CASE STUDY ON DATABASE WAREHOUSING

WHAT ARE DATA WAREHOUSES?

The definition of a Data Warehouse varies depending on
who you talk to. However, a general consensus exists that the purpose of a
Data Warehouse is to provide end users with easy access to large amounts
of company data to assist with operational and strategic
business issues.

WHY IS BUILDING A DATA WAREHOUSE COMPLEX?

When building an infrastructure to support a Data Warehouse, you
must address the usual issues relating to management of
client/server systems, as well as additional, complex issues relating
to the special problems that Data Warehouses present. These
special problems include transporting large data volumes to target
sites, applying data to multiple, heterogeneous databases, and
refreshing data as it changes. It's also important to provide system
users with tools they can use to easily mine and work with data,
even if the user does not know any programming language.

TELL ME ABOUT THE INFRASTRUCTURE I NEED

The infrastructure to support a Data Warehouse should ensure that
the desired data is transported to the correct target site in an
efficient, rapid, and cost-effective way. It should allow Data
Warehouse applications to run complex data mining queries in the
same environment as other client/server applications - without
affecting overall performance.

Expert capacity planning and performance tuning are therefore
essential to successfully implementing a comprehensive Data
Warehousing solution. In addition, security issues need to be
addressed, to ensure that only authorized users will have access to
all of the data you will be moving around the system.

Most important - the Data Warehouse Infrastructure should be
based on business, rather than technical, requirements! Remember
the purpose of Data Warehouses to begin with!

CAN I USE OFF-THE SHELF PRODUCTS?

Yes. Many product vendors supply tools that you can use to build
and mine Data Warehouses. You will want to select the best of
those, and seamlessly integrate them into your own Data
Warehouse infrastructure. However, you will find that there is no
such thing as a Data Warehouse in a box. The best way to design
and build a Data Warehouse and data mining applications for
your company depends heavily on your needs and environment.

HOW CAN UNIF/X HELP BUILD DATA WAREHOUSES?

UNIF/X are your independent database experts.

We have Partnerships with and Professional Certification from virtually all
of the leading vendors of database systems today - including Sybase,
Oracle, Informix, CA-Ingres, and Microsoft. In addition, we are partners
with hardware vendors including Sun, IBM, HP and DEC.

UNIF/X works with the technologies and tools developed by these, and
other leading product vendors, using our extensive expertise building
database systems. Our expertise in related fields includes:
  • Database System Development
  • Database Architecture and Design
  • Database System Connectivity
  • Data Replication, Fault Tolerant, and High Availability Software

WHAT SERVICES DOES UNIF/X PROVIDE?

UNIF/X can build your entire Data Warehouse and Data Mining
Applications for you. We also provide high-level consulting to help you:
  • Perform Capacity Planning and Design a Data Warehouse
  • Infrastructure to exactly match your needs and environment
  • Select and integrate best-of-breed tools and products into
    your Data Warehouse Infrastructure
  • Build the Data Warehouse
  • Develop Data Mining Applications
  • Conduct Performance Tuning and Optimization

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