A Complete Guide To Data Warehousing — What Is Data Warehousing, Its Architecture, Characteristics & More!

Kavika Roy
DataToBiz
Published in
12 min readAug 4, 2021

With the aid of an in-depth and qualified review, the study extensively analyses the most crucial details of the global data warehousing industry. The study also provides a complete overview of the market based on the factors that are expected to have a substantial and measurable impact over the forecast period on the market’s growth prospects.

Specific geographical regions such as North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and India were evaluated based on their supply base, efficiency, and profit margin. This research report was examined based on various practical case studies from different industry experts and policy-makers. It makes use of various interactive design tools such as tables, maps, diagrams, images, and flowcharts for readers to understand quickly and more comfortably.

Global Data Warehousing Market Report contains highly detailed data, including recent trends, market demands, supply, and delivery chain management approaches that will help identify the Global Data Warehousing Customer Industry’s workflow.

This Report provides essential and comprehensive statistics for research and development estimates, row inventory forecasts, labor costs, and other funds for investment plans. This sector is enormous enough to build a sustainable enterprise, so this Report lets you recognize opportunities for each area in the global data warehousing market.

What is data warehousing?

Data Warehousing

Data Warehousing (DW) is a process for collecting and managing data from diverse sources to provide meaningful insights into the business. A Data Warehouse is typically used to connect and analyze heterogeneous sources of business data. The data warehouse is the centerpiece of the BI system built for data analysis and reporting.

It is a mixture of technologies and components which helps to use data strategically. Instead of transaction processing, it is the automated collection of a vast amount of information by a company that is configured for demand and review. It’s a process of transforming data into information and making it available for users to make a difference in a timely way.

The archive of decision support (Data Warehouse) is managed independently from the operating infrastructure of the organization. The data warehouse, however, is not a product but rather an environment. It is an organizational framework of an information system that provides consumers with knowledge regarding current and historical decision help that is difficult to access or present in the conventional operating data store.

Characteristics of Data Warehousing

Here is the list of some of the characteristics of data warehousing:

1. Subject Oriented

A data warehouse is subject-oriented, as it provides information on a topic rather than the ongoing operations of organizations. Such issues may be inventory, promotion, storage, etc. Never does a data warehouse concentrate on the current processes. Instead, it emphasized modeling and analyzing decision-making data. It also provides a simple and succinct description of the particular subject by excluding details that would not be useful in helping the decision process.

2. Integrated

Integration in Data Warehouse means establishing a standard unit of measurement from the different databases for all the similar data. The data must also get stored in a simple and universally acceptable manner within the Data Warehouse. Through combining data from various sources such as a mainframe, relational databases, flat files, etc., a data warehouse is created. It must also keep the naming conventions, format, and coding consistent. Such an application assists in robust data analysis. Consistency must be maintained in naming conventions, measurements of characteristics, specification of encoding, etc.

Key Features of Data Warehouse

3. Time-variant

Compared to operating systems, the time horizon for the data warehouse is quite extensive. The data collected in a data warehouse is acknowledged over a given period and provides historical information. It contains a temporal element, either explicitly or implicitly.

One such location in the record key system where Data Warehouse data shows time variation is. Each primary key contained with the DW should have an element of time either implicitly or explicitly. Just like the day, the month of the week, etc.

4. Non-volatile

Also, the data warehouse is non-volatile, meaning that prior data will not be erased when new data are entered into it. Data is read-only, only updated regularly. It also assists in analyzing historical data and in understanding what and when it happened. The transaction process, recovery, and competitiveness control mechanisms are not required. In the Data Warehouse environment, activities such as deleting, updating, and inserting that are performed in an operational application environment are omitted.

Essential Reasons To Purchase Data Warehousing

Some of the reasons to purchase data warehousing are as follows:

  • Gain detailed industry analyses and have a comprehensive understanding of the global Data Warehousing sector and its business environment.
  • Assess manufacturing processes, significant problems, and approaches to minimize production harm.
  • To consider the motivating and limiting factors, most influencing the Data Warehousing industry and its impact on the global economy.
  • Read about the business approaches implemented by the respective leading organizations.
  • In addition to the standard framework studies, we also provide tailored analysis according to specific requirements to consider the future outlook and opportunities for data warehousing.

Data Warehousing Market Reports 2020

Overview and scope 2 of the global data warehousing market.

This market is classified by type of product as well as market share by type.

