Essentials of Knowledge Management

5.6. Database Tools

Databases, which provide a Knowledge Management system's long-term memory, have a variety of names, depending on their structure, contents, use, and amount of data they contain. Database tools form the basis for storing and retrieving business intelligence about what has happened in the company, which can then form the basis for future predictions. For example, a data warehouse is a central database, often very large, that can provide authorized users with access to all of a company's information. Data warehouses usually contain data from a variety of noncompatible sources.

On a much smaller scale is the data mart, an organized, searchable database system, organized according to the user's likely needs. Compared to a data warehouse, a data mart has a narrower focus on data that is specific to a particular workgroup or task. Both data warehouses and data marts typically are built with some form of database management system, which is a program that allows a knowledge worker to store, process, and manage data in a systematic way. A data repository, in contrast, is a database used as an information storage facility, with minimal analysis or querying functionality.

Fully functional data warehouses and data marts support data mining—the process of extracting meaningful relationships from usually very large quantities of seemingly unrelated data. Specialized data mining tools allow managers to perform competitive analysis, market segmentation, trend analysis, sensitivity ...