Enterprise Data Warehouse is defined as the center of all the databases in an organization which is used by analysts and decision makers of the organizations to better run and facilitate their organizations.
These warehouses are playing an instrumental role in every organization as they are used to make informed decisions and enable organizations to alter their strategies for the betterment of companies.
Technavio’s study shows that the enterprise data warehouse market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 20.7% between the forecast period of 2022 to 2027. Its market size is also forecast to increase by USD 18,645.51 million
In this blog post, we will completely discuss enterprise data warehouse, its benefits, components of EDW, challenges, and considerations. Just keep reading with us and by the end of the post, you will get answers to all of your questions.
Understanding Enterprise Data Warehouses
We can simply understand an enterprise data warehouse as a place that is used to store, manage, and analyze high volumes of data of an organization.
Nowadays, every organization has its EDW to learn from their mistakes and make more informed decisions in the future. Most people get confused between operational databases and data warehouses, there is a big difference in both of these terms.
Operational databases are useful for day-to-day operations with real-time data while data warehouses are related to analytics in which people analyze historical data to make informed decisions.
These are the two types of databases that are usually used in the EDW of an organization.
Components of an Enterprise Data Warehouse
Some of the most important components of enterprise data warehouses are given below.
Data Sources:
Enterprise data warehouses gather information from diverse internal and external sources of organizations. This also includes data from the operational system, external partners, and third-party data providers.
Data Integration:
Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes are used to extract data from source systems, transform it into a consistent format, and load it into the warehouse. Data transformation and cleansing ensure data accuracy and consistency.
Data Storage:
EDWs employ various data warehousing models, such as the Kimball and Inmon methodologies, to structure the stored data. This ensures that data is organized for efficient querying and analysis. Additionally, EDWs often utilize data marts, which are subsets of the data warehouse focused on specific business areas or departments.
Data Access and Querying:
To retrieve insights, users employ querying languages like SQL (Structured Query Language) or NoSQL databases, depending on their requirements. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools are commonly used to perform multidimensional analysis which helps users to explore data from different perspectives.
Benefits of Implementing an EDW
Implementing an EDW brings several advantages to organizations:
Improved Decision-Making:
EDWs provide decision-makers with access to up-to-date, historical data, enabling data-driven decision-making. This leads to better strategic planning and a competitive advantage. Importance-wise this is one of the biggest advantages of implementing EDW in their organization.
Enhanced Data Quality:
Through data integration and cleansing processes, EDWs ensure that data is accurate and consistent, reducing the risk of errors in reporting and analysis.
Scalability and Performance:
EDWs are designed to handle large volumes of data and complex queries efficiently. They can scale as the organization’s data needs grow, ensuring optimal performance.
Challenges and Considerations
While EDWs offer substantial benefits, they also come with their set of challenges
Data Security and Privacy
We all know that handling sensitive and private data in any system requires high-quality robust security and data control. There is no exception with the enterprise data warehouses. We have to treat their system with the same mentality to keep our data safe and private.
Data Volume and Storage Costs
Storing vast amounts of data in enterprise data warehouses could be very expensive. To avoid this challenge, companies should find solutions like data retention or pay attention to cloud-based options.
Data Quality Management
Data quality management is an ongoing process which is why companies must keep on checking the reliability of data for better results. Data assessment and governance teams could be very helpful in maintaining the quality of data.
Steps to Implementing an Enterprise Data Warehouse
Define Objectives and Business Goals
This is the first step of the process to implement an enterprise data warehouse for an organization. Clearly outlining the objectives and goals of your company will be very useful in making EDW according to the strategic goals of your organization.
Data Assessment and Profiling
Conduct a thorough analysis of existing data sources to understand their structure and quality. In this way, you can identify the most relevant sources to your objective and pin them as important data sources.
ETL Development and Data Integration
ETL stands for extract, transform, and load, this is also a very important step in implementing an EDW as it ensures the accuracy of data.
Data Modeling and Schema Design
Design the data warehouse schema, considering factors like data granularity, hierarchies, and relationships. Choose an appropriate data warehousing model (e.g., Kimball or Inmon) based on your needs.
Best Practices for EDW Implementation
To maximize the benefits of EDWs, consider the following best practices
Data Governance Framework
If you want to take full advantage of your enterprise data warehouse then set a data governance framework to check out the accuracy of your data. It could be done by data stewardship, data quality management, and clear data ownership.
Data Security Measures
Data security is one of the most crucial aspects of EDW implementations. That is why we must apply robust security measures like encryption, access controls, and regular security audits, to protect sensitive data.
Performance Optimization
Continuously monitor and optimize the performance of your EDW to ensure that queries are processed efficiently. This step will also increase the accuracy of your data and analytics.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we have completely analyzed the importance, benefits, components, best practices, and future trends of enterprise data warehouses. EDWs are playing the role oxygen is playing for our lives.
Data stored in enterprise data warehouses are then used by analysts and decision makers of companies or organizations to make informed decisions which are crucial for the success of companies.
In this digital era, companies rely on data and analytics as their strategic asset and EDWs are providing them with those statistics. That is why we said enterprise data warehouses help companies to go beyond the limits.
Author
Irene Mikhailouskaya
Irene is a Data Analytics Researcher at ScienceSoft, a global IT consulting and software development company. Covering the topic since 2017, she is an expert in business intelligence, big data analytics, data science, data visualization, and data management. Irene is a fruitful contributor to ScienceSoft’s blog, where she popularizes complex data analytics topics such as practical applications of data science, data quality management approaches, and big data implementation challenges.
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