  • This comparison of market sizes by region, by application
  • State of this sector, and Prospect
  • This Players / Suppliers market competition, Revenue, Market Share, Growth Rate
  • Players / Suppliers Global Data Warehousing Profiles and Sales Data, Price and Gross Margin
  • Cost analysis of global data centers, primary raw materials analysis, manufacturing process analysis

How Does Data Warehousing Work?

Data warehousing works in the following manner:

Information warehousing gets used by combining integrated data from multiple heterogeneous sources to provide further visibility into a company’s performance. A data center is designed to run searches and analyses of transactional-derived historical data.

Once the data gets integrated into the system, it does not modify. It can not be changed as a data warehouse researches events that have occurred while reflecting on data changes over time. Warehoused data must be maintained in a safe, accurate, simple to access, and easy to manage manner.

There are some moves toward building a data warehouse. The first step is data extraction, whereby large amounts of data gets collected from multiple source points. Upon processing the data, it goes into data cleaning, the method of combing for errors through the data and removing or excluding any found errors.

The cleaned-up data is then transformed from a format for the computer to a form for the warehouse. When processed in the facility, the data goes through processing, consolidating, summing, etc. to make it more organized and user-friendly. Throughout time, as the multiple data points are modified, additional data is introduced to the warehouse.

Special Considerations Of Data Mining In Data Warehousing

Here is the list of special considerations of data mining in data warehousing:

Businesses might store data for use in exploration and data mining, seeking information patterns that will help them improve their business processes. A sound data warehousing system can also allow access to the data of each other for different departments within an organization.

For example, a data warehouse may enable a company to quickly review the data from the sales team and help make decisions about how to boost revenue or streamline the department. The business might choose to focus on the spending habits of its customers to better position and increase sales of its products.

Through data warehousing, the organization will gather historical data on the purchases of its customers — say, 20 years — and perform analyses on that evidence. The resulting details might provide insight into its customers ‘ preferences, the time of day, month, or year with higher sales; or the maximum customer purchases for the year.

Adequate storage and management of data are also what makes processes possible, such as initiating travel bookings and using automated teller machines.

The method of data mining gets divided into five steps:

  • Companies collect data and load it into their data warehouses.
  • They then store and manage the data, either on in-house or cloud servers.
  • Business analysts, experts in information technology and management teams can access such data to decide on how they want to arrange it.

Application applications then arrange the data based on the results of the consumer. The end-user eventually displays the data in an easy-to-share format, like a graph or a list.

Data Warehousing vs. Database

A data warehouse need not be the same idea as a traditional database. A database is a transactional system set to track and change the data in real-time so that only the most current data is available. A database is configured over a period to store the structured data. For example, a database could only have a customer’s most current address, while a data warehouse could have all the addresses in which the consumer has resided for the past ten years.

Data Warehouse Database

The central database is the basis of the warehousing environment for the data. On RDBMS technology, this database gets implemented. Although this kind of implementation is constrained by the fact that a traditional RDBMS system is optimized for processing transactional databases and not data storage. For example, ad-hoc queries, multi-table joins, aggregates are resource-intensive, and output slowing down. Alternative Server methods then get used as mentioned below:

  • Relational databases are distributed in parallel in a data warehouse to allow scalability. Parallel relational databases often require shared memory or shared-nothing model on different configurations of multiprocessors or massively parallel processors.
  • Different index systems get used to circumvent the search and improve the speed of the relational list.
  • Use of Multidimensional Database (MDDBs) to solve the drawbacks that the relational data architecture imposes. Example: Oracle Essbase.

Sourcing and Transformation Tools

The data sourcing, transformation, and migration tools are used to perform all the conversions, summarizations, and changes needed to transform data in the data warehouse into a unified format. They are also called Tools for Extracting, Transforming and Loading (ETL).

Its features include:

  • Anonymize the data in compliance with regulatory requirements.
  • Elimination of unused data from loading into the Data warehouse of operating systems.
  • Check for familiar names and meanings with data coming from different outlets and substitute them.
  • Calculating summaries and derived data Fill them with defaults in case of missing data.
  • Repeated de-duplicated data arrive from multiple data sources.

Such tools to retrieve, convert, and load will create jobs, background workers, Cobol programs, shell scripts, etc. that update data in the data warehouse regularly.

What is Data Warehouse Architecture?

Data Warehouse Architecture

The architecture of the data warehouse refers to the design of the data collection and storage framework of an organization. Since data has to be processed, washed, and correctly arranged to be usable, data warehouse design focuses on discovering the most efficient method of taking knowledge from a raw collection and bringing it into an easily digestible system that provides valuable BI insights.

