1.

Role and importance of Data

*The ability to analyze and act on data is increasingly important to businesses. The pace of
change requires companies to be able to react quickly to changing demands from customers and
environmental conditions. Although prompt action may be required, decisions are increasingly complex
as companies compete in a global marketplace. Managers may need to understand high volumes of data
before they can make the necessary decisions. Effective business intelligence (BI) tools assist managers
with decision making.

*Data is essentially the plain facts and statistics collected during the operations of a business.
They can be used to measure/record a wide range of business activities - both internal and external.
While the data itself may not be very informative, it is the basis for all reporting and as such is crucial in
business.

*Customer data are the metrics that relate to customer interaction. It can be the number of
jobs, the number of enquiries, the income received, the expenses incurred, etc. In order to know about
our interactions with the customer, we need data.

2.

Data Storage

*Data storage is a general term for archiving data in electromagnetic or other forms for use by
a computer or device. Different types of data storage play different roles in a computing environment.
In addition to forms of hard data storage, there are now new options for remote data storage, such as
cloud computing, that can revolutionize the ways that users access data.

*Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, is a technology consisting of

computer components and recording media used to retain digital data. It is a core function and
fundamental component of computers

*Data storage is a term for how information is kept in a digital format that may be retrieved at
a later time. Computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones and other devices all store data. The methods
and technologies used vary greatly, but the basic concept is always the same--information is kept so that
it can be accessed again later. (e.g. RAM,Hard disk, flash drive, sd card, cd/dvds)

Data Warehouse

*Data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a
system used for reporting and data analysis, and is considered a core component of business
intelligence. DWs are central repositories of integrated data from one or more disparate sources. They
store current and historical data in one single place and are used for creating analytical reports for
knowledge workers throughout the enterprise.

*The data stored in the warehouse is uploaded from the operational systems (such as marketing
or sales). The data may pass through an operational data store and may require data cleansing for
additional operations to ensure data quality before it is used in the DW for reporting.

*Many types of business data are analyzed via data warehouses. The need for a data warehouse
often becomes evident when analytic requirements run afoul of the ongoing performance of operational
databases. Running a complex query on a database requires the database to enter a temporary fixed
state. This is often untenable for transactional databases. A data warehouse is employed to do the
analytic work, leaving the transactional database free to focus on transactions.

*The other benefits of a data warehouse are the ability to analyze data from multiple sources
and to negotiate differences in storage schema using the ETL process.

What are the disadvantages of a data warehouse?

Data warehouses are expensive to scale, and do not excel at handling raw, unstructured, or complex
data. However, data warehouses are still an important tool in the big data era.

Data processing

*Data processing is, generally, "the collection and manipulation of items of data to produce
meaningful information." In this sense it can be considered a subset of information processing, "the
change (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an observer."

*The term Data Processing (DP) has also been used previously to refer to a department within
an organization responsible for the operation of data processing applications.