A Manager's Guide to Data Warehousing

Chapter 13. Achieving Long-Term Success

The data warehouse project has been completed and appropriate measures have been taken to maintain it. Now the business should be getting used to using the data warehouse and learning how to make it work for them. This is not the end, but really the beginning. This chapter looks to the future so that proper planning can be done to support expansion and growth of the data warehouse. Several ideas are offered to help manage data warehouse resources across a large enterprise. After a quick look at the future of data warehousing, the chapter ends by highlighting techniques to measure business value and sustain success.

Planning for Expansion and Growth

Use of the data warehouse environment will generate new requirements, and problems will need to be fixed as part of maintaining it. The data warehouse support team may be able to accommodate some minor enhancements. Beyond this basic support, enhancement requests and new requirements will need to be addressed.

Periodically, these requests must be reviewed and evaluated. This can be done as part of a scheduled planning process. These requests may be bundled into releases. Each release should be handled as a separate project to ensure the coordination of sound design and development, complete testing, quality assurance, documentation, and associated education.

This planning is typically done annually in order to ensure appropriate funding for the upcoming year. In addition to maintenance releases, brand-new ...