There are three main types of architecture considered when building a data warehouse for an organization, each with its advantages and drawbacks.

Single-tier warehouse architecture is geared towards creating a compact data set and minimizing the amount of data stored. While it is useful in eliminating redundancies, it is not valid for organizations that have significant data needs and multiple streams.

Two-tier storage systems isolate the available resources from the facility itself, physically. Although processing and organizing data is more effective, it is not flexible and requires a minimum number of end-users.

Three-tier architecture, the most popular type of data warehouse architecture, creates a more structured flow to the actionable insights from raw sets to data.

The bottom tier is the database server itself and houses the data cleaning and transformation back-end tools. The second tier uses OLAP and is the go-between end-users and the warehouse. OLAPS can communicate with both relational databases and multidimensional databases, thereby enabling them to collect further data based on broader parameters. The top tier is the front end of the overall business analysis system of a company. It is where developers can use questions, data visualizations, and data analytics software to communicate with results.

How Can I Use Data Warehousing?

In searching for insights, it is vital to establish which type of database your organization needs and how you plan to interact with them. Often, when evaluating the data warehouse infrastructure, it is necessary to determine who will be analyzing data and what sources they require. Although the data warehouse vs. data mart debate doesn’t always apply to smaller organizations, the latter may benefit those with more teams, departments, and specific needs. The unique subject-oriented design of the data marts allows them critical facets of your overall architecture for data warehouses.

Also, different types of warehouse architectures may be more practical depending on the size of your organization. Understanding what kind of data warehouse architecture is right is very important. Some of the factors to be kept in mind for choosing the right data warehouse architecture are the data currency, the size of the sets, and the demands of the organization.

Types of Database Warehousing

Considering the functions of EDW, there is always room for discussion on how to technically design it. In the case of data storage and processing, they are specific to different business types and are distinct. Of course, there is always a choice on how to set up your system based on the amount of data, technical sophistication, security issues, and budget.

1. Classic Data Warehouse

For an EDW, unified storage with its dedicated hardware and software is considered a perfect variant. You don’t have to configure data integration tools between multiple databases with physical storage. Alternatively, EDW can be linked through APIs to data sources to source and convert the information in the process continuously. Therefore, all the work is done either in the staging area. Like right from where the data is processed before loading into the DW or in the warehouse itself.

A classic data warehouse is called superlative to a modern one (that we address below), as there is no extra abstraction layer. It simplifies the job for computer developers and makes it easier on the preprocessing side to handle the data flow as well as the actual reporting. The traditional warehouse’s disadvantages rely on the actual implementation, but for most companies, these are:

  • expensive technical technology, both hardware, and software;
  • recruiting a team of computer developers and DevOps experts to set up and maintain the entire data network.

2. Virtual Data Warehouse

A computer data warehouse is an EDW form used as an alternative to a conventional warehouse. Mostly, these are several digitally linked systems, so that they can be queried as one device.

Such an approach allows organizations to keep it simple: with the help of analytical tools, data can remain in its sources, but can still get pulled. If you don’t want to deal with all the underlying infrastructure, computer warehouses can get used. Also, the data that you have can quickly get managed as it is. Such a strategy has many disadvantages, though: Numerous systems may require constant upkeep and expense of software and hardware.

The data processed in a simulated DW also need a program for the transition to rendering it digestible for end-users and reporting tools.

Complex queries of data may take too long since the required pieces of data can be placed in two separate databases.

3. Cloud Data Warehouse

All of the providers, as mentioned above, offer fully managed, scalable warehousing as part of their BI tooling, or focus on EDW as a stand-alone service, as does Snowflake. In this situation, the design of the cloud warehouse has the same benefits as any other cloud service. Microsoft manages the network for you, ensuring you don’t need to set up your servers, repositories, and software to handle Microsoft. The price for such a service would depend on the amount of memory available, and the amount of querying computing capabilities.

In terms of a cloud warehouse platform, the only aspect you might be concerned about is data security. It’s a sensitive thing to your business data. Therefore, you want to test if you can trust the provider you’ve picked to prevent any breaches. It doesn’t necessarily mean that an on-premise facility is secure, but in this situation, the data security is in your possession.

All of the above is what you should know about data warehousing.

Originally published on DataToBiz.com

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Kavika Roy
DataToBiz

Kavika is Head of Information Management at DataToBiz. She is responsible for identification, acquisition, distribution & organization of technical oversight.