Data Warehousing & Business Intelligence

What is data warehousing?

Datawarehousing refers to the storage of transactional data from the databases to be used for data
mining and querying and reporting the historical data. It brings together data from multiple
transactional systems enabling users at all levels to access and analyse the data throughout the
enterprise.
Why do we need data warehousing?
There are several reasons why Data Warehousing is required by organizations. From understanding their
consumer data, to enabling them to take informed strategic decisions, to gaining advantage over their
competitors, datawarehousing has been touted as the cure for all. But if we already have Databases,
why a need for a Data Warehouse? surely Databases also support complex queries and reporting so why
install another system?
The answers lies in the very fundamental nature of databases and data warehouses. Databases are
meant for transactional processing. Such as querying the availability of an item, recording the payment
made, etc, each of it a singular transaction in itself and are optimized to complete in the minimum
amount of time. Data is normalized to improve the efficiency. Datawarehouses on the other hand are
designed not for speed but for analyzing huge amounts of data for reporting purposes. These reports
are analyzed for understanding the trends and patterns depending on which the company will take
decisions.
These queries can be quite complex and put a huge load on the system which is already executing the
transactional processing tasks. Datawarehouses make it easier to report from multiple transaction
processing systems and from external sources that are being used for reporting/querying purposes only.
It also provides a repository of OLTP (Online Transactional Processing) data from a longer period of time.
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence includes software applications, technologies and analytical methodologies that
perform data analysis. This may include but not limited to, Data mining, text mining, reporting, querying
and data visualization.
The applications are vast, ranging from fraud detection to studying corelations between user
demographics and shopping patterns to determining airline flight scheduling.
Datawarehouses are developed by several leading software applications development companies such
as Microsoft, Oracle, SAS, IBM and others.
We provide a brief overview of the various data warehouse products available.
Microsoft's latest Data warehouse product is the SQL Server 2005.
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/evaluate/dwsqlsy.mspx)
It is a complete Business Intelligence platform that has many built in tools, features and functionality to
create complex analytical applications. It consists of Data Transformation Services, SQL 2005 Relational
Database, Analysis and Reporting Services, Microsoft Office Suite, SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence
Development Studio and the SQL Server Management Studio.
SAS Data Warehouses (http://www.sas.com) are one of the most popular Data Warehousing and
Business Intelligence platforms. It's product range includes a number of industry specific solutions
ranging from Financial Intelligence, IT Management, Merchandise Planning, Risk Management solutions
covering industries as diverse as Government and Education, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Life
Sciences.
Oracle corporation (http://www.oracle.com) has it's own suite of Business Intelligence products built
around the Oracle database and solutions. Called the Business Intelligence 10g, it provides tools for ad-
hoc querying, reporting and analysis, BI application development in a comprehensive pre-integrated
package.
IBM (http://www.ibm.com) has it's datawarehousing and Business Intelligence products built around
the DB2 engine. Called the DBE V8 2.1, it has advanced analytics built in, with OLAP, data mining, and
ETL capabilities.
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