Data Warehousing Fundamentals for IT Professionals

CHAPTER 20

GROWTH AND MAINTENANCE

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

• Clearly grasp the need for ongoing maintenance and administration.
• Understand the collection of statistics for monitoring the data warehouse.
• Perceive how statistics are used to manage growth and continue to improve performance.
• Discuss user training and support functions in detail.
• Consider other management and administration issues.

Where are you at this point? Assume the following plausible scenario. All the user acceptance tests were successful. There were two pilots; one was completed to test the specialized end-user toolset and the other was an expandable seed pilot that led to the deployment. Your project team has successfully deployed the initial version of the data warehouse. The users are ecstatic. The first week after deployment there were just a few teething problems. Almost all the initial users appear to be fully trained. With very little assistance from IT, the users seem to take care of themselves. The first set of OLAP cubes proved their worth and the analysts are already happy. Users are receiving reports over the Web. All the hard work has paid off. Now what?

This is just the beginning. More data marts and more deployment versions have to follow. The team needs to ensure that it is well poised for growth. You need to make sure that the monitoring functions are all in place to constantly keep the team informed of the status. The training and support functions must be consolidated and streamlined. The team ...