is needed to realize that strategy. Chapter 9 provides a
description of data warehouse architectures and what needs to be put in
place.
