Chapter 8

Accessing Organizational
Information Data
Warehouse

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, All Rights Reserved

Learning Outcomes
8.1

Describe the roles and purposes of data

warehouses and data marts in an
organization

8.2

Compare the multidimensional nature of

data warehouses (and data marts) with
the two-dimensional nature of databases

8-2

Learning Outcomes
8.3

Identify the importance of ensuring the

cleanliness of information throughout an
organization

8.4

Explain the relationship between

business intelligence and a data
warehouse

8-3

History of Data Warehousing

Data warehouses extend the transformation of
data into information
In the 1990s executives became less
concerned with the day-to-day business
operations and more concerned with overall
business functions
The data warehouse provided the ability to
support decision making without disrupting the
day-to-day operations
8-4

Data Warehouse Fundamentals

Data warehouse a logical collection of
information gathered from many different
operational databases that supports business
analysis activities and decision-making tasks
The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to
aggregate information throughout an
organization into a single repository for
decision-making purposes
8-5

Data Warehouse Fundamentals

Extraction, transformation, and loading
(ETL) a process that extracts information from
internal and external databases, transforms the
information using a common set of enterprise
definitions, and loads the information into a data
warehouse
Data mart contains a subset of data
warehouse information
8-6

Data Warehouse Fundamentals

8-7

Multidimensional Analysis
and Data Mining
Databases contain information in a series
of two-dimensional tables
In a data warehouse and data mart,
information is multidimensional, it
contains layers of columns and rows
Dimension a particular attribute of
information
8-8

Multidimensional Analysis
and Data Mining
Cube common term for the
representation of multidimensional
information

8-9

Multidimensional Analysis
and Data Mining
Data mining the process of analyzing data to
extract information not offered by the raw data
alone
To perform data mining users need data-mining
tools
Data-mining tool uses a variety of techniques to
find patterns and relationships in large volumes of
information and infers rules that predict future
behavior and guide decision making
8-10

Information Cleansing or Scrubbing

An organization must maintain highquality data in the data warehouse
Information cleansing or scrubbing a
process that weeds out and fixes or
discards inconsistent, incorrect, or
incomplete information

8-11

Information Cleansing or Scrubbing

Contact information in an operational system

8-12

Information Cleansing or Scrubbing

Standardizing Customer name from Operational Systems

8-13

Information Cleansing or Scrubbing

Information cleansing activities

8-14

Information Cleansing or Scrubbing

Accurate and complete information

8-15

Business Intelligence
Business intelligence information that
people use to support their decisionmaking efforts
Principle BI enablers include:
Technology
People
Culture
8-16

OPENING CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

It Takes A Village to Write an Encyclopedia
1. Determine how Wikipedia could use a data
warehouse to improve its business operations
2. Explain why Wikipedia must cleanse or scrub
the information in its data warehouse
3. Explain how a company could use information
from Wikipedia to gain business intelligence

8-17

CHAPTER EIGHT CASE

Mining the Data Warehouse
According to a Merrill Lynch survey in 2006,
business intelligence software and datamining tools were at the top of the
technology spending list of CIOs
Ben & Jerrys, California Pizza Kitchen,
and Noodles & Company are using
business intelligence and data mining in
new and exciting ways
8-18

Chapter Eight Case Questions

1. Explain how Ben & Jerrys is using
business intelligence tools to remain
successful and competitive in a
saturated market
2. Identify why information cleansing and
scrubbing is critical to California Pizza
Kitchens business intelligence tools
success
8-19

Chapter Eight Case Questions

3. Illustrate why 100 percent accurate and
complete information is impossible for
Noodles & Company to obtain
4. Describe how each of the companies above is
using BI from their data warehouse to gain a
competitive advantage

8-20

BUSINESS DRIVEN
TECHNOLOGY
UNIT TWO CLOSING

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, All Rights Reserved

UNIT CLOSING CASE ONE

Harrahs Gambling Big on Technology
1. Identify the effects poor information might have
on Harrahs service-oriented business strategy
2. Summarize how Harrahs uses database
technologies to implement its service-oriented
strategy
3. Harrahs was one of the first casino companies
to find value in offering rewards to customers
who visit multiple Harrahs locations. Describe
the effects on the company if it did not build
any integrations among the databases located
8-22
at each of its casinos

UNIT CLOSING CASE ONE

Harrahs Gambling Big on Technology
4. Estimate the potential impact to Harrahs
business if there is a security breach in its
customer information
5. Explain the business effects if Harrahs fails to
use data-mining tools to gather business
intelligence
6. Identify three different types of data marts
Harrahs might want to build to help it analyze
8-23
its operational performance

UNIT CLOSING CASE ONE

Harrahs Gambling Big on Technology
7.

Predict what might occur if Harrahs fails to clean or

scrub its information before loading it into its data
warehouse

8.

How could Harrahs use data mining to increase

revenue?

8-24

UNIT CLOSING CASE TWO

Searching for Revenue - Google
1. Determine if Googles search results are
examples of transactional information or
analytical information
2. Describe the ramifications on Googles
business if the search information it presented
to its customers was of low quality
3. Explain how the Web site
RateMyProfessors.com solved its problem of
poor information
8-25

UNIT CLOSING CASE TWO

Searching for Revenue - Google
4.

Identify the different types of entity classes that might be

stored in Googles indexing database

5.

Identify how Google could use a data warehouse to improve

its business

6.

Explain why Google would need to scrub and cleanse the

information in its data warehouse

7.

Identify a data mart that Googles marketing and sales

department might use to track and analyze its AdWords
revenue

8-26