Data warehousing

A data warehouse consolidates and integrates data from dispersed functional systems. When large volumes of data are handled by different systems, a data warehousing application, DWD, can organize the data and make information available for decision making and analysis.

Additionally, using data warehouse, you can:

  • Transform inconsistencies between disparate system information

  • Simplify data models for reporting and analyzing

  • Protect consumers from constant changes to source systems

  • Offload reporting and analysis from source systems

  • Optimize information access

Data warehousing solutions contain two types of data:

Operational data

This data is used to run the business. It is stored, retrieved, and updated by an online transactional processing (OLTP) system.

Informational data

This data is created from operational data and is the type contained in a data warehouse. It is summarized operational data that is optimized for decision-support systems. It is stored on separate systems to lessen impact on operational systems.

In data warehouse solutions, operational data is converted to informational data.