Infrastructure as the foundation for Data Warehousing

Infrastructure as the Foundation of Data Warehousing

Data warehouse is a system environment which provides strategic information and holds detailed or summarized data from heterogeneous sources and provides end users with data access solutions exclusively designed for reporting and business analysis . The overall structure of the data warehouse is basically described by its architectural and infrastructural components

Orr pointed out that data warehouse architecture is a way of representing the overall structure of data , communication , processing and presentation that exists for end-user computing within the enterprise

In other words

, data warehouse architecture is simply a blueprint which describes the elements and specific services of the warehouse , with details showing how the components will interrelate together and how the system will grow over time . Moreover , the architecture provides the conceptual framework of the warehouse in which these components are mutually arranged specifically to suit the organization 's requirements and to function in an optimum way

In for these functions and services to be provided , a warehouse uses basic computing platform which generally makes use of the available technology . The platform includes the various software and hardware products installed as well as the type of users and the policies that govern it . However , these elements can be categorized as either operational infrastructure or physical infrastructure

Operational infrastructure deals with on how to keep the data warehouse running . These elements would include the people , the trainings required , the policies that each govern a function , and management software that would help maintain the efficiency and management of a the data warehouse

Fundamentally , the physical infrastructure of a warehouse , as Ponniah noted , consists of the basic hardware components , the operating system with its utility software , the network , and the network software (p 147 . Coupled with a set of tools

But such components are pre-selected...