DATA WAREHOUSING FUNDAMENTALS: A Comprehensive Guide for IT Professionals

7.8. EXERCISES

1. Indicate if true or false:

   1. Data warehouse architecture is just an overall guideline. It is not a blueprint for the data warehouse.

   2. In a data warehouse, the metadata component is unique, with no truly matching component in operational systems.

   3. Normally, data flows from the data warehouse repository to the data staging area.

   4. The management and control component does not relate to all operations in a data warehouse.

   5. Technical architecture simply means the vendor tools.

   6. SQL-based languages are used to extract data from hierarchical databases.

   7. Sorts and merges of files are common in the staging area.

   8. MDDBs are generally relational databases.

   9. Sometimes, results of individual queries are held in temporary data stores for repeated use.

   10. Downstream specialized applications are fed directly from the source data component.

2. You have been recently promoted to administrator for the data warehouse of a nationwide automobile insurance company. You are asked to prepare a checklist for selecting a proper vendor tool to help you with the data warehouse administration. Make a list of the functions in the management and control component of your data warehouse architecture. Use this list to derive the tool-selection checklist.

3. As the senior analyst responsible for data staging, you are responsible for the design of the data staging area. If your data warehouse gets input from several legacy systems on multiple platforms, and also regular feeds from two external sources, how will you organize your ...