Management Information System

Assignment
on
“DATA WAREHOUSE & DATA MARTS”

MBA CLASS OF 2011

Submitted By:
Pushpita Banerjee G36
MBA GEN 2011
SECTION G
The primary objective is to pose the question- Why do we need a data
warehouse?

In simple laymen terms the answer is “ we can only see – what we actually see”. A data
warehouse is needed so as to make the availability and accessibility of data better, faster &
cheaper. It is solely data driven which has information regarding DSS, EIS, Operations etc.
The most important goal of a data warehouse is to collect data, make it accessible, then
provide information to the business adding to the knowledge management of the organisation
and as a result the business will flourish.

What is a Data warehouse?

A data warehouse is a structured repository of historic data. It consists of a computer

database responsible for the collection and storage of information for a specific organization.
It is

• Subject oriented: Information is presented according to specific subjects or areas of

interest, not simply as computer files. Data is manipulated to provide information
about a particular subject.
• Integrated: A single source of information for and about understanding multiple areas
of interest. The data warehouse provides one-stop shopping and contains information
about a variety of subjects.
• Time variant: Containing a history of the subject, as well as current information.
Historical information is an important component of a data warehouse.
• Non-volatile: Stable information that doesn’t change each time an operational process
is executed. Information is consistent regardless of when the warehouse is accessed.

This collection of information is then used to manage information efficiently and analyze the
collected data. Although data warehouses vary in overall design, majority of them are subject
oriented, meaning that the stored information is connected to objects or events that occur in
reality. The data provided by the data warehouse for analysis provides information on a
specific subject, rather than the functions of the company and is collected from varying
sources into one unit having time-variant. Data warehousing professionals build and maintain
critical warehouse infrastructure to support business and assist business executives in making
smart business decisions.

Cubes in a data warehouse are stored in three different modes. A relational storage model is
called Relational Online Analytical Processing mode or ROLAP while a Multidimensional
Online Analytical processing mode is called MOLAP. When dimensions are stored in a
combination of the two modes then it is known as Hybrid Online Analytical Processing mode
or HOLAP.

Comparing the use of MOLAP HOLAP and ROLAP

The type of storage medium impacts on cube processing time cube storage and cube
browsing speed. Cube browsing is the fastest when using MOLAP. The data is stored in a
compressed multidimensional format and can be accessed quickly than in the relational
database. Browsing is very slow in ROLAP about the same in HOLAP. Processing time is
slower in ROLAP especially at higher levels of aggregation.
MOLAP storage takes up more space than HOLAP as data is copied and at very low levels of
aggregation it takes up more room than ROLAP. ROLAP takes almost no storage space as
data is not duplicated. However ROALP aggregations take up more space than MOLAP or
HOLAP aggregations.

All data is stored in the cube in MOLAP and data can be viewed even when the original data
source is not available. In ROLAP data cannot be viewed unless connected to the data source.

MOLAP can handle very limited data only as all data is stored in the cube.

What are Data marts?

Data marts are designated to fulfill the role of strategic decision support for managers
responsible for a specific business area. Data warehouse operates on an enterprise level and
contains all data used for reporting and analysis, while data mart is used by a specific
business department and are focused on a specific subject (business area).A scheduled ETL
process populates data marts within the subject specific data warehouse information.

Relevance of Data marts in a Data warehouse?

The typical approach for maintaining a data warehouse environment with data marts is to
have one Enterprise Data Warehouse which comprises divisional and regional data
warehouse instances together with a set of dependent data marts which derive the information
directly from the data warehouse.

It is crucial to keep data marts consistent with the enterprise-wide data warehouse system as
this will ensure that they are properly defined, constituted and managed. Otherwise the DW
environment mission of being "the single version of the truth" becomes a myth. In data
warehouse systems there are cases where developing an independent data mart is the only
way to get the required figures out of the DW environment.

Data marts are usually maintained and made available in the same environment as the data
warehouse (systems like Oracle, Teradata, MS SQL Server, SAS) and are smaller in size than
the enterprise data warehouse. Usually, a company maintains multiple data marts serving the
needs of finance, marketing, sales, operations, IT and other departments upon needs.

Example use of data marts in an organization: CRM reporting, customer migration analysis,
production planning, monitoring of marketing campaigns, performance indicators, internal
ratings and scoring, risk management, integration with other systems (systems which use the
processed DW data) and more uses specific to the individual business.