Data Warehousing For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3. Have It Your Way: The Structure of a Data Warehouse

In This Chapter

• Constructing your data warehouse to fit your business needs

• Understanding the different data warehouse architectures

• Deciding whether to make your data warehouse centralized or distributed

Although I generally dislike trite sayings, I have to make an exception: "No two data warehouse implementations are exactly alike."

One of the worst data warehousing mistakes you can make is to try to force your business analysis and reporting needs to fit into an environment that you copied from somewhere else. Although a certain amount of analysis is standard across companies, the interpretation and actions you formulate from your data assets can give you a competitive edge in the global marketplace.

Leverage the knowledge and experience of other people by studying their experiences with data warehousing products; asking questions about the most difficult problems they encountered during product development and after they put their data warehouse into use; and determining how effective their users have been in making better, information-based business decisions.

Don't automatically assume, however, that every aspect of someone else's data warehousing environment is exactly right for you.

Ensuring That Your Implementations Are Unique

A data warehouse is composed of many different components, each of which can be implemented in several (perhaps many) ways. These components include

• The breadth; the number of different subjects ...