Data Wharehouse Paper

Data Warehouse Paper

Dana Presley

Database Concepts

DBM/380

Esmaail Nikjeh

October 9, 2006

Data Warehouse Paper

Databases have become a part of everyday operations at most companies and organizations. Databases have given these businesses the ability to manage information for use in a structured manner and have improved their overall operations. One problem has developed due to the creation of many different databases within the same organization or company. These businesses have numerous databases within their computer systems, but the data in these databases is not linked or associated to any of the other databases within the businesses. Over the years, they have developed a lot of stand alone database management systems for their various divisions. Businesses have realized that they could bring all this data from the various parts of their organization into one consolidated, structured area of storage that could provide them with a lot of valuable statistical and decision-making information. A tool that does this is the data warehouse. A data warehouse is basically a storage area where all an organization's information or data is stored and managed in a manner that will allow all users in the organization to use that data in their decision-making process. The following paragraph will provide a brief overview into the reasons data warehouses exist, along with the advantages data warehouses provide.

Data warehouses were developed in the late 1980's. During this time companies were just staring to realize that basic databases of operating systems were not able to meet their total needs when it came to the management of information (Data warehouse, 2006). There are many reasons why data warehouses exist, but the following are some of the most significant reasons. The first and most vital reason is data integration. Companies had large amounts of separated data about the different divisions of their companies in all kinds of formats and were not able to pull statistical data from it to get an overall look at their companies. With data integration, a company could integrate its manufacturing data with its sales data, and that might help it make decisions that would reduce the company's overall development costs. Second, a great deal of money was being spent to keep these stand alone database and operating systems operating throughout the different parts an organization. The development of a data warehouse would help to reduce these costs because the information would be consolidated into one system. Lastly, companies and organizations wanted to reduce the size of their overall reporting system by consolidating reports and also producing reports that provide a more concise look at all the operations of their businesses.

Once companies and organizations began to consolidate their information into a data warehouse, they started realizing the advantages that data warehouses provide. One of the biggest advantages that they provided was to allow end user