When I talk to the business trying to explain why a data warehouse is required to facilitate the reporting process I sometimes find that hard to do. After all a data warehouse is considered to be IT infrastructure and hence belongs to the realm of the chief technology officer and his team. In two blog entries however I’ll explain why there are some good compelling reasons for the business to also want to understand more on data warehousing, and in particular the benefits of a Data Vault oriented data warehouse.
· shorter time to market of new reporting requirements
· more focus on the business requirements
· data preservation
· enhanced auditability and traceability of data
· ease of integration of new mergers and acquisitions
For more information about the technicalities of Data Vault I refer to other blogs in this section and to the websites of both www.nippur.nland www.QOSQO.nl.
Shorter time to market of new reporting requirements
Because of the generic approach towards data modeling of Data Vault it is possible to build toolkits or use technology like RapidAce to integrate source system data more quickly into a proper data warehouse environment. In the past you needed to spend many months to a year and a lot of money in defining and creating the integration platform you need to meet the reporting requirements. Meanwhile the business had to sit and wait (to see if they get value for their money).
The Data Vault helps in setting up a proper data warehousing architecture from the start thus adhering to company architecture requirements AND allowing for fast first implementations. The adagium think BIG start SMALL is applicable here. Thus in a matter of weeks a first reporting increment can be realized as part of an architecture that can be expanded and enhanced further but does not need modification to facilitate new reporting requirements. As if you are given a car that is not full-featured yet but after a few weeks already allows you to drive from A to B. Every time you park your car in the garage new functionality and comfort is added, until you are satisfied.
More focus on the business requirements
Having said that it automatically means that people involved in delivering the reporting capability can spend much more time on trying to understand the business better, specifying new requirements as they go. Typically, traditional data warehousing projects were perceived as being very technical. A lot of attention (hence time and money) went to overcoming the technological barriers and challenges like defining proper models to store huge data volumes, loading speed, data transformations, hardware- and software configurations.
The Data Vault covers a number of these aspects with a solid, proven data model, a proper way of working and sound principles and guidelines. With the DV, more focus can be put on trying to understand the business needs and trying to capture business logic that transforms the raw data into valuable information.
We all know that data quality is an issue that is hardly paid any attention to in traditional projects; partly because of lack of time and money, partly because decision makers are not aware of the issues. A side effect of the focus on the requirements in relation to the source data is that BI teams can help in pointing at flaws in business processes and data provisioning in the source systems. This really helps the business enhance the quality of the data that is also required for reporting purposes.
To be continued…